Cynicism aside, you got to hand it to Havoc for the quality of their product. I was talking to Patrick Kennedy, former EVP of Sony Digital Entertainment and now game venture capitalist, at the GDC this year, and he believes it is a commodity.
By no means a physics programmer, nor will I ever be, it seem to me in the speculative sense, that physics engines, as they become more powerful, precise and comprehensive in their ability, someday we will be approaching a 'simulation in a box', which will be a great boon to development efforts. I understand simulations are a very complex, challenging and demanding programmatic undertaking, but surely there is necessity in this area of development for all kinds of purposes, games, serious games or elsewhere in application utilization.
I was speaking with a programmer at a chip maker a few years ago, and I said to him I'd love to see a simple program that had only one objective, to teach you how to make an orbital re-entry. He loved the idea, but even as an advanced and seasoned mathematical and programming professional, the physics involved gave him pause.
You can bet that Havoc, and other physics engines development business entities, are going to be in business and viably profitable entities for a long time, something not often the case in game development companies.
Adventuredesign
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Anonymous Poster 
Posted - 5/18/2005 12:09:24 AM
Posted - 5/26/2005 6:43:45 PM
