Dear Future Gamer,

Many people seem to be saying that the alleged power of the PlayStation 2 will prevent many developers from actually getting to grips with the system. Though this may initially be true, it won't be for long.

The reason for this is that sooner or later (probably sooner) the games development scene is going to undergo a radical shift. This shift will be towards two types of development houses, 1) game developers and 2) engine developers.

What will happen is that the engine developers will produce engines tailored to particular formats. These engines will cope with all the graphics and physics. They'll probably chuck in basic AI as well. These engines will then be sold (or leased) to the game developers who will then take the engine, build their world, modify the AI and hence have a game.

Building the worlds will be complicated, but with the engines coping with physics automatically it won't be limited, as it can be now. Also, the game developers are going to have to build very detailed worlds to stay at the front. Initially this appears to provide difficulties but it will be done just by walking through the environment and placing things from libraries (there may even be a third set of developers for those).

Imagine a Die Hard-style game. First, build your office block. Then, wander through it placing desks, computer, photocopiers etc. It will be quicker than designing a room in your home - something you don't like or that restricts the game? Get rid of it and replace it with something you do like and doesn't affect the game.

We are already beginning to see the start of this with the Quake II engine and Valve Software or Raven Software. Even the physics side is happening with the Maths Engine mentioned recently in Edge.

I for one, can't wait.

Peter Ford

FG: I’m inclined to agree with you Peter. However I think that as soon as someone’s produced a decent engine, that will become the basis for all the others. Sure, people will tinker around with it and improve it, but generally, once a good one’s been created, others will use it. I think this is a good thing because it then enables creative designers to run wild without having to get bogged down with creating a new engine – the development community has long suffered from everyone re-inventing the wheel every time a game’s created.