Why I don't think we'll ever see Hawken playable on the Rift
I opened my news-feed this morning and read yet another article that claimed Hawken has been "playable" on the RIFT since day-1.
Frustrating as this was something that's been hyped about through the press for months and doesn't show any signs of slowing.
The more I think about it, the more I realize there's just no way its going to happen..
And this theory actually extends to most Triple A titles as well.
Here's my take on what happened behind the scenes. .
a) Hawken Developers initially see the Rift and are completely blown away. They do some basic tests with their title and see how in theory its an absolute perfect fit. As passionate game developers, how could they not want to get involved on some level and be part of history ??
b) They push forward with a limited single-player build, make press announcements, show limited demos at conferences, and garner an incredible amount of publicity for their title. We're at the win/win phase of the equation. They got me as a committed player, as I'm sure many others, and Oculus basks in the glow of proclaimed Triple-A support.
c) Oculus and Meteor Entertainment are both in a GREAT place. There's probably no deal of any sort on the table- just a whole lot of excitement, attention, and everyone just takes it in..
Now I believe we're at the difficult point in the relationship where a win/win ceases to exist.
d) Hawken developers now realize that to make their title work perfectly, it's going to take A LOT OF WORK.
It's obvious to me when running it on the rift that the game was designed with extremely small cockpits and a perfectly placed camera.
That's something that works to absolute perfection for them in 2D where the final projection looks perfect- but when you look behind the scenes in 3D, it's just not even near right, nor playable.
To fix it, it's going to require not a re-do of one cockpit, but every cockpit in the game.. I think at least 10 if not more. And its also a situation where if you fix the scale, I'm sure you're going to 'break' something else. Possibly explosions happening inside the cockpit with new bounding boxes.. And that's not even taking into account readable HUDs.
So now as Hawken developers they realize its going to take massive man hours plus a whole lot of money to make this game playable. And for what at this stage?
Oculus Rift users represent less than .01% of their user base. They've already benefited from the massive publicity of their alleged 'Oculus Ready' title, (they sure got me as a player!) and are not locked into contracts or obligations with anyone over the issue.
There's also the situation where no Triple-A developer wants their product out to the public in a less than perfect state. To do so just diminishes their brand which they've invested so much into.
So investing valuable time and resources into making Hawken RIFT-ready just isn't a good business decision. In fact, it's almost suicidal in nature.. If I ran the company, I'd sure spend my limited developer budgets supporting the 99% of active users.
Welcome to cold-shoulder lets brush this under the rug time. The dream ends up being more valuable than the reality.
This is a scenario I saw play out time and time again in the nVidia '3D-Vision Ready' camp. It always involved a whole lot of initial excitement, proclamations and claims of '3D-Vision READY' on release, and then silence from the triple-a developer when push came to shove.
Until the Oculus reaches critical mass.. (and I have no doubts it will!) I doubt we'll see much official triple-a title support unless its a perfect integration fit from the go.
And you know what, I think that's actually a really great thing.
It means the oculus experience is going to truly be owned by passionate indy developers for at least the first stage of its growth.. and nothing, not even Hawken, could excite me more !!
Now if only Meteor Entertainment could just release the demo they've showed at conferences, that would be enough for me.
AG
[end rant]
Frustrating as this was something that's been hyped about through the press for months and doesn't show any signs of slowing.
The more I think about it, the more I realize there's just no way its going to happen..
And this theory actually extends to most Triple A titles as well.
Here's my take on what happened behind the scenes. .
a) Hawken Developers initially see the Rift and are completely blown away. They do some basic tests with their title and see how in theory its an absolute perfect fit. As passionate game developers, how could they not want to get involved on some level and be part of history ??
b) They push forward with a limited single-player build, make press announcements, show limited demos at conferences, and garner an incredible amount of publicity for their title. We're at the win/win phase of the equation. They got me as a committed player, as I'm sure many others, and Oculus basks in the glow of proclaimed Triple-A support.
c) Oculus and Meteor Entertainment are both in a GREAT place. There's probably no deal of any sort on the table- just a whole lot of excitement, attention, and everyone just takes it in..
Now I believe we're at the difficult point in the relationship where a win/win ceases to exist.
d) Hawken developers now realize that to make their title work perfectly, it's going to take A LOT OF WORK.
It's obvious to me when running it on the rift that the game was designed with extremely small cockpits and a perfectly placed camera.
That's something that works to absolute perfection for them in 2D where the final projection looks perfect- but when you look behind the scenes in 3D, it's just not even near right, nor playable.
To fix it, it's going to require not a re-do of one cockpit, but every cockpit in the game.. I think at least 10 if not more. And its also a situation where if you fix the scale, I'm sure you're going to 'break' something else. Possibly explosions happening inside the cockpit with new bounding boxes.. And that's not even taking into account readable HUDs.
So now as Hawken developers they realize its going to take massive man hours plus a whole lot of money to make this game playable. And for what at this stage?
Oculus Rift users represent less than .01% of their user base. They've already benefited from the massive publicity of their alleged 'Oculus Ready' title, (they sure got me as a player!) and are not locked into contracts or obligations with anyone over the issue.
There's also the situation where no Triple-A developer wants their product out to the public in a less than perfect state. To do so just diminishes their brand which they've invested so much into.
So investing valuable time and resources into making Hawken RIFT-ready just isn't a good business decision. In fact, it's almost suicidal in nature.. If I ran the company, I'd sure spend my limited developer budgets supporting the 99% of active users.
Welcome to cold-shoulder lets brush this under the rug time. The dream ends up being more valuable than the reality.
This is a scenario I saw play out time and time again in the nVidia '3D-Vision Ready' camp. It always involved a whole lot of initial excitement, proclamations and claims of '3D-Vision READY' on release, and then silence from the triple-a developer when push came to shove.
Until the Oculus reaches critical mass.. (and I have no doubts it will!) I doubt we'll see much official triple-a title support unless its a perfect integration fit from the go.
And you know what, I think that's actually a really great thing.
It means the oculus experience is going to truly be owned by passionate indy developers for at least the first stage of its growth.. and nothing, not even Hawken, could excite me more !!
Now if only Meteor Entertainment could just release the demo they've showed at conferences, that would be enough for me.
AG
[end rant]
