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The Team Builds a Game with Technology

Technology is a critical issue in video game design - largely, because it's ever-changing. On the bright side, it is constantly providing newer and better capabilities; and on the dark side, the current capabilities will inevitably become obsolete, and if your game is to have any longevity, you will probably need to have a team that is constantly at work on dealing with upgrades and patches to deal with changing technology.

There's a bit about "foundational" games, which hare developed to exploit an advance in technology - and the gimmick of the new technology made the game popular (Sonic was developed to showcase fast-scrolling on the Sega Genesis platform, Myst was a showpiece for 3D artwork) Any advance in technology provides an opportunity for a game to capitalize on the "wow" factor of a novel technological capability.

There is also an interesting illustration of the "Hype Cycle"

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Whenever a new technology comes out (the "trigger"), there is a period when its capabilities are impact are over-sold, resulting in disappointment when the "truth" is discovered, then a slow rise as people accept it for what it really us. The author's advice to designers is to try to cope with the hysteria without buying into it or getting swept away by it - or to utilize it as a way to get the buy-in you need to build your games.

Beyond hype, you also have to consider the adoption curve. There are a small group who love anything new and will buy in immediately, but most people will take time to adopt a technology - so if you develop a game to suit the latest, greatest platform, you may not get the majority fo your sales for some time.

It doesn't help matters that technology is moving quickly - it's hard enough to keep up with current trends, much less try to predict future ones, though by keeping an ear to the ground, you may have some good guesses about the "next" thing in the coming year or two. But if you plan based on such guesses, there is a great deal of risk.


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