The North American Game Industry - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 90

this risk derives from the fact that publishers are expected to pay the cost
of manufacturing a game upfront (O'Donnell 2009b). This meant that if
a game was unsuccessful, it was the publisher left bearing the brunt of the
loss, while the manufacturer made their money regardless.
For this reason, many game publishers have come to depend on particu-
lar game “franchises,” hoping to cover losses in other areas through the
success of these core products. As the complexity associated with game
development has increased, and the amount of content necessary to meet
the growing demands of players also increases, the fi nancial time and risk
associated with game development has continued to climb. Average budgets
for large game projects top US$20 million, with some particularly risky
titles topping $40 million.
“MIDDLEWARE” AND SUPPORT SOFTWARE
An entire sub-industry of “middleware” and support software has emerged
to support the ef orts of game developers. Middleware is software that sim-
plifi es or encapsulates particular aspects of game development into a single
software package. This software often does little until it is integrated into
the game development process. Game “engines” can also be considered
middleware, providing the basic foundations for a game, although again
requiring a signifi cant amount of work to produce a game. Support soft-
ware is software used to support the game development process, but not
explicitly designed for game development. These products often have mar-
kets beyond the game industry. In some cases, software never intended for
game development has been leveraged and later support added to better
meet the needs of game developers.
North America produces many of the commercially available game
engines used throughout the global game industry. The most widely used
are Epic Game's Unreal Engine and its freely available Unreal Develop-
ment Kit (UDK). Historically Id Software has produced some of the mostly
widely used game engines. These are titled internally to Id, “Id Tech”, fol-
lowed by a number indicating the game it was developed for. Id Tech 5 is
available commercially, whereas Id Tech 3 and earlier are available freely as
free/open source software (F/OSS). F/OSS is software who's source code is
available and may be modifi ed and redistributed.
Other more specifi c game technologies are often the focus of middleware
companies' ef orts. Examples include Firelight Technologies' 3-D audio FMOD
audio library; RAD Game Tools' Granny 3-D, an animation system; the Miles
Sound System; Autodesk's Scaleform 3-D user interface software; and numer-
ous others. Physics, audio, particle systems and numerous other components of
a game's underlying technology can often be found as middleware in one form
or another. Most commercial middleware is made available as libraries, with
source code made available only at the premium-priced packages.