One of the challenges faced by both worlds is to be able to prototype and iterate on ideas pretty fast. This requires to adapt to new techniques and new tools.

• On the one hand, video game developers are able to build amazing interactive 3D games on consumer devices. You look at some of these games and think: wow, these guys are super sharp in building both technologies (if they use middleware, they’ll usually say they re-wrote everything anyway) and beautiful art and gameplay. Yet, they widely suffer during the production process, spend millions of dollars to get to the level they targeted, and usually struggle to generate new intellectual properties and kill game projects before it’s too late.

• On the other hand, PLM actors master designing products virtually and create “interactive reviews”, with a whole bunch of software technologies with high-class, real-time rendering features like RTT and Opticore, or sometimes 3DVIA Virtools. These industrials have for the most part clearly understood the value of creating virtual design first. However, only a few other them, as far as I know, have moved to the next wave: making a much more interactive review, involving many kind of experiences. They clearly have to move forward in order to extend the research field.

Using the same techniques and/or technologies?

You got my point, now please take a look at what my friend Martijn Steinrucken, concept designer at Electronic Arts said a few months ago at the Dassault Systemes Developer Conference (DevCon).

Part 1 is about the history of video games and where we are now. For those who are already familiar with this industry, I suggest to fast forward to the end segment or directly to the second video;

Part 2 is about a key pain chain of the video game industry: how to convince people about your ideas and projects.

So, does this ring a bell? If you get rid of the fancy looks of the characters involved in the presentation, I guess this translates well to PLM issues.

P.S. If you missed the beginning of my Gaming-PLM series, here are my previous posts:

From Building Products to Experiences: Can Gaming Technologies Help? Part 1

Gaming Technologies & PLM? Part 2

Hello! First of all, thanks for your comments on my previous post!

I spoke earlier this week about the transition from product centric to experience centric design. Let me now address the tools and technologies part. I think gaming technologies can be used in PLM.

The example of the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue screenshot confirms that the caviar for real-time 3D rendering quality is today (and will be tomorrow) found in video games.

But more importantly, this rendering quality has to be combined with a very high-level of interactivity. Many things indeed happen in a video game: fast camera changes, visual effects, large environments, etc. All these actions run on consumer equipment, like a PC, or, now, much more often on a gaming console.

So for PLM fans who would like to move to the next generation of what I would call “product experience based design”, I would strongly suggest using real gaming technologies in compliment to your traditional PLM software, with even an emphasis on those that support game platforms such as the Wii, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

There are plenty of gaming technologies out there. Which ones should you trust?

The answer may be: the real gaming technologies, the ones you really want to use, are the ones that have undergone the challenging test of being used on today’s consoles. But why?

Let me explain. If you’re using gaming technology that was optimized for the console, you’ll most likely get more optimization for your PC. Building a game on and for a console requires the very highest level of work in terms of performance optimization. Game developers know their constraints (the console) and work hard to create amazing experiences despite them. As opposed to a game console, a PC by definition is rather unlimited in possibilities, as you can “cheat” by adding a more powerful graphics card, a more power CPU, more memory etc.

Having said that, game development is still a very young industry compared to more traditional industries, and it is difficult to find a gaming technology usable by people who are not game development experts. In addition, most technologies, as well as being hard to use, don’t allow a very fast prototyping and iteration process, which is essential to both PLM and gaming.

What do you think?

Virgile

Hello!

First of all, I’d like to say I’m happy to start blogging here.

I’m writing today and in the next coming days about what tangible products and video games have in common.

To be sure we’re all on the same page, let’s go through a very quick definition exercise first. (These are at least my working definitions for this blog series):

• PLM is historically about developing better products. How do we accelerate their time to market, plan for their manufacturing, determine what kind of factory is needed to make them (human resources etc.), and what materials are actually needed to build the products, as well as the simulation of these materials?
• Video game development is historically about providing the best possible entertainment experience, not being worried about how realistic it was. Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen a democratization of high quality 3D through consumer video cards, with today video games that look almost as realistic as a photo.

Promoting fun and the experience:
In order to illustrate the way we look at products, I’ve selected two TV ads from Peugeot. The first one is from the 80s, the second from early 2008 (French version only, sorry).

Peugeot 205 ad:
With this one, you clearly see a product centric communication. People are just turning their heads 180°, impressed when they see it.

Peugeot 207 ad:

On this more recent ad, the communication is definitely experience centric. Yes, the car looks good, everybody expects that. What really matters here is that it’s fun to drive.

A few years back, designing and promoting a car was about the car itself: good looking, attractive, sexy, whatever. If you look at today’s advertising, the industry has widely evolved towards the experience (all ads) and the fun (most ads). This clearly states that the car itself is obviously important, but how you may feel or enjoy driving it is what makes the real difference.

In order to imagine and create the cars, car manufacturers therefore need to simulate these experiences: how does it feel to get into the car when you’re 2 meters tall? What about if you’re only 1.5 meters tall? How is it to drive it under the rain at dark? Do you feel safe or at risk? These are only a few examples, the other ones are easy to guess… but all of them ideally would require analysis very early in the design process of the “perfect car”, depending on its targeted customers and distribution regions.

In my next post, I’ll be talking about the tools and technologies that are needed to adapt from a product centric development to an experience centric approach.

Virgile

P.S. The image at the start of this blogpost is a good example of how realistic today’s video games can look. Thanks to Sony for this stunning screenshot. The screenshot was taken from the game Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and developed by Polyphony Digital (one of Sony’s internal studios). You can find more of them on ign.com.