Shifting Paradigms

FS: From a consumer standpoint, what advantages are there to a web based 3D driver game over a standalone game, other than size?

Alex: There are many advantages to this type of a system. A core part of our philosophy when it comes to gaming is that the game should always maintain itself. The way the industry stands now, it's always up to the consumer to make sure they've got the latest hardware drivers and patches for their games. The pressure shouldn't have to be on the consumer to make sure everything is up to date - when you load up a game, it should check in every time and upgrade itself if necessary. A game built with the WildTangent web driver can do this very easily.

Another big problem with today's games is identifying system requirements. A lot of today's computer users might not be aware of their exact configuration - they just know they have a Dell or a Gateway. So when they go to the store to buy a game, they're forced to read the side of the box and attempt to figure out if their machine is capable of running the game. That's too much of a burden to put on the consumer. Games should be able to identify their own system requirements. A game that's downloaded through the web can easily check the client's machine to see if it's robust enough to run BEFORE you waste any time or money downloading it. This eliminates guesswork, and prevents the disappointment of having a game that just won't run on your machine.

FS: What sorts of advantages or compromises are developers faced with when using WildTangent technology to create a game vs. developing it in a standard API like OpenGL, Glide, or Direct3D?

Alex: One of the big advantages of WildTangent's web driver is that it's all written in Java or Javascript so it can be multiplatform. To make web driven games possible, you still need more - you need an underlying API, and that's what WildTangent's web driver is. It's a DirectX like technology designed specifically for the internet. Although it only works in Windows right now, the WildTangent web driver is not bound to the Windows operating system; we can migrate it to other platforms without breaking the content

The WildTangent webdriver is proof of principle technology. It's small, lightweight, and it's very easy for developers to use. It supports every scripting language. What it does is it makes game development very similar to building a web page. Someone with the skills of an average web designer can build very complex games in very little time at all with the WildTangent web driver. As an example, look at our racing game, Speedway. That game was built entirely by a 22 year old web designer (no Computer Science degree) in 10 weeks, with no other help.

Another notable aspect of our technology is its underlying compression and streaming architecture. It makes it possible even for 56K modems to download games like Speedway within a very short amount of time.