Chapter 185: EA Under Pressure

DoF is actually an abbreviation for Degrees of Freedom. Tracing the origins of the concept, it initially had nothing to do with the IT industry. 

The term was first introduced in the field of mechanics in the 1950s and was originally used to describe the range of motion of mechanical systems. Its formal application to electronic games, however, arguably began with the groundbreaking title Quake. 

"DoF?" 

However, this concept was not nearly as clear in the ears of the others present. 

"Yeah, just like in DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D, where it's a 3DoF camera." 

"Oh..." 

Carmack muttered thoughtfully, finally understanding what it was all about. In Wolfenstein 3D, there were only two axes for movement, forward/backward and left/right, as well as a Y-axis for rotating the viewpoint. 

No matter how the player operated it, they were ultimately moving along these three axes. That was what was known as 3DoF. 

"This project is different from our previous ones, Carmack." 

Ethan came over and sat down in front of them. 

The importance of this project was in no way less than the games they had made before. It was not merely because it would be the driving force behind consumer gaming graphics cards, nor merely because it would be the world's first truly 3D game. 

Its real value lay in the foundation it was built upon. 

"I understand, Ethan! The game engine, right?" 

Carmack suddenly sat up, his expression brightening with excitement. Ever since he first heard Ethan propose the concept, he had been fascinated by it, his excitement steadily building as he considered its possibilities. 

Carmack was a typical open-source advocate, a geek who followed the spirit of the Internet. If GAMENOVA did not need to rely on games to generate revenue, he would even have asked Ethan to release their works under the GPL license as open source. 

Whether it was the mod system or the game engine system Ethan had proposed, both aligned perfectly with the very ideas Carmack had been pursuing all along. 

A game engine. What an amazing idea! 

"Exactly, so are you and the reorganized Activision comfortable taking care of this?" 

Ethan nodded and handed the already-prepared draft to Carmack. 

[Development Plan for QUAKE and the 3D Game Engine] 

"Of course!" 

It was difficult for GAMENOVA's development division to devote sufficient resources to maintaining such a comprehensive piece of software. 

For Ethan, acquiring a wholly owned subsidiary studio was therefore about more than simply finding a development partner. This consideration also played an important role in his decision. 

This was not a small project. Although it seemed like they were merely adding a concept of height to DOOM, which had already been optimized into a BSP version, from the ground up, this was already a completely different project. 

What Carmack and the entire project team had to do was effectively develop the entire system from the ground up. The new graphics rendering alone would require a large amount of knowledge involving vector and matrix calculations, linear algebra, geometry,  

The buzz surrounding the CES show had been building for a week and had now dominated the front pages and headlines of major digital media outlets. No matter which magazine it was, its cover headlines could not escape those few new things. 

Memory, Graphics Cards, and 3D Games! 

For consumers, this CES was easily the most outrageous exhibition in recent years. Even setting aside the unusual technology brought by the unconventional company GAMENOVA, there were still plenty of noteworthy products. 

However, for PC game developers, the mood was far from pleasant. The arrival of DOOM left developers who were still struggling with ray-based 3D rendering completely stunned. 

They were still trying to figure out 3D rendering, while DOOM had already pushed the technology much further. The completely revamped BSP partitioning had rendered almost all of their previous work obsolete overnight. 

Perhaps no one was hit harder than EA, which had been desperately trying to restore its reputation. 3

Trip Hawkins put the NovaRadeon graphics card, with 256KB of VRAM, into the PC before inserting the DOOM floppy disk into the drive. 

Looking at those visuals that had already completely entered the next era, he could no longer suppress his emotions and suddenly burst out laughing. He was so damn angry that he could only laugh. 

This was too unfair! 

The entire development department had spent so long working day and night to master ray rendering, only to find that before their new title using the technology could even be released, they had already fallen far behind. 

And it wasn't just their own first-party titles. Several of their partner developers had been caught in the same situation. 

The most unfortunate of them was naturally Interplay, the studio EA had placed high hopes on. Their new game, Fallout, was being developed with technical support from EA. 3

Although it was still a PC game running on DOS, it had already adopted the extremely advanced EGA display standard, with far more colors than before. At least when this project had officially begun, EGA had still been considered an advanced concept. 

Trip gripped the mouse and stared silently at the screen, which displayed a scene made up of thousands of colors. After a long while, he fiercely raised his hand and slammed the mouse onto the desk. 

Damn it, even the mouse was made by GAMENOVA!  3

"Bang!" 

The electronics of the 1980s were built with such incredible durability that, despite taking a vicious blow, the mouse was practically unharmed, while the desk itself ended up with a chunk knocked out of it. 7

Trip wanted to cry. What terrible luck! Absolutely terrible luck! 

"Get in touch with Interplay. Fuck, let's ride GAMENOVA's momentum and show them what the legacy of a veteran PC game studio really looks like." 

He gave his assistant an order, his eyes returning to the screen as he silently picked up the mouse, which had suffered almost no damage. 

Feargus Urquhart, one of Interplay's producers and a key figure in its RPG development, received a call from Trip and immediately set aside his work, traveling all the way from Wisconsin to California. 

With GAMENOVA's impending offensive looming over them, Feargus could hardly be said to be in a relaxed mood. 

If GAMENOVA truly decided to make a full-scale entry into the PC gaming market, it would not necessarily be good news for developers like them, who had already established and built up their own core markets. 

The chaotic new landscape would inevitably disrupt the development schedules of every company involved. 

"Mr. Hawkins." 

Feargus nodded to Trip before pulling out the chair beside him and taking a seat. He glanced around the meeting room, taking in the others gathered there. Aside from the programmers he had brought with him, everyone EA had sent this time was technical staff. 

Feargus immediately understood. It looked like the topic of this meeting was already very clear. The DOOM that had appeared at the CES show, along with its exaggerated new graphics technology. 

"Since everyone's here, let's go ahead and get the meeting started." 

Trip cleared his throat, confirming that everyone was already in place. 

"Our next plan is to fully port Fallout to VGA and switch to the OpenGL standard." 

The moment they heard these words, all the engineers were visibly startled, realizing that this was no minor decision. By switching to OpenGL and VGA, EA would essentially be committing itself to the new graphics card standards proposed by GAMENOVA. 

Not only that, but they would also have to develop their games specifically for GAMENOVA's one of a kind graphics card. 

In effect, EA would be tying itself almost entirely to GAMENOVA's hardware ecosystem, making them an exclusive developer for the company. 

"DOOM is only a half-finished demo, which means GAMENOVA's technology in this area is still immature, at least for now." 2

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. We don't have to completely abandon our current development progress. We simply need to comprehensively upgrade the existing rendering system. 2

Even if GAMENOVA catches up, Fallout's RPG genre can still overtake them on the curve and become the only 256-color role-playing PC game in the world." 1

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