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Author: Dori Exterman

  • The Gamification of Everything

    The Gamification of Everything

    Cross-pollination, for the non-scientific, is one of the key foundations of biodiversity on Earth. It is evolution in action—responsible for reinforcing the traits that make plants stronger and ensuring the survival of many species.

    On a far smaller scale—but equally crucial, from a business point of view—technology applications that move across industry delineation generally gets stronger. The traits that make great tech awesome in one domain combined with the unique use cases and experience of another domain result in more powerful and more flexible technology. And it’s not just a one-way street. Tech often moves back and forth across industry segments, and each time it crosses the line, its DNA improves. That means that, ultimately, the original domain tends to be strengthened by cross-pollination, too.

    This is exactly what’s happened with gaming development technology in recent years. And I’m not just talking about best practices. I’m talking about actual purpose-built gaming development technology that’s spread across and penetrated into industries like automotive, e-commerce, entertainment, architecture, real estate and more.

    This cross-pollination has left top-tier gaming tech players like Epic’s Unreal and Unity in a vastly superior position. In fact, it seems that cross-pollination is becoming an integral part of the growth strategy for these and other gaming tech companies. They’re not only betting their tools will shape the next generation of user experience in multiple industries–they’re also making strategic acquisitions that will make this happen.

    What Does Cross-Pollination Look Like?

    Cross-pollination of gaming tech takes a number of forms–some quite overt, others more subtle. For example:

    • The gamification of mobility–Gaming tech is bringing a new level of interactivity and visualization to the automotive industry. For visualizing self-driving, safety testing, visualizing automotive components, creating online showroom visualizations of vehicle interiors and more–gaming tech is deeply integrated into automotive development, manufacturing and retail.
    • The gamification of entertainment–Game development tools are revolutionizing the way entertainment companies develop content. From scene development based on a gaming methodology and gaming engines, to an entire popular series shot in one location using Unreal–gaming tech has radically changed the scene and series development pipeline.
    • The gamification of business software–The gamification of business software is streamlining processes, training and workflows. From companies like Invrsion, which offers game-like virtual reality tools for retail, to Salesforce, which adopted a game motif for key training—business functionality augmented by gaming tech and gaming user experience enhancements are becoming standard.
    • The gamification of education–Learners learn best when they’re having fun–and also when they have goals, targets and achievements to reach for. Sites like Khan Academy and apps like Duolingo have brought gaming tech and methodologies into the virtual classroom, changing paradigms for educators and learners alike.
    • The gamification of everything else–Shopping for clothes online during lockdown? The functionality that lets you “try on” garments is based on gaming tech. Designing a new pharmaceutical molecule using VR augmentation? Gaming tech. Urban design? Yep—gaming tech. And the list goes on.

    Why Gaming? A Unique Technology Incubator

    The question that companies in any industry should be asking is: why is gaming able to create such powerful, flexible and inspiring tech that lends itself so well to cross-pollination?

    The answer is multifaceted. First off, gamers are out-of-the-box thinkers, to say the least, and game developers–well, they broke the box before the gamers even got there. Gaming tech was born in a development environment on steroids—tight schedules, computing intensive processing, insane competition and frequent release cycles. This makes for a space that’s both receptive to new tech and open to new ways of doing things.

    Secondly, gaming is a ridiculously dynamic industry that is undergoing incredible growth, and the pandemic has only accelerated this trend. More money coming in translates to more investment in developing, improving or acquiring tech, as well as to launching more and more new games.

    Finally, in the gaming world, human resources cross-pollination is built in. Game developers move between studios all the time. This spreads tech advancements like–pardon the sensitive reference–a virus. Because if something worked well for you in one job, you’re going to want to use it in your next position.

    The Takeaway

    In both the natural and business worlds, cross-pollination is necessary for survival. Gaming tech is leaking into other industries for one key reason: it is frequently superior. And this cross-pollination of gaming tech benefits both the industries that adopt it and the gaming industry itself.

  • Enterprise Software Development Will Break the Speed Limit in 2021

    Enterprise Software Development Will Break the Speed Limit in 2021

    For some, 2020 was the year for software development speed … but not for everyone. Startups and SMEs climbed on board the CI/CD, shift-left and agile development train en masse – and reaped the benefits of faster iterations and tighter release schedules.

    But the “big kids” got left behind. Core enterprise applications – the legacy systems with 1+ million lines of code that do the heavy lifting in many corporations – have not yet made the switch to the world of rapid release cycles. And this is natural; enterprises are rightfully more cautious by nature, and because the technology driving this evolution was not mature by enterprise standards.

    But in 2021, that’s going to change.

    Here are four speedy predictions for pushing enterprises over the speed limit in 2021, and some of the companies making it happen.

    Four Enterprise Software Development Speed Predictions

    #1: AI-based test generation will make enterprise development faster and better

    Testing automation is crucial for any software development organization trying to transition to CI/CD. But enterprise stakes are arguably high, and enterprise code is by nature inflated, often carrying significant technical debt. Preparing suitable test coverage manually is resource-heavy, to say the least. But a new generation of AI-powered testing automation tools solves this problem for you. Solutions from companies like Ponicode and Diffblue allow enterprises with large code base apps to embrace CI/CD by bridging the technical debt gap in testing while still meeting release cycles.

    #2: Test avoidance tech will make a dent in unnecessary testing

    Running tests on an entire build for one small code change is overkill – no one’s arguing that. But until recently, there wasn’t much of an alternative to ensure the ironclad quality that enterprises require. In 2021, solutions from companies like Sealights and Launchable (which counts among its investors Jenkins creator Kohsuke Kawaguchi) will help enterprise software development teams deliver quality at speed. The key is the effective use of machine learning to reduce test cycle times and run only relevant tests, not the entire test suite, to ensure faster iteration cycles.

    #3: High Performance Computing will move toward distributed computing

    Compute power will remain a bottleneck to development in 2021 – but the processing arms race will likely change. As enterprises get used to virtualizing their infrastructure, they will think twice about investing heavily in dedicated multicore build/render machines powered by next-gen processors. Instead, they will look to virtualized processing power like distributed computing, cloud bursting, and spot instances – which provide the massive scalability enterprises require at build time, while still maintaining a more reasonable price-performance ratio.

    #4: Managed CI/CD in the cloud will automate enterprise release pipelines

    Managed CI/CD, like Amazon’s CodePipeline and Azure Pipelines, help enterprises save time setting up and maintaining CI/CD infrastructure, scaling up during peak times and maintaining security. These services, while not for everyone, will continue to gain popularity in 2021. A key reason for increased adoption is that they allow companies to scale much faster: without hardware or software, development teams can push a button and suddenly gain 20 more build servers. Moreover, managed CI/CD enables faster onboarding of new teams, simpler creation of repositories and more streamlined work with multiple geolocations. Finally, pay-as-you-go models, no upfront fees and no commitments are increasingly attractive to enterprises in tough times.

    Put the Pedal to the Metal

    Newly released AI-powered products and mature hosted services from big-name cloud providers are changing the face of enterprise-level development. In 2021, we’re going to see teams supporting backbone enterprise applications increasingly moving to CI/CD, shift left and agile development methodologies. Because everyone – even enterprises – deserves to break the speed limit.

  • 6 Tips to Survive the World’s First Holiday Lockdown Gaming Crunch

    6 Tips to Survive the World’s First Holiday Lockdown Gaming Crunch

    ‘Tis the season to be jolly … especially if you’re a gamer. The upcoming holiday gaming release schedule is a joy to behold for locked-down, socially distanced or just plain pandemic-fatigued game enthusiasts.

    For game studios and game developers, however, holiday releases have an entirely different connotation—the infamous crunch time. While views differ on the evils or benefits of crunch time, there is one thing that the most strident detractors and the most ardent supporters of the development practice can agree on: This holiday season’s crunch is unique.

    How the world’s first-ever WFH gaming crunch time will affect actual release schedules, workflow, collaboration and game quality (not to mention coffee consumption) remains to be seen. To better prepare for the challenges of WFH crunch, here are six tips we’ve gathered from our gaming partners:

    Gaming Developer Tips

    Don’t pretend it’s business as usual, but don’t reinvent the wheel

    Developers (like everyone else) are most comfortable with what they know. So, while it’s crucial to adapt your development process and workflow to WFH, you don’t need to re-create them.

    To modify processes, put together a multidisciplinary team of your top people in each department. Bring them together (in person, if at all possible) for a short yet intensive meetup and let them brainstorm possible WFH scenarios and create a detailed playbook.

    This revised playbook should focus primarily on changing only what needs to be changed for remote working while keeping everything that already works intact. It should also include a comprehensive list of experts to be contacted for each scenario or question. And if a developer encounters a scenario for which there is no process, the playbook should help him/her identify the right team to notify.

    Once the revised playbook has been established, disseminate it to everyone then follow it religiously. Instruct employees to follow process, even if they feel that doing so may cause minor delays. Shortcuts are not the right move for WFH—it’s too easy to get confused.

    Create working groups (and avoid email like the plague)

    Email is a notoriously inefficient and confusing collaboration tool in the best of times. Late responses, missed messages in the thread … these and similar email issues can easily translate into WFH chaos.

    Instead of email, adopt a collaboration tool and strictly enforce its use. This enforcement is crucial, because the most powerful tool is useless if not used.

    Then, create multiple 10-person “smart work” groups with well-defined scopes and a domain-expert moderator to lead the discussion in each. Task these teams with addressing, discussing and solving companywide issues in their relevant arena.

    A list of domain-expert moderators should be shared with employees along with instructions on how to contact each moderator when unanticipated scenarios arise.

    Do VPN smart

    WFH employees frequently face VPN hardships such as low response times. Any latency is a nightmare when working remotely, and this can be compounded by low-speed home network connections.

    Aside from upgrading internet infrastructure (for employees at home, too) and using cloud-enabled DevOps tools (instead of on-prem solutions), implement companywide network traffic protocols to ensure smoother and more predictable VPN connection speeds.

    For example, instruct employees to avoid uploading large chunks of data through the office VPN at peak times. Instead, split these into reasonable-size chunks or schedule large commits during low-traffic hours such as lunchtime or at night. To ensure the success of this method, continuously monitor network traffic and alert employees that inadvertently violate traffic policies.

    … Or don’t use VPN at all

    Alternatively, you could trade your VPN for another acronym – FTP. When multiple teams working on multiple projects need to share artifacts, instead of uploading them through the overloaded office VPN, have them use a shared, secured FTP outside your network VPN. And consider using Steamworks or a similar solution to share testable artifacts.

    And there’s another brilliant solution you can choose, beyond VPN and FTP. The Google Stadia game streaming platform (for which many games are developed, anyhow) allows frequent uploads of private game builds. This enables developers to quickly see changes made throughout development in a live runtime environment. This little-known trait can save a massive amount of time and (especially) VPN bandwidth when working from home.

    Automate what you can

    When time loss is compounded by the inherent disconnect of WFH, any time savings are that much more valuable. Automation is well-known to save time and effort in office-based development, but in WFH its contribution can be mission-critical. As a rule, in WFH anything that can be reasonably automated should be automated.

    For example, try automating uploads to different storage locations (Steamworks, FTP, etc.). Then, you can integrate this upload as part of your build process—effectively automating the process. Allow each developer to choose in advance whether the build should be uploaded automatically, and enable email notifications when the upload is complete. This little time-saver (and others like it), multiplied by multiple development teams and multiple developers, can really add up.

    Try to avoid software updates

    In the office, when a little Windows software update goes wrong (which is not infrequent), it’s an annoyance. But in WFH, when no one is in the office to restart the affected machines, it can easily cascade into a serious productivity crisis.

    Try to avoid any unnecessary software upgrades or changes so as to not jeopardize your stable environment.  If you must update, make sure that someone is in the office to manage unexpected issues.

    The Bottom Line

    WFH is going to be the new normal, and development processes need to evolve accordingly. Crunch time is the time when processes are pushed to their limits, even in the best of times. By taking the time to ensure that the wheels are as greased as they can be, gaming companies can eliminate workflow and collaboration friction points. The end result—aside from on-time deliveries of high-quality versions—is developers who are happier, more productive and even a little bit jolly.