Obviously, graphics are paramount; you talked about how with Condemned 2, you moved onto the PS3, and then with the new version you're upgrading to the point where you are now. We're pretty far into the 360 at this point, and even the PS3 has at this point been out for a couple years; how do you see the progression of this generation? Is there a lot of room to improve the visuals, first of all?

JO: I wouldn't say "a lot". I think there's maybe 20 percent more improvement to visuals to be had; even internally, we've got some pretty good looking visuals, but we've identified areas where we can change underlying technology to allow the artist to push even more for future stuff. And we're making really good use of the hardware, so it's just a matter of finding new ways and clever ways to eke out that last 10 to 30 percent of the hardware.

I don't think you're going to see a radical change of visuals, except in the artistic arenas, as the games continue to look more and more alike due to similar horsepower, and limiting factors such as content creation time; games are probably going to try to use artistic styles and things like overlays, tints, and other effects to just stand out visually from each other.

Is there a place in the current generation where you see a lot of room for improvement, from an engine perspective, that's not visuals?

JO: Multi-threading. There's a lot of processing horsepower in there, but it's still taking a lot of time to figure out how to start using that, and that's something that's going to be an ongoing challenge for a lot of game companies.

And future technologies will increase the core counts dramatically; then you have to find ways to make the technology work across that. And that will, I think, open up some interesting opportunities, once we make it past that initial hurdle.

As that becomes available, what is the primary benefit of it, from a game engine perspective?

JO: Basically, it's going to allow for the games to continue scaling with Moore's Law. PCs have really stagnated, in terms of processing power. So, you're going to see continual rises in the number of physical objects, the amount of complexity within the scene; hopefully it will offer a lot more procedural and robust effects.

And, generally, the progression of technology in games is: there's one game that does a new effect in a really smoke-and-mirrors kind of way; like, "Oh, we've got fire! (But you can only view it from this angle, because it's a sprite...)" And then someone will build up on that, and make it a little bit more robust and versatile; like, "Oh, now you can have fire anywhere in a level! (But it's still just a sprite...)" And then, over the course of several more iterations, it will become fully robust and operate in all situations, and so on. And that's generally the evolution pipeline of new features and technologies.

By having more horsepower, it basically allows us to continue moving more and more stuff through that pipeline, such as fluid dynamics, or dynamic fire, and other things like that; increased physics. But unless we can overcome how to use all of these processors, we're going to quickly stagnate, and not be able to produce more and more features.

Do you guys use middleware? To what extent do you use middleware?

JO: We use Havok for our physics; we use Scaleform for our interface; we use Bink for video; and we use GameSpy for matchmaking on PC and PS3.

What are your feelings about integrating middleware solutions with your technology?

JO: I don't have a solid rule; I think it's a case-by-case basis. How much would it cost to develop internally? How much is it to license? What's the risk and stability of the company that we're licensing from? What's the pain of integration? And what's the value-add and opportunity cost? So, it's a very case-by-case basis.

In situations like Havok, it's kind of a no-brainer; it takes a lot of specialization to create a full physics simulation, and a lot of maintenance on that system, which can be very difficult to come by. And the pricing is pretty reasonable, and they've been around for a while; they've got a pretty competitive product, and good support, so, we went with them.

We've turned down other packages, though, because we were concerned that the company may not be around in three years, they may not be able to provide us updates in a reasonable manner, their pricing was ridiculous compared to the engineering and maintenance that would occur, or their solutions just weren't that complete.

Some developers have a very philosophical bent on whether or not to use middleware; it sounds like you're very practically driven, though.

JO: Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, it's "What's going to make the best game, and best utilize our resources?" Because if we have to spend three engineers doing a mediocre physics simulation, then have to have those three guys constantly maintaining and optimizing it, or we could have those three guys implement something that is really cool and unique, and then just implement physics -- not that that's trivial, by any means, but it's not three engineers' time -- then the game is going to be better. So, yeah, we try to be pretty practical, here.