Is your HydraCore technology adaptable to the full range of game consoles and computers? How easily can you take operations such as multi-threading and work them across a huge range of platforms effectively?

O'Meara: The heart of why Havok is the most successful provider of software in this space right now is that no one else is as good as we are at supporting multiple platforms. No one has come close to being as good as we are at doing that.

I think the secret of this gets down to being no great secret in the sense that we are the most battle-tested software company in this space. There are over 200 triple-A video games released using Havok components. There are 100 in production this year due for release that will use Havok.

And, it is the experience that we have gained with those publishers on those triple-A games that gives us the insights we need to ensure that our software is as elegant as it can possibly be across a range of platforms. It is not easy to operate across a range of platforms.

We optimize for the most complex piece of hardware out there. Currently, we have teams working, optimizing for hardware that is not yet on the market (including upcoming hardware from Intel).

The insights that we have gained from working on hundreds of games and understanding how the game developer will want to utilize the upcoming platforms give us an edge in providing tools that developers need.

A Freebie for PC Game Development: Havok Complete

You also announced a free downloadable version of Havok Complete for the PC earlier this year. What was the reasoning behind making the software freely available?

O'Meara: We are hoping to see a lot of the universities and a lot of the kids getting very familiar with the technology and we are hoping to see those who have the initiative to then develop things themselves. They will be able to do this without incurring the significant upfront costs of licensing the technology.

We expect widespread experience of the Havok software and we expect to see breakthroughs coming from some of these people, many of whom may develop small games or develop ideas that they can then show to a publisher and say, "look what I am able to do with this game. Are you interested?"

The drape, flow, and motion of garments is simulated by Havok Cloth.

What is the importance of using the PC platform for development compared to game consoles?

O'Meara: PCs are often the platform on which critical breakthroughs are made in gaming. A platform like PlayStation 2 can be two or three years old; the PC can have advanced much more than that PlayStation 2 has after those two or three years.

The newer PC is capable of providing game experiences that wouldn't have been possible on the PlayStation 2. Typically, the PC is technologically ahead of the capabilities of the consoles. The PC is very important for critical breakthroughs in gaming.

Secondly, the PC is very important for online gaming. World of Warcraft, Second Life, and other games where people are using the platform to access an online game are very important uses. Important gaming milestones - from id Software's Doom to the cinematic storylines of Valve Software's Half-Life 2 - were launched on the PC platform.

Because technological advances in computing typically emerge first on the PC, game-development studios often target these high-end platforms for their more ambitious coding efforts and scale down to achieve maximum cross-platform support.