Practices and Technologies in Computer Game Software Engineering

Computer games are at the forefront of software engineering. Games software engineering, although often neglected in curricula, poses huge challenges such as time to market, complexity, collaborative development, and performance. Game development ranges from entertainment, with games being more sophisticated and complex than movies, to serious games used for education in universities and industry. Here, Walt Scacchi introduces us to computer game software engineering with technologies and a hands-on case study. I look forward to hearing from both readers and prospective column authors. —Christof Ebert.

COMPUTER GAMES ARE RICH, complex, and frequently large-scale software
applications. They’re a significant, interesting, and often compelling domain for innovative research in software engineering (SE) techniques and technologies. Computer games are progressively
changing the everyday world in many positive ways. Game developers, whether focusing on entertainment market opportunities or game-based applications in nonentertainment domains such as education, healthcare, defense, or scientifi c research (that is, serious games), thus share a common interest in how best to engineer game software. Here, I examine aspects of contemporary computer game SE. To supplement this description, the sidebars present a brief look at game development technologies and a case study in applying computer game SE techniques.

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