Archive notice: This article was originally published on June 30, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
According to the company, Perforce enables France’s second-largest game producer to keep development times short even for large-scale projects, allowing it to respond to the growing demands of the gaming market. The switch to Perforce was made because the SCM tool used previously had reached its limits. Eden Games has produced classics such as “Alone in the Dark,” “Test Drive Unlimited” and “Need for Speed.”
In Eden Games’ view, video-game manufacturers today face the challenge of having to bring new products to market at ever-shorter intervals. Efficient collaboration among development teams is essential. Frédéric Jay, Head of Research and Development at Eden Games, confirmed this:
“Because of our company’s high quality standards, we need an SCM tool that gives us full control at all times over every release of a game and the production tools we use. Perforce guarantees integrity in the development process by ensuring that changes to large numbers of files can be carried out as atomic transactions.”
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According to the company, the SCM tool previously used at Eden Games had reached its limits, prompting the switch to Perforce. One of Perforce’s central advantages is its extensive API support for incorporating the SCM system into custom integrations. Plug-ins are also available for integration with various graphics and design tools.
“Perforce is a stable, effective and powerful tool with very good branching and merging capabilities for managing different software releases. Not all SCM systems have these capabilities. We value the advantage that even very large development teams can work together with Perforce, while individual access rights and privileges can be managed conveniently through a graphical interface. Ease of use is also a major benefit for most of our developers.”
At present, 80 developers at Eden Games use the Perforce SCM system. In future, all 150 users involved in Eden Games projects are to be connected to the system and therefore to the central repository containing all digital assets. “This will allow us to bring our products to market even faster,” Frédéric Jay said with confidence.
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According to the company, Eden Games manages all of its source-code files in a single Perforce repository, which is secured by an incremental automated backup after each working day. A full backup of the data is performed after each working week. Perforce was also adapted to three specific projects:
· “Alone in the Dark”: 50 developers use a shared source-code line with
a “Game Delivery Branch” and numerous development branches for
creating future releases.
· “Test Drive Unlimited”: 30 developers use a shared source-code line and
several development branches. Porting branches were also used for this project
to develop versions for different platforms,
including the PC platform.
· Internal resource-integration tool for computer games, used by the developers
of both games mentioned above. This internal tool follows the
revised production process for current gaming platforms (PS2, GameCube,
Xbox) and next-generation platforms (Xbox 360 and PS3).
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Perforce used by 17 of the top 20 game manufacturers
The US trade magazine Game Developer (www.gdmag.com) recently published its annual list of the top 20 game producers. “Seventeen of these companies use Perforce SCM for development,” said Dave Robertson, Director of European Operations at Perforce Software. “When asked why they chose Perforce, the companies primarily gave us three reasons: the performance, flexibility and reliability of our system.”
Perforce recently received Game Developer magazine’s Front Line Award as the Best Game Development Tool. This marked the fifth consecutive time the magazine had selected Perforce.
Enclosed are the cover and a screenshot of the successful PC game “Test Drive Unlimited,” which Eden Games developed for Atari with the help of Perforce.
EDEN Studios was founded in 1998 by a former development team from the Infogrames Group (now ATARI). EDEN Studios created internationally known video games including “Asterix the Gaul,” “The Smurfs,” “Tintin” and “V-Rally.” In 2002, EDEN founders Stéphane Baudet, Frédéric Jay and David Nadal sold the company to the Infogrames Group, and it ultimately became known as Eden Games. Many new games have emerged from Eden Games’ production facilities since then, including classics such as “Need for Speed Porsche,” “Test Drive Unlimited” and “Alone in the Dark.”
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