It’s a Big World After All:

Ten Ton Hammer Takes on Big World Technologies

by Karen “Shayalyn” Hertzberg

It was the final day of E3 2006, and my last appointment of the show. I’d been given a last-minute schedule change that put me on an interview with Big World Technologies. I was sent to learn about their game development solution, which seemed a rather anti-climactic task after reporting on exciting games like Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online, and Pirates of the Burning Sea. So…

Ten Ton’s Pat Connoy and Michael Sun went with me, just to make sure I stayed awake. (Well, I’m not sure that was the objective, but it worked, regardless.) Oh, and to ask rapid-fire questions so I’d end up scribbling furiously in my notebook throughout the entire interview.

Turns out this interview wasn’t as anti-climactic as I thought it would be. We met up with Robert Spencer, Big World’s strategic business manager, and he was excited to talk to us about his company’s product.

Banner at the Big World E3 booth

Big World provides a complete development solution for MMORPGs; they call it the Big World Technology Suite. Essentially, it’s a game development system offering a server infrastructure; an advanced 3D game engine; a client that manages things like path finding, AI, and physics, and a powerful set of content creation tools. The technology suite partners to integrate other MMO building solutions from big names such as IBM and Speedtree.

“Making [MMO development] easy and less risky is what we’re all about,” says Spencer. He explained that many of their current games designed on the Big World Suite are in MMO-addicted China . But Big World also has some big names using their tools; among them Cheyenne Mountain for the development of Stargate Worlds. The enormous French MMO, Dark & Light, is using Big World’s server infrastructure.

“[Big World] was originally designed for the big game,” says Spencer.