Open-Source Engine

"This is my vision. A technological ecosystem not controlled by any single capital interest, but jointly nurtured by developers around the world. Sega is willing to serve as one of the initiators, providing initial funding and some technology, with Mark and Nakayama Takuya both participating. NVIDIA can provide hardware-level API optimization support. And id Software, or rather, John, you yourself, can serve as the soul of the technical committee and lead the architectural design of this engine."

Carmack looked at the dense writing on the whiteboard.

The vision was grand and rigorous, a perfect fit for his ultimate hopes for open-source technology.

There was no need to abandon id Software's existing commercial engine. Instead, they would start anew, gather the strength of the entire industry, and create a piece of public infrastructure that truly belonged to developers.

Jensen Huang was doing the math.

If such a standardized open-source engine truly existed, NVIDIA's graphics-card driver development costs would fall sharply, and it could integrate the latest graphics technologies into the engine at the first opportunity, pushing them directly to tens of thousands of developers.

This was an extremely worthwhile deal.

Yuji Naka and Mark Cerny exchanged a glance.

They had long since read Nakayama Takuya's draft, but today, in this crude meeting room, saying it aloud in front of Carmack and Jensen Huang, they could still feel the subversive force contained within it.

"This isn't just about making a software tool." Nakayama Takuya sat back down in his chair and took a sip of water from his paper cup. "Once this model starts running, it will become the water, electricity, and gas of the games industry. Small and midsize developers will no longer need to waste their energy reinventing the wheel. They can pour all their creativity into polishing gameplay."

Carmack