AI.implant withdrawn for new commercial games

Artificial intelligence middleware AI.implant will not be sold for use in the development of any future commercial game, Develop can reveal.

Parent company CAE has decided to focus the product’s future to meet the demands of the military simulation field, resulting in the technology’s creator Dr Paul Kruszewski, and director of operations, Aaron Davey, leaving the company.

CAE, which announced a CDN$23 million deal to purchase AI.implant vendor Engenuity in February 2007 (although the deal remains to be closed), has provided existing licencees with the source code and has set up an online community hub, including detailed documentation and training manuals.

"Current clients will get a perpetual licence for AI.implant. They can modify it as they need to make their games. They have full access to the software," explained AI.implant’s product manager, Cory Kumm.

The main business of CAE, a billion dollar revenue company, is airline simulators. As well as Engenuity, it’s recently acquired 3D terrain and modelling software companies TERREX and MultiGen-Paradigm, and is looking to expand its military simulation business with the creation of integrated, commercial-off-the-shelf software.

"There was a bit of a misalignment in terms of the games market and CAE’s core market," Kumm agreed. "We wanted to modify our business model so we focus more on the training and simulation side. Military simulations have different needs to games. They tend to involve much larger environments and require us to handle hundreds of thousands of entities."

One area of game development the company remains keen to work with in future is the Serious Game market however.

"We want the Serious Games community to continue to use AI.implant," said Kumm. "The core of AI.implant will remain and the online community will be able to keep that alive. The only part of games we’re no longer going to be actively working with is the nextgen consoles."