WEBVTT - Military Simulations and Metaverses 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.800 Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.960 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.639 and how the Tech area. You know listeners who have 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:24.239 been tuning in to tech stuff for a while. No 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:29.920 that I haven't really been terribly enthusiastic about the metaverse, 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.280 uh whatever that may end up being. I think the 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.120 main issue for me is that I recognize how that 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.519 you know, we're very early on in the hype cycle, 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.000 like we're on that steep climb. We haven't rounded the 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.640 peak of hype yet and started to go down the 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:53.240 like the slope of realization of what the reality is 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.160 actually going to be. And I think until we start 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.000 going down the other side, I'm just seeing too many 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:03.680 opportunities for folks to get taken advantage of, either on 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.800 purpose or you know, just coincidentally. But that means that, 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.600 you know, I'm focusing on the near term. That's really 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.399 what has been concerning me. Clearly, the metaverse is coming, 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.959 whether I want it to or not, So maybe I 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.720 need to take a moment to really think about what 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.720 that's going to look like once it has arrived. You know, 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.760 to know that, yes, the road to get there is 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.360 going to be a bumpy one, but that doesn't mean 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:34.959 that the destination isn't worth going to necessarily. So to 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:39.720 kind of help me get out of my you know, blinders, 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.319 to get out of that hyper focus I have on 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:47.040 sort of the issues right now, I invited Pete Morrison 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.280 onto the show. Now. Pete is the chief commercial officer 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.400 at Bohemia Interactive Simulations, and Pete has been working in 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:59.560 the military simulation game pun Intended for nearly two decades, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.840 and I wanted to first get an understanding of what 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.680 he and Bohemia Interactive do and then sort of transition 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:11.000 to talk about the concept of the metaverse because what 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:15.520 he does in many ways serves as the foundation for 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:19.920 what we will see in a fully realized general purpose metaverse. 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.079 So what follows is my conversation with Pete. I hope 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.160 you enjoy it. Pete. I want to start off by 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.720 just saying thank you for joining Tech Stuff. It's a 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:31.880 pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you. I'm 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.320 really excited to be here and I can't wait for 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:40.800 us to talk about simulations and and what what Bohemia 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.320 Interactive does but I really want to start off just 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:48.720 by saying, uh, how did you get into this world? 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.400 Did you come at it from like sort of a 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:56.400 a video game fan perspective and then developed that into 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.760 a career? Was it something that kind of uh of 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.520 all old at the same time as your studies. What's 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:08.960 your personal journey story? Right? So I started out as 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.680 a gamer, I guess in the late nineties, and discovered 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.160 pretty quickly that I was having more fun creating the 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.440 games than I was having playing them. And my mom 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.280 actually got me a book on programming when I was 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.280 still at high school and I was using the Commodore 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.440 sixty four or Commodore or whatever we had, and I 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:27.200 was I was kind of starting to build these computer 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.040 games and it was the domain that I fell in 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:32.840 love with from a very early age. And then later 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.560 when I joined the army again thanks to my mother, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:37.800 I was actually intending to be a plumber, but my 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.080 mom pushed me in the direction of the Australian Army. 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.000 They put me through university where I did computer science 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.440 and I was involved in bigger game developments there and 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.680 then in the Army. In the Australian Army, I was 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.040 actually in charge of people who did simulation, and I 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.040 was one of the people in the very early days. 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:58.360 It wasn't just me who had the idea that we 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.840 could apply computer games and military training, specifically specifically collective 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:07.040 tactical training. UH. And I started working with VBS Virtual Battlespace, 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:11.200 which is the product created by Bohemian Interactive Simulations. I've 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:13.520 been involved with that since about two thousand and four, 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.360 and I've been with Bohemian Reactive ever since I left 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.800 the Army in two thousand and five. So as a gamer, 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:24.279 I've had a very rewarding career. Wow. And and for 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.120 those who may not remember the nineties, some of my 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.760 listeners are young enough where they didn't experience them. Um 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:32.720 like that. That was right around the era where we 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.599 started to see the mods space really take off. You know, 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.080 you started to see games in like in like the 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.359 Doom and Quake spheres where people started to create level, 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:47.359 editors and entire uh mods of the game that just 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:50.560 completely transformed the game. In fact, some games that emerged 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.760 out of that era started off as a mod of 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.360 a previous game. So was that kind of the world 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.360 you were in when you first started kind of tinkering 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:05.400 with the stuff. Yeah exactly, And so older people like 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:09.000 myself would remember Operation Flashpoint, which came out in two 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:13.440 thousand and one, and a big modern community formed around 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:15.839 this game. In fact, one of my best friends was 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.920 one of the hackers. He later became my business partner 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.119 who pulled apart the file formats and started to build 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:26.200 some of the level editors for Operation Flashpoint. But I 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:31.040 ran a moddeing site called the Operation Flashpoint Editing Center. Um, 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:32.640 I'd like to say, I'd like to think that I 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.520 was a little bit famous online. It was. It was 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.560 pretty big, and we had staff running that and it 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.919 was really really enjoyable. I loved Operation Flashpoint modifying that 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:45.000 computer game. It almost it almost cost me my college 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.599 degree because I was spending so much time in that 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:52.200 in that computer game. But it was that same game 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.040 engine that we took back to the military, you know, 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.440 years later, that that same Operation Flashpoint based engine. It's 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:02.360 called real Virtuality. And I initially hired when I started 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.039 the business in two thousand and five or so, the 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.120 people that I knew from the modern community, Like I 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.839 knew a pizza delivery person in Seattle and he was 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:15.520 a really good uh scenario creator and mod editor and 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.480 I actually brought him to Australia to work, uh as 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.200 one of our initial employees. And that's where I went 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:23.680 from my my first workers, the people who knew the 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.640 computer game. So my career and my business was a 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.400 testament to the power of the modern community. Um that's 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.280 only got stronger since then. And you you sort of 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:34.280 touched on it already, but can you tell us a 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:38.359 little bit more about exactly what Bohemia Interactive Simulations does, 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:43.200 like what is their mission and you know, tell us 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.640 a little bit about some of the stuff that's been 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.400 created through there. Right. So behem Interactive Simulations is a 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.720 very interesting company. And to go back to the start, 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.839 we were an offshoot of Bohemia Interactive Studio that created 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.640 that Operation Flashpoint computer game. Since then, they've added many 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:06.320 big hits, so to speak. The Armor series Daisy Daisy 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.080 was huge for them, which is a zombie game created 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.040 by Dean Hall that was also based upon the same engine. 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.960 And there was an Australian it wasn't me an Australian 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.840 gentleman who had the idea of building this first military 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:20.800 product based upon Operation flash Point. And I was in 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.040 the military at the time actually left the military when 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.040 I saw the potential of that technology and I wanted 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.080 to get on board. Uh and we started to build 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:30.200 a version of Operation flash Point that was specific for 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.200 the military training. And it's not training a soldier how 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.480 to use a rifle or how to drive a tank. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.680 It's really training them how to think and putting them 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:43.480 into scenarios where they can play out training vignette to 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.520 draw out learning points. Now, when you see the soldiers 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.600 using this computer game, I'm not technically allowed to say playing, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:51.960 but they're playing the game. But they're playing the game. 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.000 It looks like they're playing Call of Duty from an 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:59.080 outside observer. But what they're doing is navigating, communicating, thinking, 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.600 making to see as making mistakes in a very safe, 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.760 cost effective environment. And the idea is to reduce the 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.160 amount of time they need to spend training in the field, 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.520 teach them lessons that they might otherwise learn in a 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.120 more dangerous environment, potentially even in the theater. And computer 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:20.400 games have been fantastically successful in this particular type of role, 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.680 and so today the Human Interactive Simulations is a much 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:25.760 bigger company. When I started, I was that I was 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:30.120 the second employee. We now have thirty staff in I 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:34.600 think six or seven studios around the world. We provide 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.920 software to the U. S Army, the U. S. Marine Corps, 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.720 the UK Industry of Defense, pretty much all of NATO. 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.800 Now there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers trained each 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.599 year using VBS, which is based entirely on originally a 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.280 computer game, which we've modified heavily over time. I have 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:52.959 to say it compared to call the duty or battlefield, 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.760 it's sort of boring because you don't want soldiers to 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:57.800 be able to jump in the air, to jump over 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.520 rocket launched rocket launch rockets that are coming at them. 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:03.200 You want them to be only able to move at 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.640 a certain speed. You want them to be fatigued, you 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:08.600 want them to be a little bit inaccurate. You don't 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:10.920 want them to be able to snipe at four at 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:12.719 a moving target in the real world that's very hard 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.640 to hit. But overall, we're quite unique and what we do. 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.520 We were the first company to to really branch into this, 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.880 and today we continue to win contracts. We've updated our 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.480 engine multiple times, our rendering engine multiple times to keep 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.320 it consistent with triple A quality. And yeah, we're used 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.360 all over the world. So I'm very proud of of 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:36.079 what Operation Flashpoint has begun, my favorite computer game. The 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.079 fact that we're still using elements of that original engine 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.640 is is pretty amazing. That is phenomenal, And I love 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:46.000 this idea of being able to use a virtual environment 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:52.040 to simulate things that that soldiers will potentially actually encounter 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.600 in the field, but in a way that is safe 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:59.760 and replicable, so that you can make mistakes without the 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:05.040 obviously real world heavy consequences that come with making those 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.480 mistakes when you're actually deployed, and being able to learn 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.080 that that sense and be able to actually understand the 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:18.080 consequences of certain UH actions. I assume also that as 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:23.439 UH as since you've been doing this for more than 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.600 a decade a decade and a half, that that things 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:30.320 have changed quite a bit in the way UH that 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:38.160 militaries conduct various operations, everything from updated equipment to uh 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.600 you know, the different kinds of theaters that soldiers find 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.080 themselves deployed in. Have you have you seen a pretty 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.640 dramatic shift over those years or has it been fairly steady. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.920 Certain things have changed and certain things have tried sort 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.439 stay the same. So if you look at a soldier's 0:10:55.480 --> 0:11:00.560 basic training tasks, shoot, move, communicate, those of very similar 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.120 to what it was even twenty years ago when I 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.400 was in the Army. The theaters that we operate, the 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.520 equipment has changed dramatically and the capabilities of the equipment, 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.720 for example, a UAVs. I mean you might be seeing 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.320 some of the footage coming out of Ukraine. There are 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:20.239 ua vs everywhere, drones everywhere, and this is a fundamental 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:24.319 change in the way that our forces operate. It's affected doctrine, 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.520 it's affected a lot of things, and so we've been 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.480 doing a lot of work to simulate those types of 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:33.960 devices and even experiment with those types of devices within VBS, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.560 allowing soldiers to figure out how do we work this 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:40.400 new equipment into our tactic techniques and procedures. So, yes, 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:42.880 there's been a change in equipment that the basic doctrine 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.480 hasn't changed a lot. Inferguce soldiers still does what an 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.000 infant Inferguce soldier does. And then when it comes to 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:53.960 the locations where we're operating, what we heard very strongly 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.680 about two thousand and twelve was that the military wanted 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.600 a whole Earth experience. They didn't want a level they 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:03.800 didn't want to map, they wanted to go anywhere on 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.600 the planet at a moment's notice. And in two thousand 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.520 and twelve, that was pre Star Citizen, pre Nomad's Sky. 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.080 The idea of having an entire procedural planet that you 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.559 could just go anywhere on that planet and immediately start 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.679 training or playing, that was very early days. So we 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.280 actually invested in that in our VBS blue engine and 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:26.760 we built a game engine that supported that. So within 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.320 VBS four, which is our current release, you can go 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.440 to Africa, you can go to Europe instantly, and there's 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.120 quite a good representation of that part of Planet Earth 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:36.920 out of the box. And of course in the gaming space. Uh, 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.040 and yes, I still play a lot of computer games. 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.200 This is this has become commonplace. I mean, the latest 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.840 Star Citizen drops are amazing that the technology they have 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.439 for going to different planets. Uh. And what's changing now 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.439 is access to the cloud, so we have a lot 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.320 more uh, different data sources that we can pull from 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:59.440 down into the game to create higher fidelity environments. Quicker. Uh, yeah, 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:01.120 I would ry you were still in a pre Star 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.880 Citizen world, but maybe that's because waiting for the full 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:10.480 game to Finally, I have not, but I've also been 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.240 I've also been that kind of person who was like, 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.439 how many years have been have I been hearing about this? 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.880 I know that the the there have been releases of 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:25.080 significant content. It's one of those where um, as someone 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.840 who covers tech and and games, occasionally there there tends 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:34.880 to be this Uh. Certain certain gamemakers have tendencies to 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:40.439 really drive up the expectation not just of what you're 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.400 gonna get, but when you're going to get it, um 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.199 and Star says, and I shouldn't just you know, target, 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.120 because it's by far not the only one. I can 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.880 think of one GameMaker in particular who has quite the 0:13:53.960 --> 0:14:00.120 reputation for driving up expectation and then perhaps under delivering. UM. 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.760 But getting back to this, I wanted to ask a 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:04.959 little bit more to kind of get the sense of 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:10.439 the scope of the simulations that we're talking about here, Like, typically, 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:18.080 how many people can one of these UH simulations support simultaneously. 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:23.440 So right now we are typically servicing what they call 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.640 battle simulation centers. UH. These are everywhere. The US Army 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.160 has eighty seven of them, I think, and they look 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:32.640 like a huge computer lab and they're full of soldiers, 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.040 and it's not just desktop PCs. There's also tank simulators 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.400 and aircraft simulators in these massive warehouses where they where 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:43.480 they train. So typically two fifty is the maximum number 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.080 that we would put into a single simulation, and that's 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.960 each soldier playing from the first person perspective, just like 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.520 in Call of Duty. We support two thousand to three 0:14:54.560 --> 0:15:00.000 thousand artificially intelligent units in addition in our current construct. 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.080 But as I'm sure we'll get into a little bit 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:06.080 later once we move towards the military meniverse, we are 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.120 going to say some dramatic changes there. But right now, 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.120 that's about what we're doing, and that's still I mean, 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:16.240 I mean, anyone who's played any like multiplayer online like 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:20.560 first person shooter games would understand that two that's that's 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.360 no small shakes. That's pretty impressive. I mean, I know 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.920 a lot of people who play, uh some of the 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.800 games where when they first come out have support for 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.680 maybe one hundred or more, maybe up to close to 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:39.200 two d simultaneous players. But uh, they often then are 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:41.520 the targets of a lot of criticism because there tends 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.160 to be a drop in performance. Obviously, when you're talking 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:49.640 about products that are meant to help soldiers train. That 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.520 drop in performance isn't really that's not acceptable because you 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.520 need to be able to have that that tool be 0:15:55.600 --> 0:16:01.480 dependable and usable for that purpose. So um to that end, 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:05.560 I'm like, I'm curious, what are what are? Do you 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.600 happen to have some idea about kind of the back 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.840 end systems that are running this software, Like how how 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:16.840 would you compare that to say, gaming rigs today? Or 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.840 is it because we're talking about militaries are we talking about, 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:25.560 you know, much lower end but robust computer systems. Now 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.640 I'm very proud that we have forced militaries all around 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:33.400 the world to buy gaming PCs. I'm most only half joking. 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:37.720 The we use everything that a modern graphics card provides, 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.120 and in a lot of our procedural generation capability, which 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.640 means kind of automatically creating a higher fidelity virtual environment 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.080 than the data kind of gives you automatically putting in 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.000 trees and grass. Most of us have heard about procedural 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:54.440 generation now that requires a modern graphics card. So we 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:56.520 we take advantage of whatever the customer has, and I 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:00.880 recommend that the customer upgrade to at least the video 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.280 graphics card for example, um, we are working on the 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.480 Vulcan Port right now. If anyone's not heard of Vulcan, 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.159 you you will hear about it shortly. It's it's the 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.280 new open g l to really exciting graphics library that 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:14.680 a lot of games are porting to at the moment. 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:18.840 Gives a lot of really powerful capability to these game engines. 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:25.640 So we do not recommend that the military use what 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:30.359 they traditionally had for simulation, which wasn't gaming tech. Gaming 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:32.720 technology has just progressed in leaps and bounds, and there 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.040 was a time I think it was in the early 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:39.160 two thousand's when Silicon Graphics was delivering kind of better 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.520 hardware for gaming to the US military that there was 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.800 available in the game space. That's completely different now and 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.720 almost all of the big flight simulators that I know 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:53.480 of they're using Nvidia X y Z. And in the 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.959 gaming space, we're recommending the video gaming cards as opposed 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.879 to the professional cards, which is good because they're getting 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.200 We generally try and make sure our software will run 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.000 well on anything might in the last five years, just 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:07.800 like a normal computer game. So we don't want to 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.280 force our customers to spend millions of dollars on thousands 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.879 of new PCs, but we do expect to expect our 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:17.000 customers to stay to stay current. We've got a lot 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.520 more to come, and we'll be back after we take 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.560 this quick break with more conversation with Pete Morrison of 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:34.040 Bohemia Interactive Simulations. When VR was first starting to become 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:40.680 a thing, we saw some early very proprietary approaches to VR. Then, 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.480 because the VR hit this hype cycle and wasn't able 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.800 to live up to the hype in the eyes of 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.960 a lot of people, there was a dramatic drop in interest, 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:53.280 and it got to the point where people who were 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:59.240 dedicating their work to VR suddenly found no support from 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:04.639 f I, financial institutions, to academic institutions, and they turned 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.880 to the video game sector in order to kind of 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:12.080 pick and choose things that enabled them to continue their 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.240 work in VR. So you started hearing about people using 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.720 all sorts of things like even uh consumer tech like 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:23.919 the Microsoft Connect became an element that VR researchers were 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:28.720 interested in that we that we actually was enormously important. 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:32.200 So so it's great to see that there are these 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.920 parallels where you might start off in this very proprietary, 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:42.520 closed garden approach which obviously they're their pitfalls to that, right, 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.119 because if the company that makes that thing goes in 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.560 a different direction or goes away, you're stuck with a 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:52.040 system that no longer has support. It can go obsolete. 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:57.960 Whereas when you pivot to using technology that is is 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.080 marketed not just for the military but for consumer use, 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.560 you can have a pretty strong level of confidence that 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:08.600 you will continue to get that support. And it's we're 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.560 just fortunate that the consumer level of of h technology 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.000 has reached a point of sophistication where you don't feel 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:19.320 like you're trading off right, You're not losing something because 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.439 you are no longer going in this very focused niche 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:27.680 um proprietary approach. I completely agree, and I have said 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.720 many times talking to various customers, we don't have technology 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.199 problems so much anymore. The technology is there. We have 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.639 endless compute power in the cloud, we have fantastic realistic graphics. 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.080 It's really now um. For example, in the military, it's 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.720 a it can be sometimes waiting for certain people to 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.280 move on, people who don't believe in game based training, 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.320 for example. Uh, there is a cultural shift that has 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.800 to happen, not just in the military, but in many 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.719 uh serious game type applications. A lot of people still 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.880 think of computer games as the annoying things that their 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.639 kids play, the wastes of time, A little bit like 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.760 my father, who I who I love, but you know, 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:09.919 he always viewed my computer at home as this kind 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.919 of waste of time, this box I wasn't using my hands. 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.520 I viewed it into well, a future for me, an 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:21.720 entire future. It was a portal into a career. And 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:25.360 uh yeah, So it takes time for cultures to change, 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.399 and we've seen that acceptance and I've been quite proud 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.240 to drive that change in many military organizations. Um I 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:34.399 would say that the U S. Military organizations have always 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.199 been forward thinking. Ah so I don't think you've had 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:39.479 that problem here in the US, but in other countries 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.440 it's it's it's certainly been an issue. I can imagine. 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.800 It's so interesting that the convergence of technology was enabling 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:51.040 this approach on a technical level, and it's the buy 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:56.320 in that becomes the bottleneck for certain militaries that is 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:59.920 really fascinating to me. It is somewhat understandable. I mean, 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:04.400 I I suppose if you are someone who hasn't had 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:08.920 that hands on experience, it can be difficult to imagine 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:13.679 that it would have that level of beneficial effect. Heaven knows. 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:17.000 We see that in politics as well, right where we'll 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:21.560 see politicians who perhaps print out their emails. Uh, then 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:26.119 legislating tech, and you clearly get in the tech sector, 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:30.960 you you feel this this very intense resistance to that 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:36.879 because there's there's this gap between a person's understanding and 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:39.080 the way things really are, and yet that person is 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:43.640 still given the responsibility of of perhaps legislating that area. 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:47.000 So it's one of those parts of tech that I 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:49.840 love to talk about, even though it's not you know, 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.480 it's not how tech works. But you have to take 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:56.600 kind of this holistic view in order to understand why 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:00.080 is tech the way it is now and why I 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:04.159 are certain things in tech uh perhaps taking longer than 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:07.879 you might have anticipated to get you know, a larger 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.960 roll out. Um, it's because people are not like tech. Uh. 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:14.320 That's way back in in the day when I was 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:18.240 first given the assignment of being the tech head writer 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:20.840 for how Stuff Works dot com, which is where I 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:25.159 started when I started podcasting. Um, everyone was all of 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:27.720 my coworkers were scared of tech. They were all we 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:33.479 were all English literature or English majors, communications majors, and 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.080 everyone was scared of it. Uh and I wasn't. And 0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:38.160 when people asked me why I wasn't scared, I said, well, 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:41.399 because tech either works or it doesn't. People, that's way 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:46.560 more complicated. I agree, And I mean there's a lot 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:49.040 of people making decisions related to computer games that don't 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:52.480