GameCyte

As the two major players in the tiny stereoscopic 3D gaming market, you’d think NVIDIA and IZ3D would be at one another’s throats — each attempting to leverage their own software and display solution to gain what little of a foothold is available. But as GameCyte discovered in interviews with product managers at both firms, right now that’s simply not the case, because both companies are banking on something bigger.

NVIDIA’s Andrew Fear on IZ3D: “They can do nothing but help, right? Because right now, they’re talking about stereoscopic gaming…”

IZ3D’s Aaron Rapp on NVIDIA: “NVIDIA’s got a broader reach than we do… if they sell the idea of 3D, then now everybody’s on a common playing field…”

They want to make S-3D gaming into a mass market phenomenon, and though each may have the software, hardware and industry connections to serve consumers already interested in stereo 3D, it’s entirely possible neither alone has the marketing force required to sell it to the masses ignorant of its true potential.

But there is one man whose sole purpose in the industry is to do just that. He’s a connector who has the ear of every major S-3D manufacturer. He’s an educator who wrote the most comprehensive, unbiased introduction to existing stereo 3D technology available. He’s an expert on the field — though he himself was introduced to the tech only a few years ago. By his admission, he’s the man who popularized the term ‘S-3D’.

And he is the president and CEO of an advocacy group designed to unite manufacturers, developers and interested individuals for the express purpose of forwarding S-3D gaming.

Last week, we spoke to Mr. Neil Schneider of Meant To Be Seen about his own momentum, the state of the market, and how his group is working to convince gamers and software developers alike that our games are, indeed, meant to be seen in stereo 3D.

GameCyte: How did you manage to become an advocate for the nascent stereoscopic 3D industry?

Neil Schneider: My original background was in television production. I used to produce TV shows in Montreal, and then I worked in talk radio, and I was the first to broadcast live internet radio in Canada using – we know them now as Real Networks, but back in the day they were known as Progressive Networks. I started off in radio, moved to Toronto, used to do cover stories for Information Highways magazine, and then I jumped again and created a new business to focus on continuing medical education. We’d interview the leading minds in medicine, and then doctors could log onto the internet and listen to specialized internet radio programs at a physician’s level. In that case, I was funded by the pharmaceutical industry. I had a career there, and over the years I did a number of media projects, but my secret passion was gaming. It’s funny how life works out.

As far as the tie-in to video games, what happened was that I took an interest in upgrading my computer. It started off modestly enough –- I spent five hundred to six hundred dollars on the computer itself. But I thought “Gee, my games could be better.” So I bought a graphics card… but still thought “Gee, my games could be better.” Then I got a sound card, and it got to the point where I ran out of things to buy for my computer, and through word of mouth I heard about shutter glasses. So I went to eBay and bought a pair for fifty dollars, and it was the most memorable thing I’d ever purchased for my computer.

GameCyte: What kind of shutter glasses were these?

NS: This was about three years ago – time flies – and they were called X3D. I don’t think they even make them anymore. They were the same idea as those at eDimensional, X3D was another brand… I could go through the brands for you.

GameCyte: Are all these glasses more or less the same, or was there something special about the X3D?

NS: They weren’t all that unique from each other; what really drove the gaming experience with the shutter glasses was the software support. At the time, NVIDIA was the software support…

GameCyte: And I gather the shutter glasses were only compatible with CRT monitors?

NS: At the time, stereoscopic 3D was only possible with CRT monitors. Even modern stereoscopic 3D gamers are very passionate about having fair-sized CRT monitors, but the monitors have become fewer and farther between because LCD has taken over.

GameCyte: There were numerous reasons for that… but I’ll admit, when I bought my LCD panel a few years back, I didn’t think about whether it would play stereoscopic 3D games or not.

NS: The transition from CRT to LCD was a very important part of stereoscopic gaming history. 3D gaming has dated back easily about 10 years now, and when the CRT monitor was on every desk, 3D gaming held true promise. But because LCDs are thin, light and more environmentally friendly, the CRT monitor literally fell off the desk. The LCD replaced it, and because the LCD didn’t have the true refresh rates that CRT monitors did, the LCD panel on its own was no longer a viable option for 3D. When the CRT monitor fell out of favor, so did the opportunity for stereoscopic 3D.

GameCyte: So looking back at your career path for a moment, it seems you’ve always been at the forefront of technology and education — is MBTS3D the logical end result of your experiences and interest in gaming?

NS: I didn’t think of it that way… for me, the reason I took the 3D route is that I enjoyed the experience so much – it added so much to my gaming -– that I couldn’t stop talking about it. Even my wife would say, “Don’t talk about the 3D glasses to our friends, they just won’t understand and I will have trouble explaining it to them…” I was just so passionate about it, and when I went online…

Well, let me explain the predicament I was in. I was getting the latest games, I was having perhaps a 60% success rate, and even then there were tradeoffs. I’d have to turn down special settings, I’d have to come to terms with anomalies on the screen that I couldn’t get rid of, and so I went on the online forums.

NVIDIA had forums, there were some independent websites that had discussion forums, and they were just filled with frustrated, angry people who just loved the 3D so much, but the software updates were limited and they were having all these problems. I thought “Gee, there’s a lot of energy. Anger is frustration and frustration means you want to get something done but it’s just not happening – how can we take that energy and use it to actually move things in a positive direction?” So I said “I love this gaming, I really see a future in this, I want to play my games the way they’re meant to be… meant to be seen.”

GameCyte: (laughs)

NS: So I started researching it, and I found that in the 10 years of 3D gaming’s history, there have been a lot of solutions on the market that most people just don’t know about. There have been countless shutter glasses, countless head-mounted displays, all kinds of 3D monitors. Now, granted, all of the technology was very modest compared to what we have here today, but the problems were very consistent –- and the core problem was that there was no working relationship between the game developers and the manufacturers. The manufacturers have come out with some very promising products, but without that working relationship –- excellent software to present in front of customers –- ultimately their products were not marketing successes. These companies either moved on to other businesses, or they took their stereoscopic 3D technology and focused on the business market –- research and development, working with molecules – -very niche markets, very costly markets with companies that are willing to spend ten to fifteen thousand dollars on a head-mounted display. Not really consumer technology.

So I decided to found Meant To Be Seen. I raised my sponsorship from the 3D manufacturers, and our whole mandate is to create benefits for the different members. Benefits for the consumers, in that they get the 3D experiences that they’re paying for; for the game developers, so they’re able to tell really good stories using 3D technologies and market their products to the right people; and ultimately for the manufacturers, so when they spend all their money on research and development to put out these innovative solutions, they have happy customers and they have the software to show them.

It’s a win-win for all involved.

MTBS's Neil Schneider (right) with Lenny Lipton, CTO of Real D

GameCyte: When did you go from a man-with-a-plan – a gentleman advocating the technology to friends, relatives and acquaintances – to someone who had clout with manufacturers, developers and so on?

NS: It… it happened a lot faster than I anticipated. It took perhaps six months to raise the money. I put a plan down on paper, and it just seemed so obvious to me that this would work. When I told my wife what I wanted to do, she just laughed. It took about six months, and the website was launched in March 2007.

The membership was very excited, because they didn’t really have a home for stereoscopic 3D until that point, and I started doing presentations within no more than three months. The whole idea behind MTBS is positive energy – there are no competitors when it comes to MTBS, because we’re all after very much the same thing. There are different players, like IZ3D, NVIDIA, TDVision…

GameCyte: Who signed on first? Who gave you the first shot at turning this from a enthusiast community into a full advocacy group?

NS: I have to give credit to IZ3D. IZ3D was formerly called Neurok Optics, and they were previously into the medical imaging business, but they really saw a big opportunity in gaming – as did we all. I had called a number of manufacturers – and I’m not going to name names – who said no, no, no, no no… IZ3D said yes. I explained exactly what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to do it, and I insisted that we were an independent organization who would work with whomever we want and put whatever content we want, and they said “Neil, you just do what you have to do. Make it happen.” It was a golden opportunity for myself and for the industry, and we’re very thankful to IZ3D.

A number of months later, TDVision joined as well. TDVision is prototyping new head-mounted displays – special helmets with independent screens for each of your eyes – and they’re making waves in Hollywood as well because they have something called TDV Codec, a way of encoding stereoscopic 3D content to be distributed to the home. These are small companies that are really putting their resources not just in their own products, but building the industry up so S-3D is the mass market success that we’re all after.

GameCyte: Tell me about MTBS’ role in building that industry.

NS: For game developers, what we do is test games for problems that aren’t obvious, so they can fix them, and ultimately our goal is to certify games so when gamers go to the store, or go online, they know ahead of time which games are going to be compatible with their 3D solutions.

The biggest problem that I found was when I wanted to play a game, I had difficulty finding out what settings I needed to get the game to run. Not everyone has the patience to do that.

We also do actual game reviews, looking at them from the point of view of a stereoscopic 3D gamer. “How is the game in true 3D?” “How does 3D add or take away from the gaming experience?” It’s a different perspective from 2D gaming reviews, and our members really enjoy that.

GameCyte: When you pick games to review, do you choose those that you know work well in stereoscopic 3D, or do you try to test all the latest games?

NS: Our goal is to test all the latest games. To date, we’ve been getting game samples from Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Epic Games… you name it – all the game developers are familiar with what we do and they send us game samples on a regular basis. We profile the games that are successful on our website. What I mean by that is if a game is an abysmal failure and we can’t get it to run in 3D at all, we’re not going to talk about it on the website, because it’s not of use to our members. People want to know what works, not so much what doesn’t work.

I want to make it clear though, certification and reviews are two different things. Our reviews are actual reviews of how good the game is and so on. Certification is more fact-based, and what that means is it either works or it doesn’t, and if it works what criteria make it work, and what anomalies can you expect.

But in both cases, we will only profile games that actively work in stereoscopic 3D.

GameCyte: This certification process – is this a service you offer developers?

NS: Yes, but I want to make it clear that we do not charge game developers. This is a complimentary service, and what we do is when the game developer earns that certification from MTBS, we will actually promote that game to our members as a safe purchase.

Now, Unigen and Dark Basic Professional are two game engines that have implemented native stereoscopic 3D support; when you create a game using their software, you get true stereoscopic 3D without the need for additional software by IZ3D or NVIDIA, and so we’ve given them native MTBS certification.

If you go to our front page, you’ll occasionally see advertising for their products on our website, which we also do not charge for. The reason we do this is because we want to give game developers as much benefit as we can for implementing 3D support.

GameCyte: So, let’s talk a little bit about the challenging facing S-3D adoption. You’d mentioned that there was a missed opportunity back when there was a CRT on every desk – why was that?

NS: There were a couple challenges. Back then – and this is pretty consistent up to today – NVIDIA had a graphics card share of maybe 30% of the market. ATI was another 30%, and then the difference was the graphics cards that are built into the computer, which don’t really have the processing power for what we want to do. At the time, NVIDIA was the only software solution on the market, and when it came to supporting stereoscopic 3D, it didn’t just mean that a developer was going to support 3D gaming, it also meant that a game developer is only going to support 3D gaming for a portion of the market. It was a niche of a niche.

Another challenge with the technology was that the software wasn’t quite up to speed with the technology. Even then, with older games, you still had to turn down settings and special effects to get the games to work, and this was a customer challenge. If you wanted to play stereoscopic 3D games, you had to have a certain level of expertise. Another issue was the LCD shutter glasses themselves. The technology worked great – I wouldn’t be in this business if I wasn’t impressed by what I saw with the shutter glasses – but there were some myths and challenges which end-users didn’t understand and got frustrated with.

I’ll give you an example. Shutter glasses work by flickering very quickly between left and right eyes, and it has to be at a certain refresh rate or you can get sick and so on. Well, what happened was people were buying this technology, and they weren’t having their computers set up the right way, they’d get this nauseating strobe effect – which shouldn’t happen if it was set up properly – and got turned off by the technology. Now, there’s this stigma of 3D and shutter glasses having this strobe effect.

GameCyte: You mean to say that was a myth even at the time?

NS: Even at the time. People would try it, they’d get frustrated with it, they’d throw it away… it’s really harmful when there’s such misinformation. Even today, if you brought up 3D with an average gamer, the first thing they would do is say “Ugh, I think those red/blue glasses are cheesy” or “I get headaches from those LCD shutter glasses.”

Those were some key challenges, and then again there was no business relationship between the game developers and the software developers. NVIDIA, to their credit, were really the pioneers in releasing this software. In my understanding, the software was free for the manufacturers, and they were not charging for the software for end-gamers, but they didn’t have the leverage for the game developers to get involved, and leverage is key.

Even today, leverage is going to be key. With a game developer who earns millions and millions of dollars, what’s going to convince them to make sure that their games are compatible with these 3D technologies? Well, if NVIDIA represents 30% of the market… game developers don’t like to do proprietary things, they want to support as much as they can, because they don’t want to limit their audiences. It was both a blessing and a curse that NVIDIA was the only player; a blessing in that they were pioneering and showing what the technology can do, and a curse because on their own, I don’t think they had the leverage to make things work.

It’s a different world today, but back then it was too much, too soon.

GameCyte: Today, it seems like the stigma is still there – but now, you also have to convince gamers to trade in their LCD monitors for better ones. How you plan to surmount this new challenge?

NS: I ask this question to a lot of our own interviewees: “What problem is 3D solving?” What I mean by that is this: You have to understand the problem before you can state what the solution is. The technology is Meant To Be Seen, meaning you don’t grasp the benefits of 3D until you see the technology first-hand, but we don’t have the luxury of being able to show 3D to every single gamer in the world. So how do you convey the benefit of 3D without them actually seeing it?

The way to do that is to define the problem. We think the problem is that gamers are spending top-dollar on their computer equipment, they’re getting framerates as high as 80 to 100 frames per second in some games, and it’s an issue of justification. How do you justify the expense of your computer? Adding stereoscopic 3D, because it adds superior game immersion, helps justify that. I asked a graphics designer who saw the 3D first-hand, “what problem does this solve for you?” and in his words, he said “You know, this is the first time I’m seeing my work the way it was designed to be seen. I always render my content in 3D, but I’ve never actually seen it in 3D.”

With NVIDIA, I interviewed Andrew Fear, as you have, and I asked him what problem 3D solves. He said, “Well, we live in a 3D world. The only thing that’s not 3D is the screen that we’re looking at. Stereoscopic 3D makes our gaming appear as it does in the real world.” I thought that sounded simple enough, but is that a problem easily defined enough to get people to bang down the doors to buy the latest 3D panels and HDTVs and so on?

If I told you had bad breath, the first thing you’d do is run to get mouthwash or brush your teeth. We want a similar reaction out of gamers. You’re only seeing your game in 2D; you really should be seeing it in 3D.

GameCyte: Back in the days of the CRT, all you had to do to justify your purchase was hope for decent driver support, but now you have to actually go out and purchase something new, and justify that expenditure as well. Is defining the problem really enough, or will there need to be some price point which needs to be set in order to make this happen?

NS: I’m unconvinced that price point is what’s going to determine the success. Let’s look at modern graphics cards. Graphics cards are the bread and butter of NVIDIA and AMD, and one day Intel as well, and what drives gamers to continually upgrade their equipment? The problem they’re working to solve is frames per second, and if you want to be a competitive gamer, and score as well as other people, you need more frames per second, and that’s why you spend top dollar on graphics cards and CPUs and so on.

GameCyte: The virtual arms race.

NS: Exactly. So that problem’s defined. Now it’s easy to state the 3D problem when people see it first-hand, but that core problem of how to convey it textually… that’s something that we’re working to solve. But it’s not unnatural for gamers to upgrade their equipment to get an additional benefit.

GameCyte: With all your contacts, can you tell me what 3D hardware adoption is like so far in the LCD era?

NS: I can’t speak for IZ3D’s numbers or TDVisions, but we know for certain that there are approximately 1.5 million units – and I’m talking all the 3D products put together – I’d estimate about a million and a half to two million by the end of the year.

In a good way, history is repeating itself. I mentioned that when the CRT fell off the desk and the LCD replaced it, stereoscopic 3D kind of fizzled with it, because there wasn’t a medium to display 3D. But now…

The way NVIDIA has positioned it, there’s this Viewsonic monitor coming out towards the end of the year, they have the software support to work with it, and if gamers get their Viewsonic monitor [and NVIDIA’s glasses – Ed.] they’re going to have this 3D experience. But in two to three years, maybe even less time, this 120Hz Viewsonic fast refresh rate LCD panel isn’t going to be a niche market product – every LCD panel will have this feature. It’s not going to be something unique, and it doesn’t have to be implemented for the purpose of having 3D. I don’t think Viewsonic is going to position its monitor as a 3D-only monitor.

Same with DLP. We’ve got Mitsubishi and Samsung 3D HDTVs on the market today, but are customers buying these televisions because they’re 3D? Not necessarily so, because they’re priced very similarly to traditional DLP sets; it just so happens that the technology of DLP is compatible with LCD shutter glasses.

As far as the IZ3D solution, the big benefit there is the polarized solution, so it’s not shutter glasses based; it’s priced out at under $600 US, which is somewhat competitive with a high-grade 22-inch; and on condition that the true 3D experience is there, it’s a justifiable expense.

So this isn’t a huge leap for a 2D gamer to jump into 3D – it’s not so unnatural. It’s just that previous hump that was there when CRT fell off the market has now been replaced. The technology just had to catch up.

GameCyte: So the technology is there now, you’re saying, and the question is whether we can get gamers to buy into the immersion.

NS: That’s where I fit in. That’s why we’re working so hard to make sure that there are benefits for game developers to release good, compatible stereoscopic gaming software.

NVIDIA has their own stamp of approval, called “The Way It’s Meant To Be Played.” The way their program worked, and the way it still works today, is that they work with game developers to optimize the game so it works well with their brand of graphics cards. However, with stereoscopic 3D, even though they talked about it in their programming guide and have this whole section dedicated to it in the guide, it wasn’t a requirement for earning The Way It’s Meant To Be Played standing.

The knowledge was there; there just wasn’t a motivation.

GameCyte: Are you saying that has changed, that stereo 3D compatibility is becoming a requirement to earn NVIDIA certification?

NS: It’s not my place to answer that; I can’t speak to NVIDIA’s goals with their own program. But whatever encouragement NVIDIA provides to promote 3D gaming, we’re very supportive of.

GameCyte: NVIDIA’s told me about their own outreach to game developers; how does MTBS work with software developers to forward this technology?

NS: Let’s say you’re a game developer, and you’re well aware of DirectX but you don’t know the first thing about S-3D technologies, and you haven’t sampled the technology. What we’ll do is connect the game developer directly with the companies working with MTBS. We’ll get the equipment in their hands so they can sample it and see any problems firsthand. As far as programming for 3D, we have very close relationships with the major stereoscopic 3D driver developers, and we will share with them any findings and feedback and connect them with the right people to make sure the technology works.

From a game developer’s point of view, instead of having to reinvent the wheel, we give them all the necessary resources to make sure their resources look good the first time. On the premise that the game does indeed look good, then we will promote that game to our members as a safe purchase, we will give them complimentary advertising on our website… at the end of the day, we want game developers to look as good as possible.

GameCyte: You’ve told me about how MTBS3D’s partners contribute to forwarding S-3D technology, and how your organization benefits them in return; what do your members get from this arrangement?

NS: Our members get a great deal. First, MTBS is the number one resource and authority group for stereoscopic 3D technology in the home. Up until recently, it was unheard of to be able to communicate directly with manufacturers and leading names like IZ3D, NVIDIA, Real D, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, and countless others. There is finally a direct communications link between consumer and S-3D product maker. IZ3D and TDVision in particular are continually updating and adjusting their products because of feedback and ideas put forward by our members in our forums. Empowerment to make a difference, to have a part in making a difference - I think that’s very exciting and important for members.

GameCyte: Since modern games are natively rendered in three dimensions, it’s not much of a jump to enable stereoscopic 3D support in the games via software driver. But have you heard anything about games being built from the ground up specifically for stereoscopic 3D?

NS: We know it’s public information that Ubisoft is working with James Cameron on Avatar, so there’s nothing I can share there that you don’t already know, but what is exciting – and I’m not in a position to go public with it yet – is there’s a leading console developer that makes games for Xbox and PlayStation 3 and Wii, and they’re very excited to implement native stereoscopic 3D support in their upcoming console games.

They’re actually looking for new MTBS partners to work with to supply hardware and such so that they can get the games tested out. If there are any of your readers who could help with that, that’d be a big plus.

I will share that one of the game developers who we’re working with made a remark about why they might want to go the native route versus the driver route, and it goes like this: when you’re playing a modern 3D video game with a driver, the gamer can control the entire experience – how much separation there is, how much convergence or pop-out experience there is, and you can customize it according to your eyes and your preference. But all game developers are storytellers, and the big successes are the story-driven games.

He said, “Stereoscopic 3D is great; it’s such an effective medium, but what I’m concerned about is putting too much control with the gamer, because that could impact how my story is told. One of the reasons we’re working to implement native support is with the exception of adjustments to make sure it’s comfortable for the gamer’s eyes, we want to tell stories we want to tell the way they’re meant to be told.”

GameCyte: So there is progress being made towards native 3D gaming, then.

NS: Oh, 100%. It’s not just about marketing and “how many gamers are going to see the game in 3D,” that’s not the driving force for game developers to take an interest in this. It’s about storytelling. Does 3D add to the story? If S-3D is successful, it has to be a story-driven success; it can’t be a technology-driven success. As long as it compliments the story, then our industry is in good shape.

GameCyte: I hadn’t heard much about the importance of story before; I figured that S-3D was a technology concern, and gamers interested in technology would gravitate toward it. What is it about the story? Is it just the “I am there” experience?

NS: The 3D experience adds a lot of fun, you’re more in-tune… There’s a criticism that I sometimes hear that competitive gamers are concerned that the 3D will somehow affect their scores if the framerates are too slow, but in practice I find that I play better in stereoscopic 3D than I do in traditional 2D, because I’m more in-tune with the game.

GameCyte: I’ve heard that a few times, that you can be more competitive in S-3D, but when I’ve asked “is this something we’ll see in competition,” the answers have indicated that this isn’t something that’s being done yet.

NS: We’ll have to wait and see. I have… I’m not in a position to comment on that yet, but it’s… We’ll have to wait and see.

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• Is Your Gaming Future in Stereo 3D?
• Is Your Gaming Future in Stereo 3D? — Part Two
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• AMD Partners with iZ3D For Stereoscopic Gaming — ‘U-Decide’ Survey
• Is Your Gaming Future in Stereo 3D? — Part Four