Ian Bogost has drawn attention to the theoretical importance of the engine for game development. In many respects, the engine is the game – or rather, any given engine supports a wide array of games with fundamentally similar capabilities. The engine determines what a game can or cannot do, and the cost of developing the engine is so significant that for blockbuster games an engine must deliver at least three game titles to make it worth creating in the first place.
Engines are also big business: superstar programmers (i.e. uber-nerds) write the code that steps up the top end capabilities for graphics, physics etc. and these cutting edge engines are then licensed for big bucks. Companies like id Software only make games to showcase their engines, which are their real money makers. This radical monopoly on engine construction is a central feature of the games industry – there can be no game without geeks to make them, which means every blockbuster that gets made is almost guaranteed to be ‘nerd friendly’.