Latest news with #Godot
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Wait no more
On a sweltering May afternoon, with an apocalyptic smokescreen descending upon the ruins of a burned-down monastery in St. Norbert, director Rodrigo Beilfuss leads rehearsals for a play that's frustrated him every day since preparation began in April. 'It's killing me in a beautiful way,' the artistic director of Shakespeare in the Ruins says with a smile. The work he's discussing is Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a play that since its première has confounded, confused, delighted and enlightened audiences the world over. JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS Macbeth (Darren Martens, left) and Lady Macbeth (Lindsay Nance) are the sensual heart of Shakespeare's classic murder mystery. Called an 'acrid cartoon of the story of mankind' in 1956 by New York Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson, Godot opens on June 13 in St. Norbert, with an estimable cast led by Arne MacPherson's Vladimir, Cory Wojcik's Estragon and Tom Keenan's Pozzo. This season at the Ruins, the company is producing Godot in repertory with Macbeth, which opens tonight, directed by Emma Welham. Last produced by SiR as an award-winning feature film in 2020 as a pandemic pivot project, the Scottish-based play features Darren Martens in the titular role, alongside Lindsay Nance (Lady Macbeth), Tracy Penner (Banquo), Ray Strachan (Macduff) and three actors — Keenan, Liam Dutiaume and Mackenzie Wojcik (Cory Wojcik's son) — who will straddle the worlds of Beckett and Shakespeare by appearing in both productions. Welham, making her professional directing debut, says that like Godot, Macbeth is a challenging, layered piece of theatre that demands consideration of tragic structure, the presence of the supernatural and the masks its characters wear to cover their private selves. In complementary ways, both directors agree, the works wrestle with human nature, trust and the fallibility of the universe. JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS Emma Welham takes on the challenge of directing Macbeth. 'Throughout the course of the play — spoiler alert — Macbeth becomes a tyrannical ruler, and this show really asks the question of how we're willing to stand up to it. What are we willing to do to stand up against injustice? It asks the question of who we put our trust in and why,' says Welham, who just finished her first year at the National Theatre School's directing program in Montreal. 'The central image of the show I return to is when Lady Macbeth says, 'Look like the innocent flower / but be the serpent under't.'' Nothing is exactly as it seems, and as in Godot, the work calls into question what is ever knowable about the characters we watch onstage or meet in day-to-day life. At the rehearsal for Godot, the cast and crew are working their way through the particularities of the movement and dialogue in Beckett's two-act tragicomedy, so clearly described in the script that each time the slavish Lucky (Dutiaume) moves a muscle, it must perfectly follow — or blatantly ignore — the orders of Keenan's prim Pozzo. 'It's relentlessly specific,' Beilfuss says, again smiling. JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS Director Emma Welham (right) works with Darren Martens and Lindsay Nance prior to the opening of Macbeth. 'Can you propose a rhythm for us?' MacPherson asks the director after his Vladimir and Wojcik's Estragon ran through a playful tête à tête. Moments later, Keenan tests his character's coachmen's whip, and soon, Pozzo is smoking a pipe and discarding the bones from a bucket of freshly consumed St. Norbert fried chicken. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. Nearby, Mackenzie Wojcik, his father and Dutiaume kick around a hacky sack in the shade of a monastery wall. After about an hour, stage managers decide it's time for a break, suggesting the cast drink water and take respite from the sun. 'I don't know where a logical place to break is,' Keenan says. JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS Darren Martens and Lindsay Nance get up to a bit of mayhem and murder in Macbeth. 'That's the problem with this play,' says Beilfuss, laughing. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Irish Examiner
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Cork couple do their bit for Samuel Beckett
No one familiar with Gare St Lazare Ireland's body of work will have been surprised by the success of what the Hollywood Reporter hailed as their 'authentically powerful' production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot at the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles late last year. Gare St Lazare is run by Cork couple Judy Hegarty Lovett, who directed the production, and her partner Conor Lovett, who played Pozzo. They launched the company in 1996, when Hegarty Lovett first directed Lovett in their acclaimed adaptation of Beckett's novel Molloy at the Battersea Arts Centre in London, and they have since presented the Nobel Laureate's work to rapt audiences all over the world. In Los Angeles, more than 26,000 people saw their Godot, which also starred Rainn Wilson of NBC's The Office as Vladimir and Aasif Mandvi of The Daily Show as Estragon, over its seven-week run. For much of their career, Hegarty Lovett and Lovett have been based in Méricourt — a village on the River Seine an hour northwest of Paris. Méricourt is where they reared their family of three, Louis, Ruby and Lux, and they don't foresee ever leaving. If anything, they're digging in. In 2023, in a gesture that acknowledges their devotion to both Beckett and Méricourt, Hegarty Lovett and Lovett established Atelier Samuel Beckett, an artist's residency in a house next door to their own. 'We're at that stage where we felt we should be giving something back and the residency seemed the best way of doing it. Méricourt is a small community of 380 people, and we're part of its fabric. We're very pleased that our neighbours have been so open to the idea, and are very happy with it. They all came to walk through the house and offer help and furniture. They've been very generous. You don't want to parachute in with an idea like this. You want to integrate it into the community, 'says Hegarty Lovett. Hegarty Lovett and Lovett first got to know Méricourt through the late Bob Meyer, a theatre producer from Chicago they'd worked with in Paris. 'Bob had a place in Méricourt where we'd come and stay,' says Lovett. 'He mentioned that an American couple had a summer house nearby, and they might let us move in when they were not around. So we approached them, and they let us have it. 'After a year we tried to formalise the arrangement; we already had one child, our son Louis, and another on the way. But they didn't want rent, they were just happy to have us in the house. When they came over for the summer, we might be out on tour, or we'd go back to Cork. It worked out fine. It gave us a great start, having the place for so long. We had the same arrangement for six or seven years until we managed to buy another house in the village, where we still live today.' Samuel Beckett Hegarty Lovett's ground-breaking work as a director and Lovett's achievements as an actor have ensured that Gare St Lazare is one of the most dynamic Irish theatre companies at work today. Growing up, however, neither was initially drawn to the stage. Hegarty Lovett attended the Crawford College of Art and Design, while Lovett did a bilingual secretarial course. 'My French teacher on that course was Roisin Crowley, who decided that we should do an end-of-year show, The Lesson by Ionesco,' says Lovett, who lived in the Ballinlough building that also housed his parents' restaurant. 'I'd never been on stage before, but I suddenly thought, 'oh my God, this is where I'm supposed to be'. I went on to study Stagecraft at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa on Tramore Road, and after that, I started acting with the Dram Soc at UCC.' Hegarty Lovett, from Monkstown, became interested in performance art in her final year at the Crawford, which led onto working in the theatre, and completing a post-graduate degree in Dramatherapy at University of Hertfordshire in Britain. When she and Lovett started working together, 'we went into it without fully identifying what it was or what our titles were,' she says. 'It's only in the past few years that I've started thinking of myself as a director.' Their interest in adapting Molloy for the stage led to a meeting with Beckett's publisher, John Calder. 'Because Molloy is a prose work, John was the point of contact for permissions. He was very supportive. He brought Edward Beckett, Samuel's nephew, to see us in London, and thankfully, he liked what we were doing as well. Edward manages the Beckett estate, and from then on we dealt directly with him. We've always maintained a really good relationship.' After Molloy, they went on to adapt Malone Dies and The Unnamable, the other novels in the trilogy Beckett produced after the war, around the same time he composed Waiting for Godot. Later, they also adapted two of his novellas, First Love and The End. Eventually, they branched out into producing larger Beckett productions, beginning with Godot, with Lovett playing the role of Vladimir, which they presented at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2013 and toured to Shanghai, Boston and New York. Actor Stephen Dillane and director Conor Lovett at The Everyman, Cork in 2018. Picture: Darragh Kane They've worked with other writers as well. Hegarty Lovett has directed Lovett in Conor McPherson's The Good Thief, Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Michael Frayn's Copenhagen, and Will Eno's Title and Deed, which they premiered at Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2011. Hegarty Lovett's work on another Eno play, The Realistic Joneses, won her the Best Director award at the 2022 Irish Times Theatre Awards. Lovett has also worked with other theatre companies, in roles such as Lucky in Walter Asmus' 50th anniversary Godot production at the Gate in Dublin; The Old Man In His Coffin in Michael Keegan Dolan's The Bull for Fabulous Beast; and David in Lucy Caldwell's Leaves, directed by Garry Hynes for a Druid/Royal Court co-production in Galway and London. He has also acted in films such as Moll Flanders, Intermission, De Gaulle and Ritornello, and on television in Father Ted, Charlie, Versailles and Belgravia. The couple's primary interest, however, has always been in finding new ways to bring Beckett to the stage. In 2015, they began work on an adaptation of his 1961 novel How It Is, which became the basis of the PhD, on the staging of Beckett's prose, that Hegarty Lovett completed six years later through the University of Reading. Even by Beckett's standards, How It Is is bleak, featuring a narrator lying in a pool of mud in the dark who repeats the story of his life as he hears it recounted by a voice inside him. ' How It Is is often seen as being one of Beckett's more inaccessible or impenetrable works, but we think it's a masterpiece,' says Hegarty Lovett. 'We presented our adaptation in three parts over three years from 2018, on a residency at the Everyman Theatre in Cork, working with people like the tenor Mark Padmore and the Irish Gamelan Orchestra. Edward Beckett came to each of the premieres, and he couldn't believe what we'd done with it. We eventually filmed the whole thing as well, during the COVID pandemic. The film is six hours 17 minutes long.' Gare St Lazare has had many supporters, in Ireland and elsewhere, but it was an American couple who helped bring the Atelier Samuel Beckett project to fruition. 'Paul Ralston and Deb Gwinn from Vermont have been patrons for years,' says Hegarty Lovett. 'When they were selling up their coffee business to retire, they approached us and said 'look, we'd like to do something substantial for the company, and make sure you're secure going forward'. When they asked what we'd like to do, we said 'let's create an artist residency in Méricourt'. They thought it was a brilliant idea. They said '100% let's go for it'.' The Beckett Atelier Lovett adds: 'And at the same time the woman who used to own the house next to ours approached us and said 'I'm thinking of selling, and I thought you guys might be interested'. Which was the weirdest thing, as we hadn't put anything out about it. So we bought and renovated the house. We asked Edward Beckett if we could name it the Atelier Samuel Beckett, and he was delighted. That's a huge branding. But it's also a huge endorsement for us as artists, that the Beckett Estate would give us that permission. Edward is a patron of the project, along with the actor Ciarán Hinds, who's based in Paris.' 'Currently it's the only Beckett destination building in the world,' says Hegarty Lovett. 'Beckett's apartment in Paris is still in the family, and he left his retreat in the village of Ussy-sur-Marne to the local farmers who used to look after it for him. But there's no Beckett museum, and no other Beckett residency.' The Atelier in Méricourt has two en suite bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and a study, which houses the Beckett Library, with books donated by Edward Beckett, John Calder's widow Sheila Colvin Calder and the Lovetts themselves. The house overlooks the River Seine, and there are a number of caves on the property they hope to develop as studio spaces. 'Méricourt is a beautiful place to stay in,' says Lovett. 'Paris is 40 minutes by train, Claude Monet's house in Giverny is a 10-minute drive away, and La Roche-Guyon, another nearby village, has a massive chateau that's well worth a visit. We make our second car available to our residents. As long as you're licensed, we have a fully comprehensive insurance that will cover you.' Edward Beckett and Hinds have both stayed at the Atelier, as have writers Kevin Barry and John Dunlea; composers Benedict Schelpper-Connolly, David Stalling and Anthony Kelly; and actors Faline England, Sorcha Fox and Ally Ní Chiaráin, among many others. 'Galway Culture Company has sponsored two residencies, and we're hoping to come to a similar arrangement with Cork County Council and the National Sculpture Factory,' says Hegarty Lovett. The couple have also just announced a three-year collaboration with the National Latinx Theatre in Los Angeles, awarding three-week residencies to the Chicano playwright Luis Alfaro in 2026, the Uruguayan Gracia Rogelia in 2027, and the Venezolana Rebeca Aleman in 2028. Along with the space for artists to stay and work in, residencies at the Atelier come with the option of mentorship. 'When we started the Atelier, it was obvious to us that it should provide access to the artistic directors of Gare St Lazare,' says Lovett. 'We feel we have something to offer, all this Beckett knowledge we've built up over the years that we're happy to impart to others.' 'We also have access to the greater Beckett community,' says Hegarty Lovett. 'We know we can call on these people to give mentorship, workshops or whatever. And all of that can be tailored to whoever's coming through and whatever their specific needs are. We're not suggesting that everyone who stays here must work on a Beckett project, of course. The only prerequisite, really, is that they be curious about Beckett and want to learn more.' Hegarty Lovett and Lovett currently run the Atelier themselves, but longterm they'd like to get somebody else in to run it. They have two new Gare St Lazare productions in development. 'One is another collaboration with Will Ono, which we're developing with the Gate Theatre in Dublin,' says Hegarty Lovett. 'The other is a new version of a Marcel Mihalovici chamber opera based on Beckett's one-man play, Krapp's Last Tape. We hope to launch that in Ireland next year, and then tour it internationally.' Their family is equally busy. 'All three live in Paris,' says Lovett. 'Louis is a filmmaker, Ruby works at Art for Human Rights, and Lux is studying interior design, though she also acts. She worked with us on Shades Through a Shade at the Samuel Beckett Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival last year.' Looking back, they're sometimes surprised at just how rich their journey has been. Hegarty Lovett says: 'In those early years in Méricourt, we created the body of work we're still bringing out around the world today, It has sustained us hugely.' SAMUEL BECKETT 1906-1989 Samuel Beckett was born and reared in Dublin, but settled in Paris in 1937. For all that he found Ireland too conservative a place to live in, he still took a certain pride in his background. Once, when asked if he was English, he replied: 'Au contraire.' Beckett published a short story collection, More Pricks Than Kicks, in 1934, and went on to produce a series of novels that included Murphy (1938), Watt (1934), Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951) and The Unnamable (1958). However, he is better-known for his plays, including Waiting for Godot (1953), Endgame (1957), Krapp's Last Tape (1958) and Happy Days (1961). Beckett is associated with the Theatre of the Absurd. His works for the stage are renowned for their bleak sense of humour. In Waiting for Godot, two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, pass the time in idle banter. When Estragon embarks on an eloquent description of the Dead Sea, Vladimir remarks: 'You should have been a poet.' Estragon gestures at his rags and replies 'I was. Isn't that obvious?' Beckett did not enjoy the limelight. When he won the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature, his wife Suzanne Dechevaux- Dumesnil called it 'a catastrophe,' knowing the prize money might bring them financial stability, but it would be at the cost of their privacy. Suzanne died in July 1989 and Beckett in December. They are buried in Montparnasse, under a headstone that Beckett insisted could be 'any colour, as long as it's grey.' Read More Michael Quane and Johanna Connor: Cork husband and wife artists unite for joint exhibition
Mint
01-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
A private capex slump: An imperfect but indicative survey points to one
India's wait for a boom in private-sector capital expenditure has been like 'waiting for Godot,' to borrow the title of a Samuel Beckett play about endless anticipation. Last year's flickers of hope are expected to dim in 2025-26, going by the Forward-Looking Survey on Private Sector Capex Investment Intentions, a first-of-its-kind exercise by the government, which released its findings on Tuesday. The survey projects intended private capex at almost ₹ 4.9 trillion this fiscal year, about a quarter less than last year's plans. The slump reflects 'cautious planning after a strong 2024-25," according to the statistics ministry. Every sector does not foresee a spending dip, though. Manufacturers plan to raise their investments to ₹ 2.1 trillion, 40% more than last year's level. Construction is another sector that reveals an intent to invest more. Yet, by and large, businesses expect to cut back. The survey also sought data on actual capital expenditure in previous years, with the numbers adding up to ₹ 4.2 trillion in 2023-24, ₹ 5.7 trillion in 2022-23 and nearly ₹ 4 trillion in 2021-22. Taken together, the ups and downs of this curve outline the story of a key economic deficiency: private investment. The survey was conducted by the National Statistical Office from November 2024 to January 2025 via an online platform that offered chatbot assistance. If filling out the input forms was a complex task, the sample selection process was even more so. As the survey covers only large active companies registered with the ministry of corporate affairs, the initial pool included manufacturers with annual turnovers of at least ₹ 400 crore, trading businesses with at least ₹ 300 crore and others with toplines of ₹ 100 crore or more. Of 16,025 such firms, less than a third were picked for the exercise. How? To balance size as a criterion with sectoral diversity, enterprises that made the initial cut were slotted into 17 strata by their business focus. Those in strata with 100 players or fewer were directly enrolled in the sample, while businesses in other strata were sorted by their fixed assets so that larger ones could be included and some of the smaller ones could be picked randomly—but in a ratio to fill slots determined by the size of their strata. Finally, 5,380 entities were asked to respond. Since mega-corps operate in fields with rather few rivals, their inclusion in the sample can largely be assumed. But the survey's data must not be taken as hard fact. The complexity of how it was put together is one reason. Its low response rate is another. Just 58.3% responded, with a little over 40% revealing their plans for 2025-26. This raises the question of a 'self-selection bias,' as the data only captures the plans of businesses ready to reveal them. As the statistics ministry's release admits, respondents 'appeared cautious in disclosing capex plans." To the ministry's credit, it has called the results 'indicative," best used to detect broad trends more than anything else. Its actual capex numbers offer us a snapshot alright, but one that's far from perfect. To the extent this new survey tells us which way private investment may be going, it could serve a useful purpose. The slump it foresees may already have served as an input for the finance ministry's monthly review of India's economy, the March bulletin of which warns that perceptions of uncertainty 'may cause the private sector to put its capital formation plans on hold." This is not good news at all for the Indian economy. But the point is to face it squarely. Which this survey helps us do.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Global Game Engine Market to Worth Over US$ 12.84 Billion By 2033
Game engine market thrives on immersive tech, AI integration, and cross-industry adoption. Unity and Unreal dominate, while open-source/mobile-first tools carve niches. Cloud innovation and indie-driven modularity expand accessibility, countered by fragmentation and regulatory pressures. Chicago, April 15, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global game engine market was valued at US$ 3.45 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach US$ 12.84 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 17.85% during the forecast period 2025–2033. Market growth is driven by surging demand for immersive gaming experiences and the rise of metaverse platforms. Advances in real-time 3D rendering, cross-platform compatibility, and AI-driven tools have positioned game engines as critical infrastructure for developers. Mobile gaming, which accounts for 48% of global gaming revenue, relies heavily on engines like Unity and Unreal for hyper-casual and AAA-quality titles. Meanwhile, industries beyond gaming—such as automotive design, film, and architecture—are adopting game engines for simulation, contributing to 22% of total engine revenue. Download Sample Pages: Emerging game engine markets in Southeast Asia and Latin America are fueling growth, with mobile-first developers leveraging affordable engines like Defold and Godot. Monetization models are also shifting subscription-based pricing (e.g., Unity Pro) now represents 63% of engine revenue, outpacing royalty-based systems. However, fragmentation persists, as niche engines targeting VR (e.g., CryEngine) struggle against giants holding 89% market share. Regulatory scrutiny over engine pricing and store fees, particularly in the EU, could reshape monetization strategies by 2025. Key Findings in Game Engine Market Market Forecast (2033) US$ 12.84 billion CAGR 17.85% Largest Region (2024) North America (35%) By Type 3D Game Engines (59%) By Deployment Type On-Premise Game Engines (55%) By Platform Mobile (35%) By Application Gaming (Entertainment) (70%) By End Users Game Developers (40%) Top Drivers Rising smartphone adoption fueling demand for mobile-first game engines. Government digital education programs expanding local developer talent pipelines. Growth in indie studios leveraging affordable open-source engine solutions. Top Trends Surge in lightweight engines optimizing for low-end device performance. Cross-platform engines prioritizing social media gaming integrations. Localization tools adapting engines for Andean cultural storytelling elements. Top Challenges Limited rural internet access stifling cloud-based engine adoption. High reliance on imported tools inflating engine licensing costs. Scarce venture capital restricting studio growth and tech upgrades. Dominant Players: Unity vs. Unreal Engine's Strategic Battleground Unity and Unreal Engine collectively control 51% of the game engine market as of 2024, though their strategies diverge sharply. Unity's focus on democratization—catering to indie developers and mobile studios—has cemented its dominance in casual and hyper-casual gaming, with 71% of top 1,000 mobile games built on its platform. Its 2024 push into AI-powered asset generation (Unity Muse) and runtime fee adjustments aims to retain cost-sensitive users. Conversely, Unreal Engine 5.3 targets high-fidelity AAA projects, leveraging Nanite and Lumen technologies to dominate console and PC markets, including 83% of Sony's first-party titles. Epic Games' profitability hinges on Fortnite-driven MetaHuman adoption and its 12% store cut, while Unity faces backlash over 2023's pricing debacle. Both are expanding into non-gaming sectors: Unity's automotive and film toolkits grew 34% YoY, while Unreal's virtual production tools are used in 59% of Hollywood blockbusters. Talent wars are intensifying, with Unreal offering free educational licenses to universities, capturing 68% of graduate developer mindshare. However, Unity's recent partnership with Meta for VR development could disrupt Unreal's immersive tech stronghold. Open-Source Engines: Godot and Armory3D's Rising Influence Open-source engines are gaining traction in the game engine market, with Godot 4.2 capturing 8% of the market—a 140% increase since 2022—due to its lightweight architecture and MIT license. Indie studios, particularly in Eastern Europe and Brazil, praise its no-royalty model for mitigating financial risks in a volatile mobile ad market. Godot's 2024 updates, including Vulkan backend optimization and C# support, narrowed the performance gap with Unity in 2D and low-poly 3D projects. Armory3D, though niche, is favored by blockchain game developers for its Blender integration and WebAssembly export capabilities. Critically, open-source engines still lag in AAA workflows in the global game engine market—lack of premade assets and third-party toolchains limits scalability. Only 12% of studios using Godot deploy projects with budgets over $1 million. However, corporate backing is rising: Microsoft's 2023 $2 million donation to Godot improved .NET debugging, while Intel's Open Image Denoise plugin enhanced ray tracing. These collaborations signal a shift toward hybrid models, where open-source cores are commercialized via proprietary add-ons—a strategy Crytek abandoned with CryEngine's 2024 relaunch. Mobile-First Engines: Cocos2d-x and Defold's Niche Mastery in the Game Engine Market Cocos2d-x and Defold collectively power 19% of mobile games, focusing on lightweight performance for low-end devices—critical in markets like India and Africa, where 37% of users still run 2GB RAM phones. Cocos Creator 3.8's 2024 updates introduced native SwiftUI support and Huawei HarmonyOS compatibility, tapping into China's 1,200+ game studios adapting to U.S. sanctions. Defold's low-latency networking and HTML5 portability made it the engine of choice for instant games on TikTok and Snapchat, which monetize via microtransactions. Despite their agility, these engines face existential threats in the game engine market from Unity's 2024 Tiny Mode, which slashes package sizes to 8MB—40% smaller than Cocos. Monetization struggles persist: Cocos relies on consulting services for 91% of revenue, while Defold's donor-funded model limits R&D. Still, their cultural adaptability is unmatched. Cocos' WeChat Mini Games toolkit dominates China's $7.3 billion casual market, and Defold's Lua scripting attracts web2game studios pivoting from Flash. Both engines are betting on AI asset generators to offset content pipeline deficits. Cloud-Native Engines: AWS Lumberyard and Hybrid Solutions in Game Engine Market AWS Lumberyard's 2024 pivot to server-centric development (now Open 3D Engine) aligns with cloud gaming's projected $8.6 billion revenue. Integrations with AWS GameKit and Twitch enable studios to deploy global multiplayer sessions in <15 minutes, reducing server costs by 32%. Hybrid engines like SpatialOS leverage Azure and Google Cloud for MMOs, with 64% of developers citing scalability as their primary cloud advantage. However, latency remains a hurdle: only 41% of cloud-native engines support sub-50ms rendering for FPS titles. Epic's collaboration with NVIDIA Omniverse targets this gap in the game engine market, enabling GPU-agnostic ray tracing across data centers. Meanwhile, startups like Improbable shifted from gaming to enterprise metaverse, licensing their cloud engine to BMW and Accenture. The rise of 5G mmWave networks has further propelled adoption in Southeast Asia, where cloud gaming subscriptions grew 89% YoY. Yet, profitability is elusive—83% of cloud-native projects operate at a loss, relying on venture capital to offset AWS/GCP compute expenses. Indie Developer Impact: How Small Studios Shape Engine Innovations Indie developers contributed to 44% of 2024's engine feature requests, driving demand for modular architectures and no-code toolkits in the game engine market. Unity's 2024 Bolt 2.0 adoption surged 210% after studios like Hollow Ponds (Lil Gator Game) proved its viability for narrative-driven projects. Unreal's Lyra Starter Game template, meanwhile, reduced indie multiplayer dev time by 60%. However, fragmentation hurts productivity: indies juggle 4.2 third-party plugins on average, inflating costs and compatibility risks. Revenue-sharing models are rising as indies reject upfront fees. Godot's Patreon-backed development and Unreal's 'Below $1M Gross' royalty waiver attracted 27,000 studios in 2024. Indies also lead engine diversification: 33% use multiple engines (e.g., Unity for UI, Unreal for cinematics), utilizing middleware like FMOD and Wwise. Yet, toolchain complexity often outweighs benefits—56% of indies miss launch deadlines due to engine-related debugging. AI Integration: Procedural Generation and Automated Testing Tools Generative AI tools reduced asset production costs by 38% in 2024, with Unity's Sentis runtime enabling dynamic NPC dialogue via on-device LLMs. Unreal's partnership with Inworld AI popularized behavior trees that learn from player actions, though ethical concerns about training data persist. Procedural level generation (PLG) is now standard—58% of roguelikes use engines' built-in PLG, up from 12% in 2022. Automated testing adoption in the game engine market has doubled since 2023, with AI fixing 22% of bugs without developer input. However, overreliance risks homogenization: 67% of studios report AI-generated levels lack 'design intentionality.' Startups like Moonlander offer hybrid tools, blending AI iteration with human curation, yet engine-native solutions still dominate. Crucially, NVIDIA's ACE microservices now integrate with major engines, powering AI NPCs in 120+ games. Modify this report to fit your requirements: Future Outlook: AR/VR, Blockchain, and Industry Consolidation AR/VR headset shipments (18 million in 2024) drive demand for lightweight engines like UE5 Nanite and Unity PolySpatial. Apple's Vision Pro SDK favors Unity, but Unreal's Meta Quest 3 partnership dominates 63% of VR titles. Blockchain gaming's $5.9 billion valuation props up game engine market offering Web3 toolkits—Unity's Tezos integration and Godot's GDNative EVM plugins are key. Consolidation is inevitable: Microsoft's 2016 acquisition of PlayFab hints at Azure-engine bundling, while Tencent's Cubeworks merger targets Cocos2d-x synergies. Cross-industry engines for healthcare and education will grow 29% annually, challenging pure-play gaming vendors. Regulatory forks (e.g., EU's Digital Markets Act) may force royalty cuts, but giants will likely offset losses via enterprise SaaS pivots. Global Game Engine Market Major Players: Unity Technologies Epic Games (Unreal Engine) Crytek GmbH (CryEngine) YoYo Games Ltd. (GameMaker Studio 2) Scirra Ltd. (Construct 3) Cocos Inc. Microsoft Corporation Valve Corporation Marmalade Technologies Ltd. Other Prominent Players Key Segmentation: By Component Software (Game Engines) Services Customization & Integration Support & Maintenance Consulting & Training By Type 2D Game Engines 3D Game Engines 2.5D Game Engines (Hybrid) Virtual Reality (VR) Game Engines Augmented Reality (AR) Game Engines By Deployment Type Cloud-Based Game Engines On-Premise Game Engines By Platform PC Windows Mac Linux Console PlayStation Xbox Nintendo Switch Mobile iOS Android Web-based HTML5 WebGL Cloud Gaming Platforms (e.g., Stadia, GeForce NOW) By Application Gaming (Entertainment) Training and Simulation (Military, Healthcare, Aviation, etc.) Architecture and Urban Planning (Visualization) Film and Animation Education and E-learning Automotive (Vehicle Simulation, Design) Virtual Production (Cinematic & Real-time filmmaking) Others By End User Game Developers Independent Game Studios (Indie Developers) Enterprises (Simulation, Automotive, Education, etc.) Film and Media Production Companies Government & Defense Academic Institutions By License Type Free/Open Source Freemium (Royalty-based) Paid/Commercial License By Region North America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa (MEA) South America Have questions? 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Telegraph
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Oh My Godot!: This outdoor staging of Beckett's masterpiece is unforgettable
It's not often you can describe an outdoor production beset by rainfall as unforgettable, in a good way. But seeing Waiting for Godot amid the rolling, panoramic upland outside Enniskillen – the Northern Irish town where Samuel Beckett was sent to school in 1920 in his early teens – the sense of bleak and droll occasion was doubled and then redoubled as rain started to lash the pitter-patter interactions of theatre's greatest double-act, Vladimir and Estragon. It's such a simple, apposite idea to present Beckett's 1953 masterpiece al fresco (in Cuilcagh Lakelands Geopark to be precise) – its setting is so starkly unsheltered: 'A country road. A tree. Evening'. Seán Doran, doyen of Beckett extravaganzas, has presided over site-specific iterations of the play here before during his larger 'Happy Days' festival (2012-2022). Still, this is the first time they have arranged the two acts across consecutive days, thereby honouring the time scheme of the work. It marks a major moment nicely: this is the 70 th anniversary year of Godot's English-language premiere, and Beckett was born on Good Friday, 1906 (April 13). This venture strives to draw on Godot's post-war context and contemplation of the human condition, and localise it. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the town's conflict-riven past are being broached with canny heritage trails and socio-cultural discussions and even with cross-border casting. Doran has another trick up his sleeve, too; in a watershed moment, Oh My Godot's second round at Easter sees the Irish actress Olwen Fouéré join Alex Jennings and Malcolm Sinclair (in the leads) to play the hapless Lucky. It is apparently the first time the Beckett Estate has sanctioned a female actress to play one of the male roles. I'm tempted to hop back and see – again – the play in which, famously 'nothing happens, twice'. Despite it all being script-in-hand, Conor Grimes and David Pearse were contrastingly spellbinding, one snappy, the other sheepish, as the vagrant 'Didi and Gogo', wearing bowlers and overcoats, surreally planted by Antony Gormley's stainless-steel tree. A big bonus was that the cast (completed by a barking Andrew Bennett as Pozzo, a bedraggled Tadgh Murphy as Lucky and a sweetly tender Lorcán McManus as the Boy) relocated to Beckett's (and Oscar Wilde's) alma mater, the Portora Royal School (now Enniskillen Royal Grammar School), for the second act on Sunday, to avoid a serious downpour. Sitting in the wooden-floored assembly hall that the adolescent Beckett would have frequented, these surroundings threw the play's hierarchies, power-play and puerile joshing into relief. I don't think Doran – who's also organising a major Brian Friel retrospective in North-West Ireland from this summer – has his equal anywhere else in the UK; he lets literary giants bestride the landscape afresh.
