The Problem
When we began this journey, Dolby Vision was already an established technology for movies and films to maximize ST.2084 and HLG high dynamic range (HDR) imaging. Dolby enhanced this with up to 10,000 nits peak brightness and 40 times more color information than HDR10. The existing SDK for Dolby Vision had been in use by TV and Film software packages. However, after interviewing several game developers, we identified several critical issues with the product:
- Lack of a real-time HLSL implementation for many of our picture quality improving enhancements
- Unacceptable latency introduced by our processing, which was a non-starter for game developers and players
- Developers’ reluctance to prioritize a technology that gamers didn’t request
- Poor brand awareness among gamers, with recognition in the single digits
- We had no proof points demonstrating Dolby Vision technology in a commercially available game
The Strategy
To address these challenges, I crafted a clear product outcome statement:
Developers will choose to create in Dolby Vision because it improves their visual quality while having a minimal impact on the production schedule, and because players demand it.
The outcome considered the two-sided marketplace of players and developers. Even though our SDK was intended for developers, we needed players to understand the value proposition and creation process enough to pressure developers to adopt Dolby Vision.
I created the strategy to guide the rest of the team on achieving the product outcome:
- Leverage Dolby’s accomplishments in other industries : Dolby had been successful in converting the TV and Film industries to the format, and framing it as another inevitability was a message that resonated with developers and players
- Develop in tandem with lighthouse customers: While Dolby had extensive HDR expertise, we lacked real-time rendering experience. We had to collaborate with developers to ensure our new SDK would meet their needs
- Educate developers: Although game programmers had some understanding of HDR imaging in the FP16 linear space, they lacked the dynamic tone mapping strengths of Dolby Vision to make that image shine on all displays
- Reduce time to market: Game programmers, and rendering engineers are notorious for being over booked, and can only focus on a single problem for a few weeks at most. Any solution and messaging we create should focus on time savings as our developer research indicated this was crucial for adopting new, untested technology
- Influencer engagement: The gaming market is driven by content creators who influence player perceptions. In my 10 years of game marketing experience, corporate PR messaging always falls flat from newcomers into this space. We have to build assets that influencers can easily digest and use in their own productions
Gamers, overwhelmed by choices and wary of overhyped products, rely on trusted games and influencers to guide their decisions. Recognizing this, we strategically partnered with established gaming franchises, and built compelling demos that could be replicated at home ensuring our message was seen as authentic rather than marketing fluff. This approach allowed us to bypass an extensive B2C marketing campaign and effectively reach our target audience
The road ahead of us was long and uncertain, and we didn’t have our first lighthouse customer…yet
The First Lighthouse Customer
While streaming services had already adopted Dolby Vision on the previous console generation, the gaming industry had not embraced the technology. Microsoft expressed interest in enabling Dolby Vision for games on the Xbox Series X, but required a proof of concept from a 1st party developer before committing to the feature. Given the high-pressure development cycle every 1st party developer was in leading up to a new console launch, convincing them to adopt our untested technology presented a significant challenge. To secure Microsoft’s commitment, a compelling pitch was essential.
Our pitch consisted of a demo we had developed in collaboration with the Microsoft SiGMA team who researched future rendering technologies at Xbox. We had created a specialized version of the Insects Demo, which utilized Dolby Vision tone mapping highlighting the visual improvements over HDR10. Despite the clear visual benefits, we still needed to convince a single 1st party developer to commit to an SDK with had not solved the developer pain points yet.
The demo room was small, with a line of developers from various studios waiting to see it. Instead of delivering the demo which did not encourage a two-way conversation, I waited in line with the developers to listen to the challenges they faced. Two developers on the 343 Industries’ rendering team mentioned they were struggling with their wide color gamut and tone mapping targets for their upcoming game Halo Infinite. I posed a challenge “If the demo inside solves your issues, wouldn’t it be awesome if the next Halo set the visual benchmark as the first Dolby Vision game?” I was confident in the demo’s impact, so I left the decision in their hands.
Sure enough I was correct. This small interaction organically lead to our first lighthouse customer, and paved the way for our engineering teams to interact with their engineering teams and laid the foundation for the first Dolby Vision SDK release
Halo Infinite was the first game to launch with Dolby Vision, matured our SDK to GA status, and created credibility for Dolby in the gaming industry
The Second Lighthouse Customer
After Establishing the first Dolby Vision implementation in Halo Infinite, we were confident in making a big enough splash at launch. Now it was time to convince the OEMs to make more Dolby Vision displays to be ready for this marketing moment. However there was another challenge. Even though we had confirmation that Halo Infinite would ship with Dolby Vision, we were under NDA and unable to speak about Halo Infinte to any display OEM. Instead, we needed to create quick demos that could give small wins when dealing with display and PC partners in the lead up to the launch. My research revealed that over 30% of games on Xbox were utilizing the Unreal Engine, and growing year over year. This aligned perfectly with our focus on Direct3D 12 on Xbox, as this was the primary rendering API for Windows and Xbox.
However, we faced a significant challenge: We had no programmers familiar with the over 2 million lines of code in the Unreal engine. Based off my experience ramping up a programmer to the complex rendering codebase would take 4-6 months. To overcome this, I reached out to Epic games and pitched them on a partnership with Dolby Vision and the Unreal Engine. They connected us with a developer who was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Counterplay Games had a game that was already finished on PlayStation 5, and were now porting it to Xbox, and were tasked with adding Xbox specific features, like Dolby Vision. If we could be successful here, we could show the superiority of the feature that was only on Xbox compared to competitors.
Counterplay Games provided invaluable insights into the needs of Unreal developers which was different than a proprietary engine. Counterplay evaluated our earliest alphas of the Dolby Vision Unreal Engine plugin on Unreal 4.27, even before HDR or Dolby Vision was visible inside the editor. This collaboration helped us zero in on the MVP features required for Unreal Developers.
Within 2 months Godfall was the best looking Dolby Vision game in market.
While we were trying to deal with the legal paperwork of getting rights to the media to create a shareable media proof point, influencers immediately picked up on the picture quality differences between Godfall with and without Dolby Vision. The game went from 100 nit SDR, to a full 10,000 nit Dolby Vision master utilizing nearly the entire range offered. This exceeded the capability of the PlayStation 5 version which launched a year ago, and was a major proof point of how quickly a developer could upgrade the look of their game utilizing our SDK.
Pitching OEMs
But I’m getting ahead of myself, to get a monitor or PC OEM to sign up for Dolby Vision, they need to do it months in advance as they have much longer lead timelines than game software. This timeline didn’t allow us to show any actual games to the customers who were going to directly pay us for the technology enablement. How could we sell monitor OEMs on enhanced games, when we could not show any of the games we had won?
Because the engagement with Counterplay focused on converting an existing game title designed for standard dynamic range (SDR) into Dolby Vision, I knew I could use the tools to quickly create demos utilizing existing Unreal marketplace content. I had existing lighting experience from previous game titles, and I had worked with with Counterplay’s artists. It was easy to turn around existing unreal marketplace demos matter of days. This benefitted us as demos that use to cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars for outsourcers to handle, could be done in a few days.
I created several demos showcasing how Dolby Vision dynamic tone mapping performed based off the OEM’s concerns. One demo, Infiltrator, was picked because of the tails in dark shadows which was perfect for OLED displays. Another demo, Rural Australia, was picked to showcase the wide color gamut of the sands in Australia. Old West was picked to showcase the extreme brightness moving from a 10 nit scene average to a 5000 nit scene average. Being able to showcase the robustness of our technology, plus the promise that game developers were already utilizing this technology increased our footprint of PC and Living Room displays, bringing in significant revenue for Dolby before a single game had been announced or launched.
We had successfully onboarded new PC and TV OEMs for Dolby Vision gaming without showing a single functional gaming title
Challenges and Learnings
No agile project is without its challenges. During the release of Halo Infinite, we encountered an issue where Dolby Vision led to a dimmer image compared to HDR10. Due to the project’s secretive nature, 343 Industries didn’t share any visuals with us before the release, so we only discovered picture quality issues along with everybody else post-launch. After we showed the objective measurements with them, they allowed us into their studio to provide direct assistance. This experience highlighted the need for better documentation, more developer friendly features, and a shorter implementation to results timeframe.
Because Counterplay’s Godfall already released a year earlier without Dolby Vision, they had no problem giving us weekly builds to provide feedback. Not only did the picture quality improve significantly with this collaboration, it resulted in a case study that underscored the importance of Dolby’s direct involvement pre-launch. This agile process of constant improvement shortened the time from SDK delivery to visible results for all future developers
Reflecting on these two experiences I learned:
- Risk still exists in features you think are done. Assume a feature isn’t ready until a third party developer can utilize it and ship a game with it
- Develop positive heuristic metrics. The more heuristics met, the more likely the release will go smoothly
- Deeply embed with developers early, and often. Be in their communication channels and support them as if you’re part of the development team. This approach accelerates product iteration, and ensures higher quality releases for all future products and customers
Outcomes
Over the course of two years, I transformed a team with little game development experience into a proficient unit capable of supporting the largest AAA game developers without requiring my input. We established a state-of-the-art gaming lab at Dolby, where developers could immerse themselves in Dolby’s calibrated reference suite, and knowledge from color scientists. This secure, collaborative environment consistently improved picture quality, earning positive recognition from gaming influencers.
These advancements enabled us to secure major partnerships, including Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone with our latest Dolby Vision SDK. This win was a pivotal achievement, because Dolby Vision was now in a franchise enjoyed by over 100 million monthly active users. This progress is remarkable, especially considering that just two years ago, developers did not trust us to even see screenshots of their game in development.
Our journey from a nascent team to a trusted partner for mega-franchises underscores the effectiveness of the systems, processes, and unwavering commitment to quality I put in place. This transformation has not only strengthened Dolby Vision’s position in the gaming industry but also set a solid foundation for continued sales of Dolby Vision technologies to OEMs, where we monetize this effort.