Using the Havok system, we were able to have working demos almost immediately. This has been a huge benefit for other members of the team. It has allowed the game designers to test their theories and ideas in a more hands-on manner. There's nothing worse in a game's development cycle than for the designer to find several months into a project that their ideas cannot be implemented. Once the decision had been made to use middleware, it was just a case of finding a solution that would meet our needs at a realistic price.
Middleware pricing has to always be offset against the cost of developing the systems in-house.
Most programmers these days can write a usable 3d system given enough time and resources but where physics are concerned recruiting the right people and ironing out all of the problems associated with physics are simply not possible. I have to say so far, because there is still much to do. We have all read development articles about nightmare situations with middleware and bonding it to existing game code, but we implemented Havok a couple of months in and it was up and working within hours. All the other features followed relatively quickly and without significant problems. We have many designs that are defiantly geared towards real time physics, but at the moment the main game that is using the Havok system is Starsky and Hutch, which is due for release first quarter 2002.