Game Developers' Conference ' 09

The Green-Ear booth at the San Francisco GDC was a rousing success. We met so many great people and had a chance to demonstrate our Voice Morphing and Voice Command features in the booth.

Here is a photo blog of our trip...

Green-Ear Booth











Demo Winners

Booth Close-up










Green-Ear Team










Ted cracking Leba up @ IGDA party










Megan and Mike on the Bay

Our fearless leader-CEO, Mike Rojas










Engineers-Ted and Misha
@the airport


A big thank you to everyone who came out and supported us, to all of our customers who continue to give us unsolicited praise in the community, to everyone who took the time to try the voice morphing demo- those evil laughs will stay with me awhile and to the entire Green-Ear team who worked tirelessly all week! Thanks to everyone. Looking forward to Austin!

To learn more about Green-Ear technology and to download our Free SDK, visit our website, www.green-ear.com

Best Regards!
Leba

GDC Here we come...

Well, It's that time again.

GDC is upon us in a little over a week. Crazy. I just wanted to touch base on a couple of things before next week's mad rush to finalize plans.

#1 Make sure you come see us. We are in the North Hall to the left of the concession stand. Booth 5468. We have lots of cool giveaways and you can play our winning demo games, hang out and check out some Green-Ear tech.

#2 We are going to be launching our version 2.1 release in the next week or so. It will include many things, not the very least of which is the addition of a Mac SDK, an iPhone SDk, Voice Commands, Out of Game Calling and some minor bug fixes. Rock on, right? I will elaborate on all of that in conjunction with the official launch, so stay tuned.

#3 I just want to give a shout out to Jason Della Rocca. Jason, as I'm sure most of you know, is the current (but not for long) Executive Director of the IGDA. After GDC, Jason will be moving on. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank him publicly for all of his help and patience with me over the last year. He has helped me pinpoint data, throw sweet parties and much more. The IGDA was a vital part of our initial traction and we are forever in the debt of their robust and helpful community. So, I know the IGDA will go on and continue to advance the careers and lives of all members of the video game community, but Jason will be greatly missed. Thanks, Jason, for everything.

And to all of you out there, if you are not already an IGDA member- get on it. Besides connecting with people in your in area and all over the world in your industry, there are many additional perks such as the IGDA members only party at the GDC. Learn more about the hip hoppingest party at the GDC on the IGDA site: http://www.igda.org/gdc09/rsvp_gdcparty_09.php. But remember, its for members only so if you aren't a member, join here: http://www.igda.org/join/

Well, that's all for now. I will be updating you on the progress of release 2.1 and some Green-Ear integrated game launches shortly.

Have a great weekend, see you in San Francisco!

Leba

"The Days of Single-Player Games Are Numbered" - David Perry

Hey world,

I hope 2009 is off to a great start for all of you. 2009 has been busy busy here. We are gearing up for our Game Developer Conference booth debut, March 23-27 in San Francisco and we announced a new partnership with The Game Creators featuring a Dark Basic Professional integrated Green-Ear SDK. Learn more about that here.

But what really got my mind going today was an article I read about a David Perry speech. David Perry, video game industry veteran, Shiny Entertainment founder and all around gaming guru, spoke yesterday at this year's D.I.C.E Summit. D.I.C.E is a summit for interactive entertainment movers and shakers (not official D.I.C.E tagline- although one could argue that it should be). In a session titled, Embracing the Future and Finding Success, Perry said, "I personally think the days of single-player games are numbered. Without question, our focus is entirely on multiplayer." Full article here.

This sparked my interest for two reasons. One, the future of gaming leaning toward multiplayer is nothing but good news for us here at Green-Ear. More and more we are hearing reports of the increase in social gaming. There is no easier way to socialize a game than to add communication. Players communicating instantly creates a community around the game, which is reported to lead to longer play time and a longer shelf-life for the title. It stands to reason that a community of people is less likely to abandon a game than an individual in a single player game. The socialization adds to the experience and takes on its own meaning above and beyond traditional game play. In-game communication prevents fracturing the community by not relying on the end user to find a way to interact. Not everyone will choose the same one. Green-Ear allows for deeply integrated centralized communication.

The other reason this story jumped out at me is something David Perry said awhile back about Green-Ear, "Today's games are becoming more and more about the social experience. Green-Ear's voice integration allows developers to capitalize on that and monetize their game easily and more affordably." And who am I to argue with that?

Best,
Leba

Green-Ear kicks it up a notch, integrates with DarkBASIC

Great News! Ayalogic has partnered up with UK based game software provider, The Game Creators,to integrate Ayalogic’s Green-Ear communication tools into Dark Basic Professional. Ayalogic and The Game Creators are proud to announce the availability of Green-Ear’s FREE DBPro integrated Software Development Kit. The new partnership allows game developers to easily add voice and text chat, voice morphing, private channels and more into their games. In addition to the easily and freely attainable SDK,Green-Ear’s voice network eliminates expensive scalability issues and costly server rentals.

The Game Creators’ goal is to provide game creation software with a comprehensive range of affordable, cutting edge game creation tools that make it easier for anyone to make their own computer games. “The Green-Ear technology is a great fit for us. It fills a need in our development community for affordable, high quality in-game communication tools.” said Lee Bamber, The Game Creator’s CEO.

Ayalogic will showcase the extensive voice capabilities of Green-Ear technology, March 25-27 at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, CA.

The integrated SDK is available for download now on the Green-Ear page of www.thegamecreators.com

According to Mike Rojas, Ayalogic CEO, “We’re really excited about this partnership. The Game Creators team has continually provided accessible tools to develop PC games, simplifying game development. We developed Green-Ear in a way that greatly simplifies adding voice to your game. And if you have DB Pro, it’s even easier. There’s no need to rent servers or buy bandwidth, just plug it in and go.”

For more information on Green-Ear voice technology, please call 330-253-2700 or email info@green-ear.com.

For information regarding Dark Basic Professional, please contact The Game Creators at
info@thegamecreators.com

Happy Developing!

Winners of the Green-Ear Demo Contest Announced

Max Gaming and Ignition Games take top honors in the Green-Ear Demo contest.

Developers were asked to make a voice enabled game using Green-Ear technology.

...and the winner is....

Dark Frontier from Max Gaming

This Space Adventure game is visually stunning and makes good use of Green-Ear's many voice features. With simple controls you can talk to teammates and coordinate an attack on other ships and the indicator lights let you know who is speaking. The Max Gaming team also incorporated the Voice Morphing Feature, giving end users control over the pitch and tempo of their voice, which allowed me to play against someone who sounded like a squealy space pig and a scary monster guy. To learn more about Max Gaming, visit maxgaming.net. To see additional screen shots from this game, visit www.green-ear.com/contest.aspx.








Second place goes to Mach from Ignition Studios.

Feel the need, the need for speed! This flight simulation will have you thinking you are Maverick taking on Viper. Ignition Studios integrated Green-Ear's Push-to-Talk feature Teammates use Green-Ear Voice Chat to communicate and take on enemy planes. To see additional screen shots from this game, visit www.green-ear.com/contest.aspx. To learn more about Ignition Studios,

please visit www.ignition-games.com.

To see both of these games in action, stop by our booth at the 2009 Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco March 23-27. For more information on the GDC, www.gdconf.com.

Congratulations to both of our winners!

2008 Wrap up, What's up for 2009?

Hey there Green-Ear fans,
Happiest of Holidays and Merriest of New Years.

2008 was a big year for us here at Green-Ear and first off I want to send a big thank you shout out to everyone who has supported us and helped successfully launch Green-Ear this year.

First a recap. This year was the year a group of super smart people got together and tried to decide the best use of our vast amount of technology and features for VoIP other than the business communications products we were selling at the time. A collective gasp, a burst of thought, some storming of brains and the answer was Green-Ear- it was the answer we wanted all along but didn't dare to dream that we would get to live out our hobbies and passion for games at WORK, too? This was the best news! So, in a very short time following the tech was reconfigured and repackaged for gaming.

GarageGames was a natural first partner for us because our companies share the same vision and desire to provide affordable solutions for not just the big guy and not even just the small guy- All the guys (*I'm a girl and can say that with no sexism implied;). We all want to make game development accessible to anyone with talent and passion and drive. Easy to implement, affordable. And GarageGames definitely helps us make that happen. With a Green-Ear SDK that is Torque integrated it is simple and fast to add complex voice features in your game.

With prices starting at just $49.95!!!

(Had to break up my rambling with an infomercial.)

Back to ramble: Anyway, everyone at GG has been amazing- from just "getting" what we were trying to do to sharing their space with us at Austin GDC, we couldn't have done it without them and we owe them a debt of gratitude. (and sales. buy buy buy)

Since then we have added additional SDK's and features to the Green-Ear offerings. Developing in Flash? C++? have no fear, you can Green-Ear those games up too. For a quick run down of all the fabulous features to date (including voice morphing, text to speech and much much more): www.green-ear.com/features.aspx

Also this year, we found our demo to be less than stellar so we instead asked you, our brilliant development community to compete for our demo love. The contest ends December 31 and the prizes are fierce. 1st prize: $1000 and a showcase at our GDC booth in March. 2nd and 3rd prized are $500 and $250, respectively. For more information on this amazing opportunity: www.green-ear.com/contest.aspx
Hurry, time is running out. There is nothing to lose!

More cool stuff is going on over at the Green-Ear developer area of our site (http://www.green-ear.com/developer_newuser.aspx) Now, in addition to being able to add titles, manage your users, power up your voice slots and track usage...you can also download the SDK's for which you are licensed and any of the documentation you seek!

So with all that, its on to 2009 and all sorts of excitement!

Our next release is expected any time now-and will include (drumroll.....) Voice Commands, Speech Recognition and Input Record & Playback.

Did you catch that?
Voice Commands?
Sweet, I know!
And they couldn't be easier to execute. Just login to the developer area on Green-Ear.com, create your own lists of prefixes and words to recognize. Submit and you have specific speech rec. event files that you can insert in to your game so that your "FIRE FIRE FIRE" really fire, fire, fires.

You can expect the 2.1 release very soon.

Also in 2009, look for announcements of at least two additional partnerships that will make Green-Ear available for a couple of super hot (but top secret) platforms in the first part of the year.

Whew. That was a big year, no wonder I'm tired. Well, I'm off to Florida to recoup and come at you in a big way in '09. I hope each and every one of you get everything you want for whatever gift receiving holiday you celebrate. I wish for you a breath and a break, for health and happiness and lots of fun stuff. See you in the new year. It's gonna be a doozy. ;)

Best,
Leba

Green-Ear for Flash, plus... new features!

Green-Ear for Flash is now available!

Happy December, Everyone!

With the new month come some exciting new developments for Green-Ear. Including, Green-Ear for Flash. Yep, now you can get all the voice functionality of Green-Ear and all the versatility of Flash at your fingertips. Green-Ear Flash integration allows flash applications running locally in a browser or standalone to access all the Green-Ear features. Flash developers are provided with ActionScript code that allows them to invoke functions in Green-Ear network client access library by calling methods of an ActionScript object called FlashGear.

Here’s an excerpt from our Press Release:

Green-Ear for Flash enables Flash game developers to easily add voice and text chat, voice morphing, voice fonts, conferencing, and other features to Flash games and Flash game portals. With Green-Ear for Flash one can rapidly deploy voice capabilities inside games and across multiple games on portals. All without the costs and complexities found in competing alternatives thanks to Green-Ear's managed services and Tier 1 voice network.

"According to reliable sources over 20,000 Flash game portals exist, each containing anywhere from one to thousands of games. We believe the majority of them could benefit from adding voice chat and other voice features from Green-Ear. While playing many games your fingers are busy with game controls and you can't type to text chat, adding voice chat to the game experience allows you to communicate with others and still keep your hands in the game." Dave Govan, Vice Chairman of Green-Ear.

"The addition of Green-Ear for Flash provides a feature set that isn't currently available anywhere else for flash at an affordable cost. A lot of people can benefit from this technology; this market is huge and growing all the time. I think we will begin to see more and more flash sites finding a way to get in on the current trend to socialize online communities." Mike Rojas, Green-Ear CEO.

Green-Ear has added some new features, as well:

· Mutli-Channel Chat: Developers now have the ability to participate in multiple channels simultaneously. Chat with up to 32 channels at a time with both live chat and push-to-talk capabilities. This is particularly great for battle type games, for example, where players can participate in a HQ channel and a squad channel.

· Individualized Chat Control: enable/disable audio play out of the speakers or from being sent to the voice chat. An excellent way to implement Push-to-Talk service.

· Enhance Voice Chat Volume Control: Control the overall volume of the incoming audio from the voice chat(s).

· Stereo Voice Chat: Individual Right and Left Speaker Control.

· .Wav file Supported Chat: Introduce .wav files into a chat, available on a loop- great for background audio.

And of course don’t forget there are only 26 days left to enter the Green-Ear Demo contest and the competition is heating up. Go to www.green-ear.com/contest.aspx for contest details.

Cheers,

Leba