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!