"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!