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…
Archive for the ‘Green-Ear’ Category
Game Developers’ Conference ‘ 09
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
GDC Here we come…
Friday, March 13th, 2009GDC 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!
“The Days of Single-Player Games Are Numbered” – David Perry
Friday, February 20th, 2009Hopefully 2009 is off to a great start for all of you. 2009 has been 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?
Green-Ear for DarkBasic Professional
Monday, February 16th, 2009
Akron, Ohio, February 16, 2009 – 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
About Green-Ear
Green-Ear is communication software for games, developed by Ayalogic, in Akron, Ohio. The company is committed to providing innovative communication technology across multiple platforms that is easily and quickly integrated. Visit www.green-ear.com for more information.
About The Game Creators
The Game Creators, a UK company, are developers and publishers of affordable, cutting-edge game development tools. Established in 1999, their brands include DarkBASIC, The 3D Gamemaker, FPS Creator, Dark Basic Professional and DarkGDK. Learn more about games creation and join a thriving game making community at www.thegamecreators.com
Winners of Green-Ear Demo Contest Announced
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009Max 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?
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008Hey 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. 
Green-Ear Announces Voice for Flash and New Features
Monday, December 1st, 2008AKRON, Ohio – December 1, 2008- Green-Ear, a voice technology provider for online games, announces Green-Ear for Flash, the industry’s first managed service offering to voice enable Flash games.
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,” said Dave Govan, Vice Chairman, Green-Ear.
Mike Rojas, Green-Ear CEO added, “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.”
Green-Ear’s new release also includes:
- Multi-Channel Chat, enabling players to participate in up to 32 simultaneous chats; useful in battle style games with the need to speak to both large and small groups of other players.
- Individualized control of end-user audio preferences with Device Control to enable players to manage where they give and receive audio.
- Green-Ear’s new Software Development Kit for Flash opening up a wider range of possibilities for Developers who create games in Flash and C++.
Visit www.green-ear.com to learn how you can win up to $1,000.00 and have your game showcased in the Green-Ear booth at the San Francisco Game Developer’s Conference in March.
GarageGames and Green-Ear Team up to Bring Voice To Torque
Monday, September 8th, 2008Akron, Ohio, September 8, 2008 – GarageGames and Green-Ear are proud to announce the availability of Green-Ear’s Torque 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. Complementing its affordable cost, Green-Ear’s voice network eliminates expensive integration costs and costly server rentals.“Green-Ear technology was a natural fit with Torque. Providing independent developers with affordable tools to make great games is a mutual goal of both companies,” said Derek Bronson, Director of Third Party Development.
Green-Ear and GarageGames will showcase the extensive voice capabilities of Green-Ear technology working in the Torque Game Engine September 15 at the Game Developer Conference in Austin, Texas. The integrated SDK will soon be available on GarageGames.com with prices starting at $49.95.
According to Mike Rojas, Green-Ear CEO, “Torque has made it possible for ordinary people to develop sophisticated games and we fit in perfectly in this space. We developed Green-Ear in a way that greatly simplifies adding voice to your game. And if you have Torque, it’s even easier. There’s no need to download external software, rent servers or buy bandwidth, just plug and go.”
For more information on Green-Ear voice technology, please call 330-253-2700 or email info@green-ear.com. For information regarding Torque 360, please contact GarageGames at 541-345-3040 or licensing@garagegames.com.
About Green-Ear
Green-Ear is a communication software developer in Akron, Ohio. The company is committed to providing innovative communication technology for game developers that is easily and quickly integrated and affordable for indie developers and studios alike. Visit green-ear.com for more information.
About GarageGames
GarageGames is located in Eugene, Oregon and on the web at www.garagegames.com. As the makers of Torque Game Builder, Torque Game Engine, Torque Game Engine Advanced, and Torque X, they have been providing game development tools and technology at an affordable price since 2000. The Torque Technologies line of game engines have been used since to develop hits such as Marble Blast Ultra, Fallen Empire: Legions, Penny Arcade Adventures, Screwjumper, and countless other titles on Windows, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, and GarageGames’ own InstantAction web-based gaming service.
Green-Ear Voice Technology featured at Austin Game Developer Conference
Monday, August 4th, 2008Michael Rojas, CEO of Green-Ear parent company Ayalogic, will be featured in a sponsored session at the Austin Game Developer Conference, September 16, 2008. The session will focus on the exciting accomplishments, as well as the challenges of bringing voice to flash based and casual games. Voice is the future of gaming and Green-Ear strives to make it a smooth and easy transition to the future.
Green-Ear is the first Tier-1 gaming communication network that allows game developers to integrate voice and data simply and affordably. It allows designers to enhance games quickly with many communication features; including voice and text chat, voice fonts, in-game controls, text-to-voice conferencing and more.
The network is free for development, has a free universal communicator and most of the work to integrate into GarageGames’ Torque Engine is already done for you. Rojas will discuss this and much more at the Austin presentation on voice.
Stay tuned for updates on Green-Ear at the Austin Game Conference and for more information on how to attend this exciting presentation, please go to the Austin GDC site.
