Case Study
Hi-Def Voice Chat for Gamers
Description
From a one page brief we conceived, developed and launched a push to talk voice service for the online gaming community. We created web, iPhone, Mac and PC versions and a platform that delivers high definition group voice with sessions that can handle up to 5000 simultaneous participants.
What We Did
- Product conception and long term roadmap
- Business model and revenue strategies
- Network architecture and systems design
- Prototyping and research and development resulting in two patents
- Software engineering
- In life operational management
The Challenges
Gaming is going through a period of immense change, creating new opportunities particularly within the online and social gaming spaces. Multi-player gaming often means people need to communicate during game play and are sharing experiences afterwards. Many titles, such as World of Warcraft, have huge global followings and involve teams (Guilds) with complex social hierarchies and the need to effectively communicate in real time. There is one incumbent solution that Guilds typically chose for their online communications. Our client saw an opportunity to disrupt that space.
Some of the challenges we faced are:
- How do you create a 'best of breed' service with multiple unique selling points, in a market space dominated by a single incumbent?
- How do you support and operate the service while maintaining extremely low OPEX and infrastructure?
- How do you scale this service design to many millions of users?
- How do you create this service with a thin-client model, yet still provide sufficient flexibility to 'power-users' and 'prosumers'?
- How do you make the technology as accessible as possible?
Our Approach
Our initial starting point was to research the online gaming market. In particular, we needed to understand users' likes and dislikes of the incumbent solution and to identify opportunities arising from the rapid evolution of online gaming. From this activity, working with the client, we were able to formulate a product strategy that took the best from existing services whilst incorporating our own innovations.
We first developed a web-based product which requires no downloads and has a simple, one step sign up process. Observational testing of our early prototypes revealed additional challenges, such as people tended to press the 'Push to Talk' button fractionally after they started talking and to let go fractionally before they finished. These kinds of learnings influenced the feature set and technical solution.
We worked closely with the client's existing design agency, Borsa Wallace, who developed the front-end user interface and branding.
Our Network Solutions
High Scalability and Availability
We designed the back-end network to scale horizontally to an infinite number of users while retaining proportionately low operational and maintenance costs. To facilitate low OPEX, we developed a self-healing and self-scaling cloud based architecture which adapts to only ever be as big as needed at any given time. Through this design, Blabbelon maintains a very low operational cost and lower carbon footprint.
To achieve the best sound quality possible, Voxygen deployed the Skype SILK codec, delivered using a custom protocol designed to be lightweight and very fast. The Skype SILK codec integration was an industry first and as of August 2010, is still the only implementation of SILK on the web utilising JAVA.
One Click User Experience
One common problem with existing gaming solutions is their complicated methods for initiating group voice sessions. Typically several details such as IP addresses, port numbers and room passwords are required to start one. These are normally distributed within an Instant Messaging chat. Voxygen redesigned this cumbersome process using URLs to represent voice channels (called 'blabs' within Blabbelon). So inviting a group of gamers to a particular voice channel is now a simple case of distributing and clicking a URL. Within seconds a user is able to talk to the rest of the group without having to enter any information or to configure their PC.
Patents Pending
To achieve high scalability and availability, Voxygen conceived and designed two new technologies. The first is a hyper-scalable conference call service design and the second is a pioneering method for handling pushed services, such as presence updates, on the web.
Patents have been filed on behalf of the client for both these technologies.
The Results
Blabbelon is currently in public beta. Without the benefit of a marketing campaign it is steadily acquiring customers through word of mouth and gaining momentum in the gaming space. Voxygen is currently developing other products and services for Blabbelon in readiness for an official launch.
Early press coverage on the public beta version of Blabbelon said:
Blabbelon brings a new level of ease-of-implementation and ease-of-use, with the goal of having a simplicity of adoption similar to what Skype experienced because you simply installed it and started calling and talking."
Blabbelon opens new directions for the application of VoIP technology and the SILK codec. It's not a voice conversation service along the lines of traditional telephony. Yet it brings new ease-of-use and voice quality to a market that has been poorly served by current offerings."
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