broader set of functionality, when all you’re trying to do is solve a simple problem, is annoying. So when you talk about UGS being modular,
what that generally is going to mean is that if you have a specific problem you’re trying to solve, you could get started with it, solve one thing at a time, and then later, add more UGS capabilities - if you want to, of course. In the long run that gets people comfortable
with using parts of UGS that really do a great job for them. As they build more games, they’ll tend to want to adopt more and more of the functionality. So we want to lower the barrier of entry for someone who’s wanting to take advantage of our tools, but doesn’t want to consume all of it at first.
So it can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be, basically? Cutting through some of the bloat. Absolutely. When you’re a developer, it’s so important to make things with a purpose. If you’re trying to get a demo running of a game, with a mechanic that you want to see working, the last thing you want to do is have to confront modules you’re not even going to use in order to solve the simple problem of say, multiplayer, or cloud save for a player. Why would I want to confront a whole bunch of different modules when all I’m trying to do is solve a simple problem? We have that mentality at the core of how we develop UGS.
One of the modules is for Vivox voice chat. What makes that a good solution for chat? It is the most comprehensive. It’s actually got an amazing pedigree. It’s had some of the world’s biggest games on it for a while and when we talk to customers about their experience integrating Vivox it’s a very mature product. So I get this feedback all the time, where people will try other voice and communication solutions, and then
December 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 31
they’ll tell us “Oh, and we just sat down to integrate Vivox. It was the easiest process to integrate, that we’ve seen from all the competitive products.” But not only that, its maturity makes it very
broad. So for example, it not only has regular voice and communications, where team members can talk to each other, but it also supports 3D voice. So it actually has differences depending on your location. That’s a pretty rich feature. People find that its ease of use is great. Then they can graduate into all the capabilities it has to offer. It really is the market leader in that space.
Does it also include moderation tools, or is that a separate module? So moderation tools are a separate module. It’s actually an area of pretty significant investment. You may know this from the news, but in August of 2021, we acquired a company called OTO, which is known for its tonal analysis functionality. So instead of just doing speech-to-text, it actually will analyse the tone of the communications using machine learning. That investment was really interesting to us, because we see a lot of toxicity in gaming today. In fact, one of the UGS mission statements is
to reduce toxicity in gaming, because it’s good for the players, and then therefore good for the whole community at large. The tone analysis technology
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
