DemonWare

Type	Subsidiary of Activision
Industry	Computer and video games
Founded	2003
Founder(s)	Dylan Collins and Sean Blanchfield
Headquarters	Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Key people	Dylan Collins, Sean Blanchfield
Owner(s)	Activision Blizzard, Inc
Parent	Activision
Website	demonware.net

DemonWare is a software development company and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc.It was originally founded in 2003 by Dylan Collins and Sean Blanchfield.^[1][2] They were purchased in May 2007 by Activision, the deal also included Demonware's management and employees signing long-term contracts with Activision. The firm will continue to be headquartered in Dublin, with North American offices in Vancouver. ^[2]

• DemonWare openly stated that they will no longer licence their software to third party developers^[3].

• Activision CEO Mike Griffith explained in a statement on the deal:

“

The acquisition of DemonWare will enable us to eliminate many of the challenges associated with online multiplayer game development, reducing development time and risk, and allowing us to deliver consistent, high-quality online gaming experiences. In addition to increasing our talent pool of highly skilled engineers, DemonWare's suite of technologies combined with Activision's own library of tools and technologies will enable us to easily share online development capabilities on multiple platforms across our development studios.[2]

”

DemonWare's products enable games publishers to outsource their networking requirements, allowing them to concentrate on playability.

• The two main products developed by DemonWare are the "DemonWare State Engine" and "Matchmaking+". The State Engine is a high-performance state synchronization C++ programming framework that eliminates the need to re-invent netcode multiplayer games. Matchmaking+ provides services for multiplayer games such as matchmaking, user profiling and gaming statistics.^[4]

• as of 2009 DemonWare has offices in both Dublin, Ireland and Vancouver, Canada^[3].

References

External links

• DemonWare home page
• Activision website
• Activision Blizzard, Inc website
• List of games using a version of DemonWare Ltd.'s middleware

DemonWare develops and sells real-time network software for the electronic entertainment industry. Our focus lies in creating middleware and components that reduce the development workloads and risks associated with multiplayer game development.

The DemonWare team combines network experts from a range of sources:

-Games Middleware (Havok, MathEngine, GameSpy)
-Trinity College Dublin (Distributed Systems Group)
-Telecommunications Sector

DemonWare is a privately funded company, founded in 2003 by Dylan Collins and Sean Blanchfield. We have offices in Dublin, Ireland (Headquarters), Los Angeles (Sales) and Vancouver (Support).

Investors in DemonWare include Dublin Seed Capital Fund, Enterprise Ireland and several specialist private investors.

DemonWare Products

State Engine
DemonWare's State Engine is a high-performance state synchronization C programming framework that eliminates the need to re-invent netcode for your multiplayer games. This overview provides some details of what the State Engine is, and what it is not.

Multi-Platform, Multi-Player

The State Engine has been created with the practical constraints of modern game development in mind and it respects the hardware limitations of popular games platforms.

Cross-Platform: DemonWare supports multi-platform development on PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360 Win32 and Linux

Flexible: The DemonWare State Engine avoids external dependencies, such as use of the STL, and is easily configured to use in-house memory management tools.

Powerful: It supports advanced game networking techniques such as delta compression, client-side prediction, extrapolation, interpolation, host migration and late joining.

Time-travelling: Well, not quite... but DemonWare has been designed to be integrated with games at any stage of development. The process is very well supported and documented and requires only minimal changes to the existing codebase.

Developer-Friendly

DemonWare's State Engine was created to be a great implementation of established techniques, as pioneered by multiplayer games of recent decades. It was designed in close co-operation with a number of studios, and as a result is very developer-friendly.

What it is

A state engine. The DemonWare engine manages the efficient communication of your game state between players' computers/consoles.

Data-only. DemonWare has no user-interface. It is a programmer-only tool, and comes as a set of libraries for the platform in question.

Well-Thought-Out. As a set of frameworks, DemonWare makes it easy to do things right, and hard to do them badly. Using DemonWare is one big step towards meeting the networking technical requirements of your target platform(s).

Actively Developed. We strive to make DemonWare as easy to use as possible, and when we spot an potential improvement, we make it. Also, we keep up with and try to promote innovations, such as ad-hoc gaming.

What it is not

A matchmaking service. The DemonWare State Engine handles in-game traffic, i.e. the kind of networking that happens after the game has begun. For the discovery of game sessions, we recommend our Matchmaking product as a solution or can integrate with third party options.

MMOG Middleware. We do not provide a solution for massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). We focus exclusively on smaller games, with fewer than 200 players.

A renderer. DemonWare does not do any graphics, although it has been used painlessly with all the major rendering engine vendors.

A physics engine. Although DemonWare handles the communication of your game state, it does not actually generate your game state. In a simulation game this is largely handled by dynamics code, such as that provided by Havok or Novodex.

A mobile phone product. DemonWare works on a diverse number of platforms, however it has not been designed to run on 3G networks, or mobile phone handsets.

DemonWare Components

When you licence the DemonWare State Engine, you get three broad components in the package.

The DemonWare transport. This is used by the two other components to perform all network communication. It deals with all the ugly, low-level, networking issues, such as packet loss, ordering, firewalls and NATs. Although you normally will not need to use this component directly, you are free to do so for any special network communication you want to perform directly.

The Peer-to-Peer framework. This is framework that you can easily and quickly extend to get a game up-and-running in a peer-to-peer topology. It deals with sending user input around between peers, and ensuring that all peers have sufficient information to step the game logic. At its simplest, you can use it by registering an object that can serialize user input, and an object that can step the game logic. This component is targetting at a wide variety of titles, e.g., RTS, turn-based, sports, racing, flight-sim and FPS games.

The Client/Server framework.This framework enables you to quickly get your game running in a client/server topology. It features every advanced netcode technique found in state-of-the-art titles such as Unreal, Quake, and Battlefield 1942. This framework follows an object model, which allows you to fine tune the synchonization of any entity in your game, all from your C editor. There are many features that you can mix-and-match. Among them are: delta compression, client-side prediction, data extrapolation, interpolation, selective updating (LoD or BSP awareness), multiple players per host, avatar switching (e.g., transferring control from a character to a vehicle) and interpolation breaks for signalling discrete state changes.

Matchmaking
DemonWare Matchmaking provides all the services you need to support your multiplayer game. Quick and easy to integrate, DemonWare matchmaking provides a complete range of toolkits for your online title. You create the game, we’ll look after the players.

Cross-platform (supports PS, PC, Xbox, Xbox 360)

Save time and hassle developer friendly C APIs

Compatible with in-house network technology and game engines

Supports DemonWare State Engine for a complete multiplayer solution

Full voice support

Encryption

Experienced game-network engineers providing support

DemonWare Matchmaking is based around three core structures:

1. Matchmaking
Allows players to discover online game sessions that can be joined:

NAT negotiation

Supports all genres and game types

Customised search and game listing

Supports both client/server and peer-to-peer games.

Completely configurable matchmaking database on DW secure servers for your game

Server-side result filtering and sorting to minimise bandwidth and latency

Supports ‘quick’ and ‘optimatch’ game types

2. User Management
User Management provides everything you need for in-game community:

Game invites

Player presence (online, away etc.)

Instant messaging

Structure user information and interaction by title, studio or publisher

Access to user info available through database connection or web services

3. Statistics
Provides comprehensive gamer feedback:

Store and query user statistics from with in your game

Store more than 200 numerical stats per player per title

Shared game replays

Complete ranking feedback to users

Configurable scoreboards

Additional Matchmaking features include:

Content download (incl. auto-patching etc.)

Xbox LSP Integration

DemonWare Homepage