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What's in a Name: Gaikai
David Perry, Co-Founder and CEO of Gaikai, sat down with us during last week's Game Developers Conference: Online in Austin, TX. Over the howl of the expo floor's contemporary rock soundtrack, David let us in on Gaikai's mysterious branding: "Basically one of our founders, his name is Rui Pereira, he came up with this name 'Gaikai,' and I said, 'Oh my God, no one will ever be able to pronounce that, no one will ever be able to spell that, this is a bad idea.' And of course, there's all the following conversations, what about all the other strange words that are out there: The Googles, and the Kodaks, and the, you know, the Xeroxes? "There's all these strange things that are out there, so what's wrong with having a strange name? I then took a marketing class in Texas, and they explained the idea of 'mystique marketing;' it's actually cool to have a hard-to-say name, because it means if you know how to pronounce it, then you're in the club. "So any time you hear Gaikai pronounced wrong, you can go 'Hrm, this guy doesn't know what it means, or how to say it even.' That's mystique marketing, so I thought, 'Huh, maybe we give this a try.' "It turns that the actual word is a Japanese word, and it means 'a large open space,' like out on the open ocean, and if you look around on the open ocean, you can go in any direction. And that's what we believe cloud gaming enables." Gaikai is a technology company that provides streaming game middleware to third-party corporations such as Walmart. Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name Archives.
GDC Online 2011 hits record attendance
This week's Game Developers Conference Online in Austin, TX finished on a high note yesterday, as it saw record numbers this year: 3,350. This marks a 12% bump over 2010, which is good news for the conference organizers as they start to lay plans for 2012. GDC Online 2011 held over 145 panels, keynotes and discussions and culminated with the Game Developers Choice Online Awards that, among other honors handed out, inducted EverQuest into the Hall of Fame. We've had Massively reporters on the scene at GDC Online 2011 all week long, so if you missed it, it's never too late to catch up on all of the design theory and frank developer talk. GDC Online will be returning to Austin on October 8th, 2012.
GDCO 2010: Interview with Dr. Richard Bartle
At the Game Developer's Choice Awards of GDC Online 2010, Dr. Richard Bartle was the first person to receive The Online Game Legend Award. He is best known for co-creating MUD, the first virtual world, as well as his research that inspired the Bartle Player Test. What did he think about winning such a prestigious award? Follow along after the jump to read his thoughts on modern MMOs, the state of the genre and which upcoming MMO he's looking forward to the most.
Massively.com and GameBreaker.TV: Coming to you live from GDC Online!
GDC Online (formerly GDC Austin) is rapidly approaching, and we here at Massively.com are making sure that we're on the front lines of coverage from the event. We have plenty of interviews lined up with a huge variety of companies, and we're teaming up with our friends at GameBreaker.TV to deliver live coverage of the event via GameBreaker's live show at the Vivox booth! To get you excited for the coming conference, we've provided the list of companies we're meeting with just after the break! The list isn't fully extensive, as we'll be covering a variety of panels as well, but it will give you an idea of whom we're meeting with. Plus, keep an eye out for a link to the live GameBreaker.TV broadcast on our right-hand sidebar! Their coverage of the event will be starting on Wednesday, October 6th at 12:00 p.m. EDT!
