It’s clear that online gaming is quickly becoming much more social, with companies like Zynga reportedly bringing in nine figures and the casual gaming market continuing to skyrocket. But there’s still one major problem that’s holding everything back: it’s often impossible to monitor which games your friends are playing and when, especially when they’re playing on entirely different platforms. Today Raptr, the social network built around gaming, is releasing a multi-protocol chat client that’s looking to solve this problem.
The new client is based on AIR (which means it will run on Mac and PC) and integrates support for all major chat protocols, allowing gamers to keep in touch with their friends from a single app. Raptr isn’t anywhere near the first desktop multi-protocol chat client — I’ve been using Adium for Mac for years, and Windows has programs like Trillian available, both which support protocols like AIM, MSN, and Yahoo Messenger. But what Raptr can do that the others can’t is monitor whatever game you’re currently playing, be it a full-fledged PC game like StarCraft or one of the many casual games found on Facebook and MySpace. Overall, the service can recognize over 32,000 different games, including stand-alone Flash games that you’ll find embedded on countless sites across the web. Raptr’s client also includes support for some game-specific protocols, like Xbox Live.
Raptr, the social network that revolves around gaming, has launched in public beta. The robust site allows users to keep tabs on what their friends are doing throughout the gaming world, and also offers gaming recommendations, accomplishment updates, and a host of other features.
The site is designed to appeal to casual and hardcore gamers alike. In fact, Raptr avoids using the term “gamer” entirely, instead choosing to describe itself as a “social platform for people who like to play and discover games” – founder (and former competitive gamer) Dennis Fong says that many people associate the word “gamer” with a hardcore audience, but Raptr is for everyone.
Yesterday I wrote briefly about new gaming startup Raptr, formerly called GXL, Inc. Founder (and celebrity gamer) Dennis Fong has now demo’d the product on stage at GDC, and I’ve had the chance to see the product myself.
Approximately 100 people are currently in the beta, all friends and family to the Raptr team. Today the company is taking signups for new beta users on their home page, and will be letting a couple of thousand new users in shortly. A full launch is expected in a couple of months.
As I mentioned yesterday, Raptr has two components. A Windows based software download that keeps games up to date automatically, and a website social network that pulls game data in from the client as well. The product is similar to Valve-only Steam, although it has a lot more to offer users and is developer agnostic. Today, Raptr supports 1,000 titles, including World of Warcraft – Steam has a hundred or so.
The website is a game-centric social network. Users add friends and can see what games they are playing, installing, updating, uninstalling, etc. You can also see what games your friends are playing right now.
Raptr looks at the games you play, and how much time you spend, and compares that data to other players to recommend other games to you that you might like.
More Screen shots below:
Tomorrow at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, attendees will get a peak at Dennis “Thresh” Fong’s newest startup – Raptr. It’s being demo’d as part of the Charles River/GDC launchpad event in the afternoon.
Raptr has both desktop software and web service components. The client keeps PC-based games completely up to date behind the scenes – patches, updates, etc. are downloaded automatically. This is very similar to Steam, which keeps Valve games updated – although from what we hear Raptr will support at least a thousand games from all different developers out of the gate. The website, at Raptr.com, will pull in gaming data from the Raptr client and will include a social network around friends, stats, games, groups and other content. The website will also include a news feed of what all your friends are up to.
That’s all I know about the service for now. I should have more tomorrow. The launch date is still months away. The company is also rumored to have closed, or be closing, a significant round of funding.
Dennis Fong, who’s 30, is one of the world’s top gamers. He cofounded Xfire, a freeware instant messaging service targeted at gamers, in 2003. In 2006 it was acquired by Viacom for $102 million. Fong is also an advisor to WeGame, which we covered last month.
