Online Matters Transcending the single Player Experience.

Posts by Sean Flinn About Sean Flinn I am the Marketing Director for GameSpy Technology. I love video games, music, tacos, beer, and long distance running - pretty much in that order.


Emotional Robots’ Warm Gun Gets Massive Update, Accolades

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Sean Flinn

Independent start-up studio Emotional Robots recently released a major update to its GameSpy Technology-powered multiplayer iOS shooter, Warm Gun, that added new content, fixed myriad bugs in the game, and just generally improved the title’s performance for all players. The cherry on the update sundae? The developer also put the game on sale in the AppStore for just $1.99 until the end of February. Go grab it!

And when we say Warm Gun received a “major” update this month, we mean it. Included among the patch’s many refinements:

  • Increased performance across all devices by roughly 40%
  • Improved control schemes, AI, UI, registering/logging process for smoother online gameplay
  • Improved server browsing
  • Answering huge demand from users, added kill/death ratio in multiplayer status
  • Added all-new map, Coldshot
  • Improved stability, streamlined interface, resolved random crashes

Emotional Robots has also released a few screenshots of the new Coldshot DLC via its space on IndieDB:

Response to the update has been overwhelmingly positive. IGN.com noted that the game, “certainly stands out among the glut of FPS titles, thanks to its steampunk Wild West aesthetic,” while 148Apps commented that, “now looks to be as good a time as any to holster up and take a step into the past … or is it the future?” According to Emotional Robots, the update also had a substantial impact on user reviews, with the game’s average score climbing 1 1/2 stars — from a solid 3 to a stellar 4.5 — in just the span of a couple of weeks.

As we mentioned in an October blog post celebrating the game’s launch, Warm Gun gained access to GameSpy Technology’s online services via our Open initiative, which aims to make all of our technology more accessible for independent and mobile game developers. Emotional Robots — just like over 1200 other developers (and counting) — simply signed up for a free account via the GameSpy Technology website, downloaded our SDKs, and obtained support during development via our online forums and wiki-based documentation.


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Categories: Indie, iPhone, Matchmaking, Open / Tags: , , , , , ,

GameSpy Technology Powers Glu’s Gun Bros with Online Services on Android

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Sean Flinn

This past week, mobile game publisher / developer Glu Mobile released an update for its mega-popular Unity engine action title, Gun Bros, on Android that includes heavily demanded multiplayer and other online services powered by GameSpy Technology.

Gun Bros

Gun Bros. players can now enjoy a wide range of online features — from multiplayer co-op matchmaking to friend lists — that will add hours of fun to the game … at no additional cost! The game is available for download now for FREE from the Android Marketplace.

Glu offers a quick taste of what that online action looks like in this video on its official YouTube channel:

With this release, Gun Bros. becomes the first game to ship using GameSpy Technology’s newly minted services for Unity on Android — which are now available to all developers at no up front cost as part of our ongoing efforts to support mobile and independent developers. All Unity developers targeting Android can now take advantage of GameSpy’s Multiplayer Matchmaking, Data Storage, and Player Metrics & Rankings services to build compelling online features into their games via our Unity C# Connector.

Ready to create the next hit Android action game? Sign up now for a free account to access complete source code, Unity-compatible C# libraries, documentation and online support for all GameSpy Technology services.


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Categories: Indie, Unity / Tags: , ,

InXile’s Choplifter HD Available Now

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Sean Flinn

InXile Entertainment — the Newport Beach, Calif. based studio founded by former Interplay leader Brian Fargo — uses the tagline “Nostalgia just had a baby with Awesome” to describe its high octane remake of the classic helicopter rescue game Choplifter. Having played the game ourselves at PAX and elsewhere, we have to agree. Choplifter HD is available for download as of today on Sony’s PSN, Steam and Xbox Live, and comes with leaderboards powered by GameSpy Technology’s Player Metrics & Rankings services.

The studio gained access to our services via our “GameSpy Open” initiative, which aims to make all of GameSpy Technology’s services more accessible to independent studios by making them more affordable and easier to integrate. A hearty congrats to our friends and partners at InXile on getting the game airborne!

Choplifter HD represents a first of sorts for InXile. The studio originally built on its Interplay founders’ deep AAA development experience, digging into the heritage of classic RPGs to revive classics like The Bard’s Tale (the studio’s first release) and creating new, Unreal-Engine -powered dungeon crawlers like Hunted: The Demon’s Forge. The studio also has a line of more casual, digital only titles, like the modern classic Line Rider. Choplifter HD finds the studio breaking new ground, joining a growing swell of independent studios releasing high quality games at moderate price points exclusively via digital distribution channels like Sony’s PSN.

The bet seems to be paying off — IGN.com has already rated the game a very solid 8/10, noting that its unique, ever-shifting style and challenges makes it, ” … an ace experience for bite-sized sessions and marathons alike.”


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Categories: Competition, Data, Indie

2011 Front Line Award for Networking

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Sean Flinn

On behalf of everyone at GameSpy Technology, we’d like to extend a very sincere “Thank you!” to all of the developers who nominated — and then voted for — us to receive Game Developer Magazine’s “Front Line Award” in Networking. The January 2012 issue of the magazine just hit mailboxes this week, and we were beyond surprised and humbled to see that we had won.

We’ll be totally frank: this award only means something to us because game developers themselves control the nominations and the voting for winners. We have spent the entirety of our decade-plus history working to meet the needs of developers big and small, AAA and independent. Literally thousands of developers have worked with us in some capacity or another to help amplify the fun in their games by connecting their players online in a variety of ways — whether through multiplayer matchmaking, sharing stats, or trading user generated content.

It was especially gratifying to have the Game Developer Magazine article announcing the award penned by Zach Lehman, the Executive Producer on Warm Gun, an iOS shooter from independent Canadian studio Emotional Robots. Zach and his team started working with our tech as part of our “GameSpy Open” initiative, which aims to make all of our services more accessible (in every way conceivable) to independent developers; we were blown away when we saw Emotional Robots’s work on Warm Gun and proud to be part of the title. To know that independent developers like Zach were responsible for the award validated our efforts over the past two years to support the rapidly growing independent development scene.

OK, enough about all of that. Thank you again to all of our friends and partners for the acknowledgement. We’ve taken it as a cue to re-double our efforts on your behalf (and maybe to go get a little sloshed this evening).

Happy 2012 — and a hearty congrats to all of the other Front Line winners and nominees!


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Categories: Other

Emotional Robots’ Warm Gun Released for iOS with Multiplayer powered by GameSpy Technology

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Sean Flinn

For anyone questioning the ability of small, independent studios to produce high-caliber video game entertainment, the crew at Emotional Robots has an answer: Warm Gun.

Set in a futuristic, dystopian version of the Wild West, this first person shooter for the iPhone and iPad delivers the sort of adrenalin-soaked, frenetic action that most gamers used to expect only from big budget PC and console games. More compelling, a team of six full-time (and 4 part-time) developers built the game over the past three-and-a-half years using the Unreal Development Kit, with multiplayer services obtained freely via GameSpy Technology’s “Open” Initiative (which puts the full suite of our online services – from multiplayer to player metrics & rankings to cloud storage – in the hands of start-up studios at no up-front cost).

You can view a trailer, loaded with gameplay footage, here:

Multiplayer works exactly in Warm Gun as you’d expect from any other shooter: dedicated servers host the game online, and players join by browsing through a server browser to locate the optimal host. Players can choose from any of four characters, each equipped with three weapons, and run ‘n’ gun their way through the game’s tried and true deathmatch game mode. New multiplayer modes, like Capture the Flag, Death Match, or Team Death Match, in addition to Warm Gun “exclusives” like “Showdown,” “Great Escape” and “Mad Cap” can be expected in future versions of the game, whether or iOS or elsewhere.

Warm Gun is available for purchase download now via Apple’s iTunes App Store. And, when you’re ready to follow in Emotional Robots’ footsteps, you can sign up for a free GameSpy Technology developer account and start coding your next online masterpiece right here.


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Categories: Indie, iPhone, Matchmaking, Open
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