Exit Games
Private | |
Industry | Online games |
Founded | February 2003 |
Headquarters | Hamburg, Germany |
Key people |
Chris Wegmann, Co-founder, CEO and CTO |
Website | www.exitgames.com |
Exit Games is a German venture capital financed company, founded in 2003, with offices in Hamburg and Portland offering Photon, a multiplayer engine for cross-platform realtime multiplayer games, massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), chat and voice chat on various technological platforms, including mobile, PC and consoles.
Technology
Exit Games provides the multiplayer middleware and service Photon Server and Photon Cloud that allow the development of scalable cross-platform realtime multiplayer games. Photon offers SDKs which include libraries for various platforms - such as Unity, iOS, Android, Windows, Windows Phone, Corona, Marmelade, Cocos2d-x and more -, code samples and documentation.
Since all libraries connect to the same backend using the same commands and logics, cross-platform interactivity is possible, i.e., communication between different variants of an application running on various platforms (e.g. iOS vs. Browser vs. Android).
It is recommended to start with the Photon Cloud. In case custom server code is really needed it is easy to switch to Photon Server later as the Client SDK of both product share the same API.
Main benefits Photon Cloud:
- Cross-Platform Capabilities: Client SDKs for all major gaming platform
- Global Low Latency: Photon Cloud is deployed in hosting centers across the U.S., Europe, and Asia (Singapore, Japan, and soon in South Korea). Based on this footprint, Photon Cloud’s infrastructure allows developers to launch real-time games on a global scale without any server hassle
- Real-Time: Photon Cloud’s communication protocols are streamlined and the service’s core is based on C/C++ to allow the fastest round-trip times for your multiplayer apps in conjunction with the global hosting centers
- Automatic Scalability: Photon Cloud scales automatically with the actual game’s load, supporting tens of thousands of users.Matchmaking API: Match players randomly or by specific filters — or create a list of open rooms and let players pick one. It works, simply and quickly
- FREE Plan: Photon Cloud is completely free for up to 20 concurrent users (CCU) per app, and you can have as many apps as you like. If you need to support more players, you can upgrade to a paid plan or downgrade to a free plan at any time. Paid plans with “CCU burst" allow to exceed your CCU limit and optionally upgrade later without losing any users
Business model & Pricing
Photon Server is offered as a software license model while Photon Cloud is offered as a software as a service. The available options are differentiated by the amount of concurrent users that can connect with Photon at the same time, means users playing a Photon powered game at the same time.
Photon Cloud & Server are both offered on a monthly subscription basis plus Photon Server is available for a one-off fee as well.
Free plans are available for all Photon products.
A detailed pricing for each Photon product can be found online: Pricing Photon Realtime Pricing Photon Turnbased Pricing Photon Unity Networking Pricing Photon Chat Pricing Photon Server
Furthermore, Exit Games offers 'Enterprise' licenses, which have neither a server nor a concurrent user limit.
Games Powered by Photon
An overview of selected references can be found at Photon's showcase site.
References
- GMO Cloud and Exit Games Partner to Release Popular SaaS Network Engine, Photon Cloud, in Japanese
- http://www.develop-online.net/news/31476/Exit-Games-launches-new-multiplayer-engine
- Photon Cloud & Corona SDK, A Dream Team for Cross-Platform Multiplayer Games