Interview with Icarus Studios’ David Gardner

Icarus Studios have been mentioned in our news a few times. The middleware developer, focusing on MMOs and virtual worlds have made a couple of announcements this past few months, the most important one being the launch of their middleware suite. The only announced game using Icarus Studios’ middleware is Fallen Earth, though two undisclosed projects have licenced the product. We wanted to know more about this company and sent them some questions.

The MMO Gamer: Could you tell us more about yourself and about the company, please? When was Icarus formed and who are its owners?

David Gardner: Icarus was formed in 2001 by a team of industry veterans who wanted to create the first platform and tools designed from scratch for virtual worlds and MMO platforms. Jim Hettinger, our CEO, and other founders created some of the very first online games. I am the new guy at Icarus in charge of licensing our platform and contracting for our project and studio services.

The MMO Gamer: A lot of people may not know what middleware is, could you explain to us what Icarus Studios does? What is a middleware provider?

David Gardner: Middleware is really any tool that you use or embed to create your product. Vivox, for example, helps developers to add VoIP in their product. Calling the Icarus platform “middleware” is kind of like calling a super carrier a rowboat. Ours is a complete system for building, hosting and managing virtual worlds and MMOs. It includes many integrated development tools, asset management modules, as well as data mining and network monitoring systems, not to mention customer support tools. We have also integrated the best of breed middleware products right into the platform. Basically, everything a studio needs to build an MMO or virtual world application in less than half the time and expense traditionally associated with these projects.

The MMO Gamer: How many people work at Icarus Studios?

David Gardner: We have seventy two on staff.

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The MMO Gamer: How are you planning on competing with other middleware providers such as BigWorld Tech, whose tools have been on the market for some time now?

David Gardner: Platforms that have been around a while are limited by their graphics engines and the foundations upon which they were built. Icarus was founded to build a next generation platform by a team of veteran developers. It not only supports many features not seen in other platforms, but also includes a highly sophisticated backend designed for massive scaling. In addition, our platform has features to support non-MMO virtual world applications such as in-world browser as a texture or window, streaming video as a texture, taking in-world photographs and sending them to a cell phone, and the ability to talk and call out from an in-world phone to a real world phone.

Our zoneless technology can use any height field satellite data to create massive and realistic worlds. On the server side, the server architecture can actually re-task machines to become any other type of server as needed for load balancing or for self-healing in the event of a hardware outage. There are many other details that often get left out of an MMO or Virtual World as deadlines approach that we include automatically. For example, our NPC eyes will follow an avatar while talking. Our avatars can grow facial hair, express moods, and have dynamic emotes. When people see our technology they agree that it is different from anything out there today. We have vehicle simulations and dynamically modifiable terrain as well as a physics system that that supports fluid simulations, and soft body physics. I have boasted that every potential customer that has done an in-person evaluation and comparison of our platform and tools has chosen us. We are at a 100% win ratio to date for every head-to-head comparison.

The MMO Gamer: How is the development of Icarus Studio’s middleware platform being funded?

David Gardner: Our founders put up the seed money and we did a venture capital round two years ago. .

The MMO Gamer: How many companies are licensing your technology? Which companies?

David Gardner: Our platform and tools were licensed twice before we even announced their availability! There are several companies using our technology including two Fortune 500 companies and some startups but unfortunately I am under NDA not to discuss them or their projects at this time. Everyone seems to be in stealth mode these days. You will be reading about them later this year.

The MMO Gamer: Finally, is there anything else you’d like to tell us about Icarus Studios which hasn’t been addressed in this interview?

David Gardner: Our mission at Icarus is simply to be the best and we will keep investing in our tools and technology to maintain our leadership position in the market. There is a great deal of information about our tools and services on our website at www.icarusstudios.com as well as some great free white papers about the virtual worlds industry and tools in general.