Intro to Vivox, the comms technology behind the best multiplayer games
Presented by Who is Vivox?
Market Leader Vivox is the leading provider of communication services for online games. We deliver the best, most scalable, and most efficient gaming voice and text chat service in the world for the largest developers and publishers in gaming.
Experienced Team Our platform is tested, stable, scalable and supported by expert operations and integration teams around the globe
Powerful Solutions, Delivered as a Service Vivox provides the best player experience and fastest time to market for chat services integrated directly into your games
3
Impact on player retention Increased engagement, enhanced gameplay, stronger community
IN-GAME VOICE CHAT New players that use voice are more active and more Vivox Weekly Retention Impact likely to return than non-voice users
time in game versus more likely to still be playing in non-Vivox voice users Week 5 than non-voice users
These data patterns are consistent across titles, platforms, gameplay styles, and implementation details
5 Solution Overview - Integrated Chat
—Best Player Experience – Keep your players engaged with rich features and a seamless experience. 120M MAU
—Easy to Implement – Easy integration regardless of 100B Minutes/Month platform or engine. Ensure fastest time to market. Future proof Countries your game. 190+
Integrations —Hosted Managed Service – Proven, managed solution 100+ supported by an experienced team that meets and exceeds its 99.9% Uptime SLAs.
6 Game Engine Support
The Vivox SDK has been integrated with nearly every mainstream game engine over the last 10 years
Developers can leverage the CORE SDK for custom For both Unreal & Unity developers, Vivox provides integrations with any code base plugins, sample code, and documentation to simplify integration
7
Global Footprint
CUSTOMER DATA CENTERS
Players in Over 190 Countries Globally
9 Innovative Features for Your Players
3D Positional Voice Text Chat USER CONTROLS
— Allows players to hear others — Unified text and voice relative to their location in- experience for players & world developers — Vivox is the only provider of 3D positional voice at scale User Control — Improves immersion and realism — Players have control over their own experience
Audio Quality Multi Channel — Media mixing, wideband codec, and advanced audio — Players can join multiple pipeline for highest quality conversations simultaneously audio experience with minimal impact on local resources
10 PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
— 3D positional chat
– Complexity of 3D integration and attenuation of sound
– Player interaction enablement thanks to 3D
– Easy to use Vivox APIs for supporting 3D audio
– Sessions start with 100 players in 3D audio — Massive scaling
– Rapid response to unexpected growth (10x growth in 2 months)
– Cloud bursting to AWS to deal with unexpected load
11 Cross-Platform Communication
The only provider with service on consoles, desktop, browser and mobile
SDKs available for Windows, MacOS, Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, and browsers
Vivox SDKs enables cross-platform communication – supports cross platform gameplay, mobile companion apps, and other out-of-game opportunities
Consistent API and feature set on all platforms
12 Fortnite
— Crossplay ready technology
– Server technology is client agnostic and consistent across platforms
– Allow matchmaking to operate independent of the voice system
– Vivox empowers the social element, Epic controls the rest — Highly agile technology and deployment
– Rapid adaptation of technology for new platforms
– Fast deployment of service on new hardware (Switch, phones)
– Certification process across platforms reducing launch friction
13 Voice Chat on Consoles Why do developers choose Vivox over native console party chat?
Reliability & Quality
— No NAT issues
— Wideband codec, platform optimization, audio pipeline (AEC, AGC, etc)
Simplicity & Features
— API – ‘Join Channel’
— 3D positional for immersion & VR. User controls and other features
Cross-platform
— Same API, functionality on all platforms
— Simplifies cross-play
14 Proven Technology and Service
Massively Scalable Speed & Scale Security Support for large groups (up Developers can create All communications are secure to 10,000 or more in a thousands of conversations single conversation) and per minute for groups, guilds, large communities (millions matches, and social areas of players)
Reduced Bandwidth Not Peer-to-Peer and CPU Impact on the Gamer Users’ IP addresses aren’t exposed, and no issues with Bandwidth and CPU are the NAT traversal to create parties same for 3 or 3,000 person conversation
15 Rainbow Six Siege
— Matchmake based teams and squads
– Squad filling
– High churn rate on voice chat sessions (over 10 Million a day) — Replacing an existing system (Operation Health)
– Changes need to be rolled out for all players at the same time
– UX and functionality needs to be maintained or improved
– Switching from original peer-to-peer system to server-based
16 How can I implement I implement How can Vivox?
Generative Art — Made with Unity 1- Register on our Developer Portal 2 - Download the SDK SDK 3 - Import the Plugin on your project 4 - Set up your voice chat parameters 5 - Use Vivox classes Code example For more info visit our documentation The world’s best game communication services. Now available to everyone.
Get Started for Free Appendix
27 Other games and services
— Voice activity and energy used in gameplay — Text chat only — Voice fonts — Speech-to-text transcription — Toxicity — Unity and Unreal kits — WebRTC - voice and text — What would you like to have from your voice service?
28 Why integrate voice in your game?
— Increase player interactions and giving them social tools — Bolster community by eliminating barriers to communication — Keep players in existing ecosystem - control the experience — Hardcore players desire optimal social tools — Increase player retention and player engagement — People want to communicate!
29 Current external solutions
— Pros
– Wide variety of options
– Low effort
– Your players might already use some of them
— Cons
– Limited control over your players
– No customization for your game (3D, etc.)
– Very limited interactions with your UX (pop-ups, overlays, etc.)
30 Current integrated solutions
— Pros
– Customizable to developer needs
– Keep players in existing ecosystem - control the experience
– In game experience that doesn’t break immersion
– Moderation capabilities
– Cross platform potential — Cons
– Needs integration efforts (varies depending product and level of support)
31 Build vs Buy
— Building is possible but usually is not in the skill set of internal development team — Operations (maintenance, hosting, etc.) requires a dedicated support staff — Consider buying SaaS as opposed to just the tech
– Goal is to alleviate internal staff requirements — No matter what, choose a scalable and robust service that has proven experience
— High complexity of international deployments
– Coordination of over 10 different hosting sites
– Adapting systems to foreign laws
– Reacting to change in laws and policies
– Custom encryption
– Tested by local test teams in each region
33 Blizzard: Overwatch
— Build vs Buy
– Recognized for their high-quality products – Enough funds and talent to be able to build in-house
– Tried to build it several times, wasn’t good enough — Consistent solution for their ecosystem
– Uniform user experience on all platforms and titles – Vivox as the only voice comms provider
34