PLAY ALL will attend GamesCom ’09 in Cologne.  The GamesCom is from August 19-23 and for more information on attending please visit http://www.gamescom-cologne.com.

For more information or to schedule a meeting with someone from the PLAY ALL team please send an e-mail to info[at]playall.fr.

PLAY ALL will attend GDC & GC ’09 in San Francisco.  The Game Connection is from March 24-26 and for more information on attending please visit http://www.game-connection.com/

For more information or to schedule a meeting with someone from the PLAY ALL team please send an e-mail to info[at]playall.fr

If you are lead programmer, software architect, programmer and if you are curious about PLAY ALL best technical pratices, it is the place to be on Tuesday 24th morning! You’re welcome!

More information here.

]]> http://blog.playall.fr/?feed=rss2&p=73 0 http://blog.playall.fr/?p=72 http://blog.playall.fr/?p=72#comments Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:04:34 +0000 smille http://playall.wordpress.com/?p=72 On 21st February, the French Prime Minister, François Fillon, came to Cap Digital, the Greater Paris Region Business Cluster. He visited Play All at the project’s stand.
In his speech, François Fillon spoke about ICT and the digital and innovation support policy that the government wishes to pursue.

Several points stand out from his speech:
1) Confirmation that business clusters are going to continue, with numbers even being increased (therefore those who reject joint projects…)
2) The leading role to be played by Cap Digital and Paris in the setting-up of clusters.
3) Play All was cited by the Prime Minister as being one of two flagship projects.

Extract of the speech

« (…) Our digital policy will be based on business clusters.
The underlying idea is to create a link between an entrepreneurial culture and the world of research. CAP Digital has the capacity to successfully forge this link.
I admire the first 100 R&D projects that have sprung from the ferment of ideas produced by your “ecosystem”.
Your cluster achieves the feat of channelling your energies without distorting them.
Two projects in particular come to mind, run by SME consortia, which were presented to me a short while ago, and on which great hopes can be built.
I am referring to “HD3D” which offers joint tools for 3D film production and animation.
And I am also thinking of the “Play All” project, which is the result of French video games studios pooling their expertise in order to shape the standards of the future. (…) »

For more information

Pictures
Speech
Cap Digital’s website

Five French developers — Darkworks, Kylotonn, Load, White Birds Productions, and Wizarbox, with the support of French engineering schools — recently announced they have united to establish the Play All consortium, which aims to secure the development of its own cross-platform toolchain standard.

The five companies will set up a common game technology company and technology center dedicated to housing the middleware project, and plan to assemble a team of more than 40 engineers over the next 2 years.

Read more on Gamasutra’s website

Play All head: ‘ engine independence is critical’ for future of dev biz
Boss of French middleware initiative says team is already thinking ahead to PlayStation 4 .

In an in-depth Q&A looking at the French PlayAll middleware scheme, we’ve been talking to project manager Anne Dévouassoux to find out more – and she has said the collaborative technology effort is key to supporting independent developers in France.

(…) »Building an Xbox 360 and PS3 toolchain is already very risky for a studio to undertake on its own, and when we project forwards to PlayStation 4 the risk is even greater. So our bet was to start a collaborative approach on this generation so we will be ready to face next cycle challenges. We really are thinking that far ahead – it’s a highly ambitious and long-term project. »(…)

The full Q&A, which also asks how the project exactly works, can be read here.

Read more on Develop’s website

Les Ulis, France, December 4, 2007

A member of Microsoft France’s IDEES program, PLAY ALL unites the talents and technologies of five video game companies to create and promote a common platform and development center. The PLAY ALL project was founded by five game development studios in the Greater Paris Region, which also involves engineering schools, cutting-edge university laboratories and specialized middleware companies. PLAY ALL’s goal is to develop creation tool middleware that can be used across all video game platforms.

PLAY ALL is in a particularly advantageous position to tackle the technology challenges facing the video game field over the short and medium-terms, that is, being able to provide a tried and proven solution for new “HD” generation consoles (particularly PlayStation3 and Xbox360), as well as for Internet-based multi-player games. PLAY ALL will also extend the production chain to include consoles such as Nintendo and Wii, portable devices such as Sony PSP and Nintendo DS, as well as those from previous generations, such as PlayStation2.
The development sector in France and Europe will benefit from PLAY ALL as a critical tool for sustaining technological independence. PLAY ALL’s objective is to ensure that development studios can leverage a software suite that is interoperable with 100% of the market, as well as to make sure that independent developers have access to the key software technologies needed for developing top quality games. This includes 3-D display engines for game consoles, network engines, animation engines and more.
Five renowned studios are highly active in the PLAY ALL project: Darkworks, project leader, and Kylotonn, LoadInc, White Birds Productions and Wizarbox. Four companies specialized in middleware development are also involved: Bionatics, AtOnce Technologies, Spirops and Voxler, as well as four of the four top academic research laboratories in France, LIRIS, CNAM, LIP6 and ENST.
The five studios created PLAY ALL right in the heart of Paris as a subsidiary and common technology center. This structure will house the project and bring together the entire team dedicated to middleware creation at a single location. Over the next two years, a team of over 40 programmers and engineers will work on the project. Twenty-five jobs have already been created, with another 15 yet to come.

Having obtained its official project label from the Paris-based Cap Digital competitiveness cluster, PLAY ALL development is scheduled over two years with an overall budget of 13M€. The project is supported by 6.5M€ in funding from the French government, with 2.6M€ from an inter-ministry fund dedicated to business competitiveness managed by the General Department of Trade (DGE), 1.9 M€ from the Ile-de-France Region, as well funding from several Departments, namely 0.8M€ from Paris, 0.4 M€ from Hauts-de-Seine and 0.4 M€ from Val-de-Marne.
By the end of 2006, the Ile-de-France Region and the Department of Paris had already shown their support for PLAY ALL by investing in a 6-month startup phase (235K€ and 184K€ respectively).
PLAY ALL also benefits from active support by Microsoft’s IDEES (“ideas”) program, an initiative that supports and promotes the growth of innovative companies in France. In early 2008, an editing organization will be created in order to promote PLAY ALL and prepare the groundwork for sales activities, scheduled to start in late 2009.
While PLAY ALL’s main objective is to provide a practical and rapidly operational way to meet the challenges in today’s video game market, another of its goals is to evolve over time to ensure very early access to the foundation technologies of tomorrow’s game generations and “serious” interactive applications. The next industrial cycle in this field is expected to begin around 2011, at which time PLAY ALL will be ready as a mature and perfectly adapted tool.

Focusing on home and portable game consoles, PLAY ALL’s optimized multi-platform architecture will also seek to extend is expertise, starting in 2008, into 3-D smartphone platforms and consumer electronics devices running Linux, such as set-top boxes and multimedia readers. PLAY ALL intends to cover all the technologies involved in these areas from creation to electronic distribution.
“In our industry, the next revolution will be based on collaboration and consolidation of technology standards among independent studios. Our five companies are heading this direction starting right now so that we are ready for future growth cycles, where access to technology will be one of the keys to success and where the development of multiplatform games will require teams of 200-300 people,” says Guillaume Gouraud, General Manager of Darkworks, representative in the PLAY ALL Consortium.

PLAY ALL’s underlying goal is to enable a company with enough critical mass in key technologies and interactivity to emerge in the current technology cycle, on today’s consoles.
The consortium’s goal will then be to position the PLAY ALL company as one of the world’s Top 5 game technology suppliers as the next console cycle takes shape.
The Ile-de-France Regional Council provides support for local video game creators, and has established this as a strategic direction for regional development of information and media technologies. As early as 2004, the Region was the first to encourage cooperation between studios on R&D issues. Since that time, it has played an important role in the sector locally, creating CapitalGames, a regional program to encourage international development. The Region also actively supports national policy to promote this sector, in particular with respect to the Video Game Production Tax Credit.
With the PLAY ALL technology platform, the Ile-de-France Regional Council confirms its constructive long-term vision in the video game sector.
“For the past 5 years, we have been a privileged partner for video game creators in the Greater Paris Region, but we also support popular enthusiasm for game media by organizing events such as the Video Game World Cup for the younger generation, and the Video Game Festival for the entire family. This commitment with respect to both players and creators will continue into 2008 with other dynamic projects now being prepared”, says Jean Paul Huchon, President of the Ile-de-France Regional Council.

About PLAY ALL
Based in Paris, France, PLAY ALL is a new software company specialized in creation tools and technologies for video game and virtual world markets. PLAY ALL is a joint technology venture that unites five game developers in the Greater Paris Region: Darkworks, Kylotonn, LoadInc, White Birds Productions and Wizarbox.
Leveraging the expertise of its team of 40 engineers, as well as the internal technologies of its founding companies, PLAY ALL’s goal is provide creative tools to free developers from constraints related to developing multi-platform games so that they can express their creative energy and talents on all types of media in the game market, such as PC, Microsoft Xbox360, Live Arcade, Sony PlayStation3, Sony PSP, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS. The company’s strategy is firmly committed to standardizing technology, as well as opening and sharing expertise with game developers around the world.

About Cap Digital

CAP DIGITAL is a French Competiveness Cluster whose mission is to transform the Greater Paris Region into an international reference in the digital content and knowledge industry. To encourage and support business performance in this sector, the cluster helps bring together know-how from various sources, organize industry networks, stimulate innovation and highlight local advantages. Cap Digital is a European-wide cluster focusing on 6 strategic fields: Digital education, Image, sound, and interaction, Knowledge engineering, Video games, Digital heritage, Services and uses. It carries out four main types of actions: stimulating research and development by certifying relevant projects and encouraging cross-fertilization of innovation; providing support for growing companies by setting up efficient partnerships and helping them obtain funding; encouraging the sharing of knowledge and building the network of professionals in the Greater Paris Region by organizing regular interactive events; and by making it easier for members to reach international markets by promoting them through marketing and partnership activities.

About Microsoft IDEES

Launched in October 2005, the IDEES program (initiative for the economic development of software developers and startups, or “ideas” in French) associates Microsoft France with innovative companies in the software market. IDEES is part of Microsoft’s international Emerging Business program. France was the first country in Europe in which the initiative was launched. A special team was built within Microsoft’s Platform and Ecosystem division to provide privileged support for selected high-potential companies.

http://www.Microsoft.com/france/apropos/idees/

PLAY ALL Press Contact
Michel Bams – Tel.: +33 (0)1 42 83 51 69 – Mail: mbams@playall.fr

Microsoft France Press Contact
Julien Codorniou – Tel.: +33 (0)6 64 40 67 60 – Mail: julienco@microsoft.com

Euro RSCG&CO for Microsoft
Barbara Coumaros – Tel.: +33 (0)1 58 47 95 56 – Mail: barbara.coumaros@eurorscg.fr