amitt
Joined 18 years ago
Karma
659
Submissions
69
Member since
Dec 16
Recent submissions
Comment · 6 years ago
This is missing a pretty big chunk of the end-game(s) of Flash: social network gaming. All of the top Facebook games were using Flash. We built the engine for FarmVille, CityVille, etc. using ActionScript3. Our artists would author the animations and sprites in the Flash editor and we'd be able to drop them in seamlessly into the game.
Additionally, PC/Console 2D & 3D games were using Flash to author and render their UIs for a very long time via ScaleForm. They only discontinued it in 2018.
Flash gaming became much bigger than Newgrounds and had massive influence on how to build future WYSIWIG tools to empower designers and artists.
Comment · 9 years ago
Depends on the type of training. Walmart is using VR to simulate Black Friday scenarios in which a fully-immersive environment would be more useful than an overlay.
Several AR companies are working on just-in-time knowledge to allow people to do tasks without prior knowledge. We've invested in that area and I wrote on the topic here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/augmented-reality-could-slow-...
Comment · 9 years ago
I run a VR/AR-focused VC firm (Presence Capital). We've done 30+ investments in this space, so you can say that we believe in the long-term potential of VR. Even given that, we're bearish on how quickly there will be a profitable/sustainable VR consumer business and have advised most of our portfolio companies targeting consumers to keep burn low.
That being said, this article and most of the comments here are taking a singular worldview: consumer-focused VR for a western market. VR is a tool, not an industry. Context on use is required to assess traction.
VR for B2B or enterprises can make money today and doesn't require mass-consumer adoption. If you make someone 10x more effective at their job (tools for sales people: OssoVR) or onboard employees faster (training: STRIVR), you can overcome the cost and rough edges on the hardware and have an ROI to justify the cost of the system.
Walmart, for example, recently announced they are using VR to power their training centers. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/walmart-is-bringing-vr-ins...
We're actively investing in VR for training companies and I recently did an overview of what separates out the best companies in this space: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/08/24/ti...
In Asia (and increasingly in the west), VR-arcades are going to be how most consumers first experience high-end PC VR. Culturally, people there are already used to going to internet cafe's to use computers by the hour and seek out 3rd spaces. VR-by-the-hour rooms fit this mold. Additionally, the short length of most VR experiences makes it easy to have a 15-20 minute session and not be disappointed by the lack of content. IMAX is starting to open multiple VR centers and the word within the industry is that the VR Zones opened by Namco in Tokyo are currently profitable.
More info on this here: https://medium.com/@amitt/vr-will-be-huge-in-china-41de0c758....
(disclosure: we're investors in STRIVR and OssoVR)
Comment · 9 years ago
Mobile games/vr/ar - Unity or Unreal
Web Backend - Elixir/Phoenix (we used PHP for FV), Python in some cases
Web Frontend / Native Mobile Apps - React & React Native
JS has effectively caught up to what AS3 offered back then minus type safety (which TypeScript offers).
Comment · 9 years ago
End of an era.
We built the FarmVille-engine using AS3 and I still think it's one of the best programming languages I've ever used. Static typing, access modifiers, and performant. Low friction for new users (most people had the plugin, we could stream the main binary and assets)
0% chance we could have built the game using any other client-side tech stack available at the time.
Current: Managing Partner & Co-founder - Presence Capital
Previous: CEO & Co-founder - Toro, acquired by Google in 2015 CTO - Zynga Japan Director of Engineering - Zynga Co-creator/Lead Dev - FarmVille CTO & Co-founder - MyMiniLife, acquired by Zynga in 2009 Software Engineer - Epic Games, Unreal Engine, Gears of War