Icarus Porting Virtual World Client To iPhone

Icarus Studios make 3D virtual world software — they have made a soon to be released post-apocalyptic MMO, Fallen Earth, using their own Icarus Platform. While we twiddle our thumbs waiting their game to come out, Icarus have announced that they want to support the Icarus Platform on the iPhone. This may mean lots of always-on persistent shared world antics on the iPhone, which will be nice — although they also make virtual worlds for businesses, so there could be some non-gaming stuff in there too. Icarus will demoing the iPhone client at the Austin Games Developers Conference, starting tomorrow.ICARUS STUDIOS PORTS VIRTUAL WORLDS PLATFORM TO IPHONE; FIRST SHOWING AT AUSTIN GDC GAME DEVELOPER CONFERENCE, AUSTIN, TX — SEPTEMBER 15, 2008 – Icarus Studios, which provides a turnkey solution for creating virtual worlds, MMOGs, and serious games, has announced the expansion of their development platform to the iPhone. Icarus will demo a prototype of their 3D platform running on the iPhone for the first time in booth 316 at the Austin Game Developer Conference where it will also showcase its RealTime™ online development suite and the Icarus 3D and Flash based client software. "We are committed to porting our platform to established and emerging devices. The iPhone offers a tremendous opportunity to extend Virtual Worlds and MMOGs to mobile devices in a visually rich and intuitive device," said James Hettinger, Chief Executive Officer, Icarus Studios. The prototype demo on the iPhone extension will include a 360-degree panoramic tour of a sample virtual world location, with navigation ability through the accelerometer. The official launch of the Icarus 3D iPhone client will be in Q1 2009. Built by a team of industry veterans, the Icarus suite was designed to meet the specific needs of next-generation Virtual Worlds and MMOGs supporting functionality such as user generated content, in-world social and entertainment activities, scriptable AIs, dynamic game systems, diverse revenue models, and in-world profiled marketing on a secure and scaleable platform. The Icarus platform incorporates a number of best of breed technologies such as Vivox® for VoIP, Ageia for its physics engine PhysX™, IDV for SpeedTree®, and OC3 for avatar speech and facial expressions. For more information visit http://www.icarusstudios.com. RealTime is a trademark of Icarus Studios. Vivox is a registered trademark of Vivox, Inc. PhysX is a trademark of Ageia Technologies, Inc. SpeedTree is a registered trademark of IDV, Inc.