Genvid Technologies Showcases Multiple New Interactive Game Streams with Pipeworks Studios, Katapult Studio and More at GDC 2019

Experiences being built from the ground up on the Genvid SDK featuring interactive streams will be live on Twitch during the Game Developers Conference

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Genvid Technologies

Mar 18, 2019, 12:00 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Interactive streaming engine Genvid Technologies is showcasing multiple developers building brand new experiences over livestreams on Genvid's technologies at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) taking place in San Francisco this week. These developers represent just some of the many creators around the world that are building content in a brand-new genre that blurs the lines between games and traditional media. These enhanced video streams provide a higher level of interactivity, allowing for a broader spectrum of game enthusiasts to engage with the games they love, directly via platforms like Twitch.tv and YouTube.

"The future of interactive media is being built upon Genvid's technology," says Jacob Navok, CEO of Genvid. "When game developers think about building interactive streams across different platforms, infrastructures and game engines, we are the best-in-class solution, and it shows in the incredible innovation we are debuting from these creators at GDC 2019."

The below streams and more will be shown for the first time at Genvid's GDC Session Interactive Streaming and the Future of Media on Wednesday, March 20th at 10:30am in Moscone West Hall 3009, where the developers will come on stage and debut their work. Conference-goers can meet the studios and experience the streams live at Genvid's booth when the expo begins on March 20th at S266 in the South Hall.

Pipeworks Studios and Genvid Present Project Eleusis – a Breakthrough in Interactive Streaming

Famed Oregon independent developer Pipeworks Studios, known for Superfight and Terraria, is lifting the veil on Project Eleusis at GDC, the Game Developers Conference. Project Eleusis is a glimpse into the future of games with truly interactive streaming, showcasing breakthrough technology from Genvid.

Featured at Genvid's GDC booth, Project Eleusis invites attendees to catch a glimpse into the future of entertainment via interactive streaming and groundbreaking AI. The setting is a mysterious island where Twitch viewers become active participants in the survival sim, with the ability to control the game through the livestream itself. Every session is entirely unique, thanks to the audience's decisions and the powerful AI.

How the throngs of Twitch viewers will react is the key-- will they create an island utopia, or something more sinister? Take audience-controlled drones armed with exploding goats and let your imagination run wild.

GDC attendees can experience Project Eleusis live at Genvid's booth, and impact and affect this interactive streaming experience through a Twitch stream that is richer and more interactive than any Twitch experience until now.

Lindsay Gupton, CEO of Pipeworks, notes, "We've been actively inventing the medium of interactive streaming games for five years, starting with the revolutionary streamer/viewer experience of Superfight. We believe that the future of entertainment lies where an engaged audience can do more than just watch -- viewers can become active participants in streamed games, with a far greater experience for all. Project Eleusis shows what's possible in this emerging realm, with gameplay designed for maximum audience participation, and it could only be done with the breakthrough technology from Genvid."

Katapult Studio Demonstrates CHKN Arena

New York-based developer Katapult Studio is providing an early look at CHKN Arena, an innovative new streaming extension of the world of CHKN, currently on Steam Early Access. CHKN Arena is a streaming coliseum battle game in which AI-driven creatures face off against one another as streamers shoutcast the action. It's BattleBots meets Pokémon Stadium, built from the ground up for interactive livestreaming.

Using Genvid's interactive SDK and beamed directly on Twitch.tv through Genvid's Twitch Extension, CHKN Arena leverages dynamic interaction between streamers and their fans. The creative vision lets creatures in battle respond to the audience, who can clap to cheer on the streamer's creature, and even feed and revive them between rounds — all in real-time.

"CHKN Arena is a brand new creation, inspired by our belief that interactive media and audience participation is the future of entertainment," says Katapult Studio CEO, Kyra Reppen. "We're excited about the possibilities opened up by Genvid's technology that allows us and other developers to bring new content experiences to streamers and their audiences live on Twitch. We look forward to exploring ways to also use Genvid's YouTube embedded features soon".

Famed Japanese Indie Developer and Cloud Gaming Developer Kengo Nakajima Debuts the First Native Cloud Gaming + Genvid Integration, Including a Unique "Pay to Troll" system on Twitch

Kengo Nakajima, former President of Japan's Community Engine and author of the book "The Tech Behind Cloud Gaming," showcases his work on his own title, Space Sweeper, with Genvid integration, live on Twitch.tv during GDC 2019 for the first time. During GDC, a version of the game will be played through a cloud streaming instance of Space Sweeper on Parsec, while participants at GDC will be able to troll the players (or help them!) live through Twitch Extensions using Genvid.

Space Sweeper is a multiplayer action game where players attempt to destroy an infinite number of dangerous creatures and enemies, while gathering various resources and unlock advanced technologies to terraform the massive map. This is no easy feat, and that is where the viewers play their role.

Space Sweeper with Genvid is a new type of game experience for the streaming generation-- we call it the pay2troll system experiment. Using Genvid technology, when the game is being streamed on Twitch viewers are not just watching the game, they're directly affecting the player in the game world. Viewers can help the player by sending items such as weapons and health, or if they choose, troll players by sending enemies, or worse. Ultimately the game won't be just Player vs Environment, but Players vs all Twitch Viewers, becoming protagonists or antagonists at their whim!

"Space Sweeper was built for streaming," says Kengo Nakajima. "Exploring the relationships between player and viewer is a new frontier for the game industry and I am excited to be on the frontier of what is possible."

From their vantage on the "mother ship", viewer-participants can literally pick the spot of the screen they want to send items or enemies to the player. As the player kills enemies, the enemies will spawn particles called Anger Points (APs), that can be directly collected on the Twitch video screen, for each viewer. These APs can be used to unlock items from the Item Depot in the upper-middle part of viewer screen. After selecting unlocked item from the inventory, viewers then can click anywhere in the game world, and that item will be sent to that location in the game in real time.

Space Sweeper will release first as a 4-player local co-op mode on Steam later this year. Given the huge amount of moving sprites, the game cannot be synchronized through normal networking technologies; Nakajima is instead utilizing cloud technologies such as Parsec to allow up to 32 players to cooperate together.

The cloud allows for ease of increasing the number of players, and when considering time-attack modes, the more who play, the faster and more competitive the game becomes. "This is the kind of cloud-powered content that excites us, and we are thrilled to be able to support this initiative of cloud gaming and interactive broadcast," says Parsec CEO, Benjy Boxer. "Developers exploring content unique to Parsec and Genvid can enable new shared interactive experiences."

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Broadcasts Get Interactive Cheering

Hot on the heels of their collaborations running the Premium Twitch.tv Channels for ESL's Katowice Major in March 2019, and FACEIT's London Major in September 2018, StatsHelix and Genvid Technologies announce major additions to their already immersive interactive Counter-Strike Broadcast experience.

The new esports experience includes the features of the existing CS:GO channel- interactive realtime maps, player statistics and multiple player POVs-- and adds brand new viewer-to-viewer interactions, such as live cheering on the Twitch Extension between viewers (reducing the reliance for team cheering on chaotic chat), and deep-dive player data inside the popular StatsHelix CS:GO map product.

"FACEIT's work with StatsHelix and Genvid at the last major proved that viewers were hungry for rich, interactive esports experiences," says FACEIT CBO Mik Attisani. "We are excited for what the new features will bring to future broadcasts."

About Genvid Technologies

Founded in 2016 by game industry veterans and backed by Horizons Ventures, Makers Fund, March Capital Partners and OCA Ventures, Genvid has raised $20M to-date and provides an SDK for game developers, broadcasters and media companies to integrate into their products and make revolutionary interactive streams.

The Genvid SDK is a simple-to-use middleware, flexible enough to run on any streaming platform and infrastructure that developers want to support. As a result, livestreams can be monetized through transactions that are uniquely targeted to the individual watching, leading to a significant revenue opportunity for game developers through sponsorships and in-stream purchases.

The first interactive streaming tools built specifically for developers, the Genvid SDK be can downloaded for free at https://www.genvidtech.com

The company's name is a fusion of two Latin root words, Gen meaning "birth" and Vid meaning "viewing"; reflecting the company's mission to power a new era of interactive streaming experiences.

A media kit for this release, including screenshots, is available at http://www.genvidtech.com/GDC2019MediaKit

About Pipeworks Studios

Pipeworks is an imagination-driven development studio armed with a mastery of cutting-edge technology and a deep understanding of the player experience. We are leaders in the realm of Cloud Gaming, Radical AI, Interactive Streaming and so much more.

Since 1999, Pipeworks Studios has been quietly developing best-selling games and beloved game franchises from deep in the heart of Oregon. Our teams are creating truly unique original IP games alongside our on-going work with key game franchises and outside partners.

At Pipeworks Studios, we believe in creating popular, innovative, and unique games that harness the creative spark of our teams and embrace the power of our players and community.

WE harness the power of games to CREATE MAGIC across worlds.

Discover the magic at www.pipeworks.com

About Katapult Studio

Katapult is a digital entertainment company based at Betaworks in New York City. We are a small, passionate team from different backgrounds working towards the same goal: to make a positive impact through creative technology. CHKN, the studio's first title and an IndieCade E3 2018 Showcase Selection, is now on Steam Early Access.

For a taste of CHKN, visit www.CHKNgame.com

About StatsHelix, Inc.

StatsHelix is a technology company that enhances gaming experiences using data from games, with a focus on esports.

Starting out in 2015, we transformed the training of professional gamers and improved broadcasts using our data-driven tools. Recently, we shifted our focus to interactive streaming and developed the first major interactive live stream for esports.

About Parsec

Parsec is a leading low latency game streaming service built to increase access to PC gaming across multiple platforms. Parsec customers use the software to play, watch, and share any game online with their friends. The company was founded in 2016, and they officially launched the platform in January 2018. To date, Parsec has raised $2.25 million in a seed round from investors Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Nextview Ventures and Notation Capital. With nine full-time employees, Parsec enables people to connect to any gaming PC that they've been given access to via a peer-to-peer social network. If a customer does not have a gaming PC, they can rent one from Amazon Web Services and Paperspace on an hourly basis.

SOURCE Genvid Technologies