Vivox Inc provides managed communication services in the form of integrated voice chat, Instant Messaging (IM) to online games, virtual worlds and other online communities. It is headquartered in

Framingham Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popul ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

History

Vivox was founded by

Jeff Pulver Jeff Pulver is an American Internet entrepreneur and futurist known for his work as an innovator in the field of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Pulver's early work in VoIP with his company Free World Dialup led to a significant regulatory ...

in 2005. On September 19, 2005, Vivox announced they had received $6 million in venture capital funding from Canaan Partners and GrandBanks Capital. On November 13, 2007, Vivox announced they had secured $7.8 million in series B financing. The B round financing was led by

Benchmark Capital Benchmark is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco that provides seed money to startups. History The firm's most successful investment was a 1997 investment of $6.7 million in eBay for 22.1% of the company. In 2011, it invested $12 mill ...

and supported by existing investors Canaan Partners and GrandBanks Capital. With the support of Benchmark Capital, former CEO of

JAMDAT Mobile EA Mobile Inc. is an American video game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed acr ...

Mitch Lasky Mitchell Harold "Mitch" Lasky (born January 18, 1962) is a general partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Benchmark and a former entrepreneur and video game executive. He is the father of rapper and YouTube personality Quadeca. Educati ...

, was added to the Vivox board of directors. On February 2, 2010, Vivox announced that they had raised $6.8 Million in funding for their C round. The round was led by

IDG Ventures IDG Ventures is a global family of venture funds with approximately $3.6 billion under management. All of the funds were originally sole-source-funded by International Data Group. The first fund was created by IDG in 1996 and was located in ...

and included follow-on investments from existing investors, Benchmark Capital, Canaan Partners and GrandBanks Capital. In addition, IDG Ventures managing director Phil Sanderson joined the Vivox Board. On January 29, 2019

Unity Unity may refer to: Buildings * Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building * Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper * Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England * Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; a h ...

acquired Vivox for an undisclosed amount.

Major Announcements

On May 10, 2006

CCP Games CCP hf., doing business as CCP Games, is an Icelandic video game developer based in Reykjavík. Novator Partners and General Catalyst had previously collectively owned a majority stake in the company, and in September 2018, CCP was acquired by ...

and Vivox announced that

EVE Online ''Eve Online'' (stylised ''EVE Online'') is a space-based, persistent world massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by CCP Games. Players of ''Eve Online'' can participate in a number of in-game profess ...

players would have real-time, in-game voice communication as the result of an agreement between the two companies. Vivox provided CCP with an integrated solution that allows players to speak with each other in-game, create audio conference channels for their gang, corporation or alliance. On February 27, 2007, Vivox announced a partnership with Linden Lab and that they would provide integrated voice communications to the Second Life Grid. This included spatial audio that allows residents to hear each other based on their positions. This technology was licensed from DiamondWare Technologies. During the 2008

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutori ...

in San Francisco, California, Vivox announced a partnership with

Sony Online Entertainment Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in ...

. The agreement between the two companies brought integrated voice chat into all existing and planned SOE products including SOE's out of game communication application, Station Launcher. At this point the SOE games that include Vivox Voice are:

EverQuest ''EverQuest'' is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed by Verant Interactive and 989 Studios for Windows PCs. It was released by Sony Online Entertainment in March 1999 in North Americ ...

, APB,

EverQuest 2 ''EverQuest II'' is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed and published by Sony Online Entertainment for Microsoft Windows PCs and released in November 2004. It is the sequel to the original ...

Star Wars Galaxies ''Star Wars Galaxies'' was a ''Star Wars'' themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows, developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts. Released on June 26, 2003, to much critical acc ...

, and

Planetside 2 ''PlanetSide 2'' is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online first-person shooter developed by Rogue Planet Games and published by Daybreak Game Company. The game supports battles with thousands of players (up to 2,000 on a single map) and inc ...

. On May 13, 2008, Vivox and NCsoft announced a partnership that would bring voice to the NCsoft player community. September 16, 2008 it was announced that Vivox would provide voice technology for

38 Studios 38 Studios, LLC, formerly Green Monster Games, LLC, was an American entertainment and intellectual property, IP development company founded in 2006 by Major League Baseball player Curt Schilling and named for his jersey number. Originally based in ...

' upcoming MMO. March 24, 2009 Vivox and

Real Time Worlds Realtime Worlds Ltd. was a British video game developer based in Dundee, Scotland. The company was founded by David Jones in 2002. After developing ''Crackdown'' (2007) and '' APB: All Points Bulletin'' (2009), Realtime Worlds filed for admi ...

declared that Vivox would provide voice for Real Time Worlds' MMO, APB. To be included in this integration is use of Vivox's spatial 3D voice capabilities. Vivox provided its software for

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, M ...

' ''

Fortnite Battle Royale ''Fortnite Battle Royale'' is a free-to-play battle royale video game developed and published by Epic Games. It is a companion game to '' Fortnite: Save the World'', a cooperative survival game with construction elements. It was initially re ...

'' on the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

(Vivox was already used by the game across other platforms), which otherwise lacked a voice chat function without using the Nintendo Switch Online companion phone app. Vivox' software provided a direct voice chat solution (not requiring the mobile app) that also support cross-platform communications. Vivox announced in February 2019 it will provide its software development kit for Switch voice chat so that other games can take advantage of this approach.

Controversy

Vivox has encountered reprisals from the

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

community for encouraging game developers to drop

support, rather than making their software compatible with

. A developer for Alderon Games, working on the MMO dinosaur game Path of Titans, received this reply when they asked about paying them to add Linux support:

Integrations

Online Games and Virtual Worlds

Known integrations of Vivox's communications platform in

online game An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PC game, PCs, Console game, consoles and ...

s and

virtual world A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...

Middleware Platforms

Known

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement co ...

integrations of Vivox's communications platform.

Other Products

C3 - Command, Control, Communicate

C3 is a standalone voice-over-Internet-Protocol (

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

) client where computer users are able to connect and speak with fellow computer users. C3 allows users to chat both through text and voice by creating chat channels with a maximum capacity of 100 users in each channel. The target audience of C3 is gamers who can use the software to communicate with other gamers among the same guild, team,

clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...

, etc. on an online multiplayer game ( MMO). Voice communication allows for players to use teamwork to their advantage while creating a sense of online community.

References

External links

*{{Official website, https://www.vivox.com/ Companies established in 2005 VoIP companies of the United States