America, New Hires, and Vacancies

Posted July 20, 2014

So, many many things have been happening since we last wrote an update. I’ve broken it down into three sections

America Trip

Tim, Carl, and I (Brook) returned recently from a 2 week trip to America. We had an excellent time there, working with our Brand Managers (Bob and Brock from Brentwood Studios) to develop our strategies for brand development, marketing, and strategic partnerships. We attended the ICRS conference in Atlanta, Georgia; we met with prospective publishers and curriculum providers in California, Georgia, Tennessee and Minnesota. We even managed to sneak in some R&R time in Los Angeles Atlanta, and Nashville.

Speaking for myself, I can say that I went to America with a basic understanding of the different players and parts in the market – and I returned with MUCH more clarity around how The Aetherlight would fit into this. We had some incredibly illuminating discussions, and we met some great people who were incredibly excited by the quality and vision of what we are producing.

One standout for me was how underserved the ‘pre teen’ market is. There are plenty of resources for the younger ages and also plenty for teenagers, but it seems that pre teens (and especially pre teen boys) seem to miss out. The Aetherlight will change that!

We are now in the process of further discussions with many of the people we connected with in the USA and we hope to have an announcement later this year about who some of our strategic partners are going to be!

New hires

We have added quite a few new people to the team recently, as we continue to ramp up production. Let me introduce you to a few of them:

Weber Li

Weber has come onboard as our server side programmer and has been working to get our server and web infrastructure robust and functional. Weber has quite a lot of experience in this from previous virtual worlds and we are really lucky to have him on our team. Weber was born in Taiwan, in a family that was full of puzzle games and logic toys. This shaped him to like solving problems and finding answers – eventually he studied Computer System Engineering at the University of Auckland. After he graduated in 2011, he started his first job at Outsmart Ltd as a software developer. As a Christian, he always wants to work for his beliefs and decided to join the team after knowing the purpose of the studio. In his spare time, he likes to compose music, write musical dramas and play “creative” games.

Craig Warne

Craig joins us to be the first member of our ‘sound’ department. Craig has extensive experience in audio engineering and musical composition, and so we are so excited to not only have someone of this caliber on our team but also to be adding sound and music to The Aetherlight!

Vacancies

However, we still have some vacancies! We unfortunately lost our in house ‘Blender Guru’ and so we are on the look out for another one! Blender is an open source 3D modelling tool that we have built our pipeline around. We’re not looking for advanced food processor user.

We are also looking for extra Unity3D / C# programmers. Unity3D is the tool / engine we are using to build The Aetherlight, and we are in need of more programmers.

What’s coming up?

Over the next few months, we start getting into beta testing! (eeeek!). The plan for this is to start small, with smaller groups and then slowly start increasing the amount of people we let in as well as the length of time the build is open. Over this time we will be still adding content, refining stuff, and making changes and updates. We will also be doing a lot of monitoring around where players are spending their time, how our server infrastructure is handling the load, and numerous other things.

So, until next time. Keep producing!

P.S. – we made a new ‘sneak peak’ video. Check it out here

brookwarner

Brook is a learner and a thinker who loves to help bring about change. He has an MSc from Auckland University and a Grad Diploma in Applied Theology from Carey Baptist College. This interface of science and theology underscores his passion for systems, processes, people and strategy - all of which are vital for his role as Producer, which is about overseeing the team and keeping the project on schedule.