Q&A: Butterfly.net CEO David Levine

David Levine, president and CEO of Butterfly.net, spoke with GameSpot just a few days after his company announced a round of financing that put $10 million into the company's coffers. The 4-year-old company provides a software infrastructure solution for massively multiplayer online games--the goal being to make it easier for MMOG developers and publishers to build and scale an MMOG, which can then be playable across PCs, consoles, and mobile devices.

The company was present at last week's GDC, and based on the reception the company received there and the ongoing commitment of Levine, the Buttlerfly.net solution may one day have a significant impact on the MMOG community.

GameSpot: David, the promise of Butterfly.net is big, to say the least. Can you bring the company's big dreams down to size. What's the benefit for developers?

David Levine: Well, for developers, Butterfly.net provides a complete platform for the development, testing, and ongoing operations of MMOs. During development studios, can work in a "sandbox" on our development grid or install the server software within their own studio. The core software, whether hosted on our grid or installed in the studio, consists of game servers, artificial intelligence controllers, gateways, and client libraries for PC, console, and mobile devices. We have an extensive tools set and message boards within the developer's lab so that our engineers can directly support developers. We recognize that every game will be unique, so we spend a great deal of time with developers coming up with the most efficient means of meeting game design challenges. During production and acceptance testing, Butterfly maintains builds and stress-tests the games on a live grid using both automated testing tools and live gamers. When the games are ready to go live, we support the ongoing operations of games to the extent that the developer requires.

GS: And for gamers?

DL: For gamers, by providing the most efficient and flexible MMO platform, we intend to offer gamers an incredible variety of gameplay at prices well below the current market. Today, online gaming is split between the FPS/LAN-party crowd and MMORPGers. We're working with studios that are busting the genre and theme boundaries, which could radically change the online gaming landscape by having the depth that hardcore RPG and strategy gamers want as well as the adrenaline-pumping action that action gamers need. We'll be going to market through a variety of channels, but gamers will recognize that games served up on the grid are faster, more reliable, and just more fun than other games.

GS: What are your initial plans now that you've secured this funding?

DL: Go to Disney World. But after that, we're laser-focused on getting the games currently in development launched and getting more under way. Things are just starting to get exciting now that we're playing the builds of some excellent games in our office. We're hearing from the developers every day what they'd like to see in our tools and core platform, so we have our work cut out for us just keeping up with the development studios.

GS: What is the largest hurdle in providing the technology infrastructure for MMO games?

DL: It's one big hurdle! The biggest hurdle is having the patience to stay in the game as the playing field very slowly changes. Most of the money and talent in the game industry is focused on the genres that sell today, which are mostly minor upgrades of what sold yesterday. We're seeing some great ideas for groundbreaking MMOs, but the industry is not taking risks on them. At some point, these will break through, and then every publisher will need a slate of them, but that is a few years off. We'll get there, but it will be a marathon, not a sprint.

GS: What are the benefits of a packaged Internet gaming infrastructure over doing the work in-house?

DL: Developing infrastructure is very difficult and time-consuming. Building both the technology for an MMO and the game itself is like developing an operating system at the same time as building the applications. By using a prebuild infrastructure, a development studio can start building the game immediately, and the studio will know that the game environment will be operationally sound when the game launches. Bug-fixing and trouble-shooting is much easier, as the game code is isolated.

GS: In what ways does the Butterfly.net solution turn the old-school model of building MMOGs on its head?

DL: In the old days, when studios built the infrastructure software at the same time as the games, it was very hard to approach the problems sensibly, as they were always thinking about game features and would tweak the server code to create a new feature. This might cause problems with other features, then the entire system would lose stability. Because our focus is on the infrastructure, we'll keep improving it through R&D, making the code more efficient, more reliable, more flexible all the time. In MMOs, if you can save a little bit on each account, each month through efficiency and economies of scale, developers can earn a lot more money per subscriber and plow that revenue into game innovations. We believe packaged infrastructure will radically improve the MMO business.

GS: Are there any other ways that this technology might be leveraged to operate in the nongame space?

DL: Definitely, but we're focused on games. There are three major markets: the market for work/business, the market for war/government, and the market for fun/games. There are enough technology companies feeding the work and war markets. If we can improve the world by having the most exceptionally entertaining infrastructure, we've accomplished something worthwhile.

GS: Thanks, David.