| Roger Wilco | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Original author | Resounding Technology |
| Developer | GameSpy |
| Initial release | May 3, 1999; 26 years ago (1999-05-03) |
| Final release | 1.4.1.6 / July 8, 2003; 22 years ago (2003-07-08) |
| Operating system | |
| Platform | x86 |
| Size | 790.7 KB(installer) |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Voice over IP |
| Website | rogerwilco.gamespy.com(archived) |
Roger Wilco is one of the firstvoice-over-IPclientprograms designed primarily for use with onlinemultiplayer video games.[1] Roger Wilco enabled online gamers to talk to one another through a computerheadset or other audio input device instead of typing messages to each other. Within a year of the software's introduction, over 2 million online video gamers were using the application.
Roger andWilco areprocedure words which, inradiophone communication, mean "I understood your message and I will comply".
Roger Wilco was developed by a US startup company called Resounding Technology. Three of the company's four founders were roommates when they were undergraduate students atPrinceton University: Adam Frankl, Tony Lovell, and Henri de Marcellus.[2]: 14 David Lewis, who led marketing and business development, was based in Silicon Valley and was responsible for growing the Roger Wilco community and managed partnerships with video game publishers who bundled Roger Wilco with their games. Plantronics, PNY, and other game peripheral manufacturers also bundled Roger Wilco with their products.
The company began publishing pre-release versions of the software in the autumn of 1998;[2]: 16 the firstgeneral availability release, Roger Wilco Mark I, followed in May 1999.[3] The company distributed both the client and server asfreeware. The server software, Roger Wilco Base Station, was developed forLinux,FreeBSD,Windows 9x, andWindows NT.[3] Development of a client forMac OS never progressed beyond thealpha phase.[4]
David Lewis demonstrated the product's server-less voice capabilities toMpath Interactive, a startup company inSilicon Valley, who went on to acquire Resounding Technology based on their proprietary peer-to-peer voice technology. The company IPO'd soon after and renamed it to HearMe, Inc.[5]
In December 2000,GameSpy bought the Roger Wilcointellectual property.[6] In early 2001, they integrated an updated version of the client software into theirgame server browser,GameSpy Arcade.[citation needed] Players could use the Roger Wilco software if they bought a subscription to GameSpy's Game Tools suite.[7] David Lewis licensed SDK versions of the voice technology to virtually every major game publisher including Activision, EA, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and others. The licensing arrangement with Microsoft enabled the use of the Voice SDK for Microsoft's Xbox and required that all multi-player Xbox game developers included in-game voice chat capabilities. Today, virtually every leading online multiplayer game includes voicechat due to the pioneering efforts by the Resounding team.
GameSpy published the final version of the Roger Wilco client for Windows on July 8, 2003.[7] That year, a vice president of consumer products at GameSpy Industries toldThe Boston Globe that Roger Wilco had about 5 million users.[1]
