The latest group pioneering the pack of forward-thinking technology developers is GameSalad, Inc., an Austin, Texas, based team. Founded by four passionate partners in 2007, the group says they’re not just do-ing this for the money. “We built Game-Salad on the premise that game creation should be fun and easy for everyone—not relegated to the technically elite,” said Michael Augustin, co-founder and head of product. Since tossing their first-of-its kind software into the matrix, the privately held company has been vibrating smart-phones and tablet PCs all across the World Wide Web. With their free drag-and-drop creation tools, anyone who has ever wanted to produce their own game, from the savvy developer to the inexperienced gamer, now has the opportunity. And already, their flagship product, GameSalad Creator, has been utilized to create over 11,000 games, including more than 35 of the top 100 games in Apple’s U.S. App Store, according to a company press release. And with the addition of HTML5 publishing capabilities in June 2011, the company has empowered developers to expand beyond the popular iOS platform and target a market of over a billion people with web-enabled browsers. To put it plainly, they are on the cutting edge, and investors recognize this.

The company announced their recent funding of $6.1 million, which is in addition to a first round $1.2 million seed support. They are backed by Steamboat Ventures, DFJ Mercury, DFJ Frontier and FF As-set Management. GameSalad, Inc., has offices in Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, and plans to open doors on a new location in San Francisco very soon. “Our inves-tors were excited about the opportunities presented at Austin’s SXSW Accelerator conference in July 2010 by the intersection of gaming, social media and technology,” said Michael Augustin, co-founder and head of product. “Gaming has become a dominant form of entertainment and has driven rapid growth of new mobile and social platforms. Through our free, easy to use game creation tools, GameSalad makes it possible for everyone to participate in this zeitgeist—something that our investors found highly appealing.”

An attractive feature of GameSalad’s development tools is its user friendliness: No coding is required to create a game, which is the distinct quantum leap the

Gaming is all the rage, so much so that it has colored our culture with new euphemisms such as “killing two pigs with one bird,” a reference

to the immensely popular game “Angry Birds.” As new communication devices such as tablet PCs are introduced and in higher demand, so are inventive applications and software.

What is it about gaming—the phenomenon that began its movement back in the 80s when it emigrat-ed from arcades to living rooms—that has children and adults alike entranced in an artificial world? The evolution from joysticks to touch screens to now controller-less motion detection, the technology developers who transport us to other virtual galaxies have driven the worldwide popularity of gaming to well over a billion end users.

company has made with its proprietary software delivery. Gone are the days of complex technology left to the devices of geeks in the lab. For comparison, the no-coding-required development is likened to the drag-and-drop concept of blogging software offered by companies like Word Press. The popularity of blogging exploded because of the ease of use and accessibility to online publishing. The difference here is that unlike many blogs that are posted and never read, most game applications are purchased and, of course, played.  

Following are a few case studies of developers who

have used GameSalad tools to publish their own

popular games:

• Abdulrahman Al-Zanki, a 14-year old student in Kuwait, created his first game using GameSalad tools after accepting a dare from a friend who claimed he was incapable of building an iPhone game. Three days after downloading GameSalad, Al-Zan-ki submitted his game to Apple’s App Store. Doodle Destroy has since been downloaded more than 1 million times and has even been featured on CNN’s website.

• “Daniel Caldwell, an 8th grade science teacher outside of Syracuse, NY has a passion for developing educational software. His latest creation, SciTunes Hu-man Body Adventure, was built with GameSalad and is now a finalist for the prestigious STEM Award, presented by the White House for excellence in educa-tional software.”

• The owner of BeanSprites, LLC spent 8 years as a registered nurse before exploring the world of iOS game development. Until then, she had never before seen a line of programming code. After discovering GameSalad on the web, “she has never looked back.” One year later, she has produced more than 40 titles for iOS and is now a full-time independent game developer in Southern California.

• To learn more about how you can create your own game today, visit GameSalad.com and download the free app. PC users, sorry—GameSalad software ap-pears to be available exclusively to Mac users.

68 • • SUMMER 2011 defymag.com

We Got Game(s)GAMESALAD DISHES OUT THE FUTURE OF GAMING TECHNOLOGY AS PERSONALIZED GAME DEVELOPMENT BECOMES AVAILABLE TO VIRTUALLY EVERYONE, FOR FREE

By David Meacham