It looks like Darwin’s game technology development efforts gained a new ally recently. Monkey Byte CEO Lane Roathe is now developing some key aspects of Apple’s open-source technology, used by games for networking communications.
The announcement about Roathe’s involvement in NetSprocket and OpenPlay development for Darwin came in the form of an e-mail sent to the mac-games-dev mailing list from Ron Dumont, Apple’s open source program manager.
If you’ve been to a Macworld Expo in the past few years and you’ve spent any time at all in the games area, chances are you’ve talked with or at least seen Lane Roathe. He’s a diminutive man with long, blond hair and a penchant for fringe leather and spandex — he cuts quite a memorable figure on the Macworld Expo show floor, we guarantee.
Roathe is about style and substance, though: His background includes co-founding Id Software (the Quake people), and he’s presently the CEO of Monkey Byte Development, a developer and publisher of games and a publisher of independent music, as well.
Dumont said that Roathe is presently working towards a carbonized version of NetSprocket and OpenPlay, while retaining cross-platform capabilities. The work on this new version has been done in part by Joe Gervais and Randy Thompson, along with other anonymous benefactors.
Roathe told MacCentral that a new version of the technology is being readied for release. “It’s a major update,” said Roathe.
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