I managed to get some time with Ex Machina and have a sit down with Ex Machina CEO Jeroen Elfferich. Ex Machina offers the only platform in the world to allow real multiplayer gaming on any connected device, anywhere, anytime. Our Julius 4.0 Connected Games Management System provides a complete framework solution for web, mobile and broadcast games.

[GDN] Ex Machina offers cross-platform multi-player gaming. How does that work with say a mobile phone, PC and a DS? Is it all browser based?

[EM-JE] For us, what matters is that it’s all internet based. That way you can have a common back-end while serving different types of clients simultaneously. A client-agnostic multiplayer infrastructure as we call it. The specific application environment (OS, virtual machine, browser) you want to use depends on a number of factors. You can get pretty decent gameplay in modern web browsers, but not yet on mobile phones. And if you want to raise the bar a bit on animation, audio or video, you end up needing Flash, Java or native applications. So we support all of these, allowing for the developer and distributor of the game to decide if they want to focus on maximum reach (browser based) or optimal performance (native). Or even mix them - e.g. a web-based PC version, and a midlet for mobile.

[GDN] What kind of games can be played through the Ex Machina system?

[EM-JE] We’ve done games in all sorts of genres. The common ground here is that they’re connected. At the very least this means incorporating user profiles, highscores and tournaments but it ranges all the way up to MMORPG’s. So far, our killer apps have been multiplayer trivia quizzes, generating millions of game sessions every month for our customers. This is also a genre which works well as crossplatform games, as the system requirements are modest and honest, shared multiplayer competition can be offered concurrently on both mobile and web clients.