Topic: AGEIA going down?

[idolminds]

AGEIA, makers of the PhysX physics card is either not doing well (shock!) or is finally figuring out how to sell their cards.

Recently they had a price drop on the cards themselves as well as bundle games that make use of the cards.

Now they are letting anyone use the physics SDK royalty-free, meaning anyone...pro dev, indie dev, some dude in his garage can add AGEIA physics to their games and have them accelerated by the card.

I don't know if this is a good thing or not.

[Quemaqua]

It may not be a good sign for them, but I can't imagine it being a bad thing.  $179 is certainly closer to the realm of reasonability, though still not a price I'd be willing to pay for said product.  I dunno'... we'll see.

[idolminds]

I think they learned the folly of their chicken and egg problem. No dev wanted to pay for to use the physics since no one had the cards, and no one had the cards because no games used the physics. Plus, $300 was too much for the cards.

Apparently the physics are very good even without the accelerator cards. So, give the SDK away and devs will use it. Hey, free physics. So hopefully soon lots of games will use your physics solution. Now you have a bunch of games that can make use of your physics card...and you name drop to get people to buy the cards. "Hey gamers, think UT2007 is good now...with a PhysX card more things can go splodie!"