Continued...

(cont.) ...The launch of Stardock's multiplayer-centric game Demigod suffered major scaling and connectivity issues. GameRanger quickly responded with networking support for Demigod, giving Stardock some breathing room to work on the issues. Stardock president, Brad Wardell, said: 'I have fallen in love with a new program called GameRanger.'

GameRanger already provides online support for over 500 games, but there are many more that still suffer from the network problems that GameRanger solves. Survey questions aiming to address this will be presented to users when they next log in to the service.

'If people are having connection issues, or merely just wanting an easier way to meet up and play friends, here's their chance to speak up about which games matter the most to them,' said Scott Kevill, president of GameRanger Technologies.

Network connectivity has long been an issue with multiplayer games, especially strategy games, and has worsened over the years with more widespread use of routers and firewalls in the home. These are complex challenges that have been tackled with only limited success by game developers and other multiplayer middleware providers.

Chris Latour, BattleGoat Studios game designer, said: 'GameRanger has provided us with far more connectivity than we originally had for Supreme Ruler 2010 and 2020.'

GameRanger takes the pressure off game developers by eliminating the network connection problems and their associated tech support nightmares, so they can focus their energy on making great games.

GameRanger runs on Windows XP or later, and is available as a free download from http://www.GameRanger.com