Codemasters licenses RakNet

I’m pretty happy as last week Codemasters purchased a site license to RakNet 3.x. I feel it’s a vindication of my hard work and effort over these 6 years because it means even against a big competitor, no real advertising, a programmer-centric website, and few connections, I still won in the end based on technical and quality merits. With most of my past sales I had some kind of edge – I knew someone at the company, or the company was too small to afford anything more expensive. But this time it was a straight-up victory with all the major hurdles in place. Codemasters is a great company that I like too, and the tech director there is a very nice guy.

I think these kinds of sales are more rare than they should be because a lot of people don’t realize how far advanced RakNet is at this point. Of course there are always parts that can be better, or one of my competitors does better to some degree. But on overall technical merits I think it’s right up there with my most expensive competitor, even better in some ways. I think with the increased funds my new prices are earning I can afford some marketing and finally get some serious market share.

I’m pursuing various official and unofficial channels in getting official console support too. Talk about beating your head against a wall… Fortunately, while I can’t say that I support console X, I can say that my customers do, and that my customers use RakNet. Maybe 10% as good, but better than nothing. If I can get that out of the way I’d probably double my sales. My best bet so far is to partner up with an established console developer and have them sell RakNet, thus bypassing the need to get licensed to begin with.