what are uber's general business activities

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by melhem19, October 14, 2014.

  1. melhem19

    melhem19 Active Member

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    i have a collage homework, and one part is to select a company and list 3-6 of what Business Activities that the company does.

    i chose Uber Entertainment, would you guys mind help me out?

    thank you

    note: i am not sure if this is the best place for this.
  2. killerkiwijuice

    killerkiwijuice Post Master General

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    You have college homework but you spell college wrong?

    o_Oo_Oo_O
  3. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    English isn't his first language.
  4. dom314

    dom314 Post Master General

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    No no, the homework is for a collage class. You know, like with art and stuff.
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  5. duncane

    duncane Active Member

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    He appears to be in Lebanon. Cut him some slack.

    Hopefully someone from Uber can give him a few minutes.
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  6. thetrophysystem

    thetrophysystem Post Master General

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    This and this was posted a while back.

    So, I know that Uber Entertainment, almost was a team under [EDIT: Intel] for ray-tracing programming but [EDIT: Intel] decided not to greenlight the finished work at the time [EDIT: because it didn't impress in the bragged GPU measurements, so instead it was later released as a processor, Xeon Phi].

    Then Uber started by developing Monday Night Combat with a very starter budget from the nvidia venture, barely getting it out in time and surviving to tell the tale. They followed up with SMNC as a Free to Play. They still support the servers to this day but haven't put a full build of development time into it in the last year because it was a financially unsuccessful model.

    They developed "Ubernet" which they then branched into an independent holder called "PlayFab" which any game (like "Loadout") can use as a launcher-patcher-matchmaker.

    They launched a kickstarter and developed Planetary Annihilation, which they still support active development on and so far was their biggest and most stable project.

    They developed Outland Games and Toy Rush as iOS phone-style games.

    They plan to do more development later for a new game called Human Resources and for the Monday Night Combat saga.
    Last edited: October 14, 2014
  7. jables

    jables Uber Employee

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    Is a good overview. PM me and I can see where I can help :)
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  8. lokiCML

    lokiCML Post Master General

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    A slight correction to this Intel not Nvidia for the Rayracing stuff for a prototype processor (Larrabee).;)

    Edit: it is in that polygon article you linked to.:)
    Last edited: October 14, 2014
  9. bgolus

    bgolus Uber Alumni

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    Also, the tech Intel was working on which we were working with for raytracing did come out as a real product, just aimed at high performance computing (aka mass computing server farms) instead of as a graphics card.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon_Phi

    They never quite got it to match the performance of modern GPUs when running DirectX or OpenGL and was met with a lot of confusion by people used to dealing with "polygons per second" and "pixels per second" numbers most GPU marketing was still touting. It was spun off as the Knights Ferry project to focus on computing and eventually released as the Xeon Phi, though not before Nvidia and AMD had caught up. It's been interesting to see real time and near real time GPU based raytracers and path tracers showing up as plausibly usable alternatives to the rasterization we've been using for decades.




    As for business activities ... we make games. That's about it really.
  10. DeadStretch

    DeadStretch Post Master General

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    How about Ubernet now known as Playfab? Gotta love that back end. ;)
  11. melhem19

    melhem19 Active Member

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    it's my fourth college year, and i still spell college wrong, LOL:D...
  12. thetrophysystem

    thetrophysystem Post Master General

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    Albert Einstein can't tie his shoes. Stephen Hawking is... more visibly lacking certain things.
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  13. bgolus

    bgolus Uber Alumni

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    Ubernet was spun off as it's own company, hence why it's called PlayFab now and not Ubernet (apart from here on the forums and in PA where it's still running old APIs).
  14. brandonpotter

    brandonpotter Well-Known Member

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    I was wondering what PlayFab was :p
  15. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    this article: http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/3/19/4094472/uber-hail-mary-monday-night-combat requires a touch-up. evidently the writer is somewhat in solo-rambo mode here (and I'm just saying this for ya'll sake, this could seriously blow up in your face):

    There is no in-game mod manager. There IS a weird program that you have to install on your computer, It is not all available in the game, there isn't even the slightest hint that mods are possible for PA anywhere within the game, There are sketchy websites : http://www.pastats.com/chart?gameId=195830 , no offense cola, you know what I'm getting at, hosted on "www.nanodesu.info", not planetaryannihilation.com, the ladder http://ladder.pastats.tk/ hosted on yet another domain owned by illmaren.

    I'm sorry but the above quote could hardly have been any more false. ....perhaps maybe if it said that Hitler was a cute pony-unicorn also.

    Added to all of this I'll say mods are not a "first-class citizen", that was a Mavor quote from the TB interview that has yet to come true and that went down the drain in particular when the mod megathread, which had all the deets and a really pro guide to encourage new users on over to mods and contained the only ever always up-to-date list of currently compatible mods was essentially shut up (by moving it to the mod forum where only modders go). Under the pretext that it was in the wrong forum when it had proudly occupied it, and not in a concealed manner either, it had been on page one nearly all of it's existence, for six months.

    With this it's been proven and tested that a newcomer starting up PA have essentially no way (and very little chance, by Uber's own admission: it is neutrino's and garat's claim that PA players are principally PvE) of ever knowing that mods even exist.



    Take down this statement. (Or give us what you claim you give in due enough time to make editing the article irrelevant, I won't fault you for that if you do, most definitely not! :p)
    Last edited: October 15, 2014
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  16. argibargi91

    argibargi91 New Member

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    You're a good bloke @jables . I try and peruse the forums pretty often and you give off a lot of good vibes. (It's also been a good reminder for me that, if you want to have a great team that functions well and gets results you gotta make everyone feel special; like their contribution matters. Seems like you've extended that to the forum. good on ya dude, its an impressive quality to have!)
    Last edited: October 15, 2014
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  17. Geers

    Geers Post Master General

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    I could be wrong but I think they make games.
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  18. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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  19. maxcomander

    maxcomander Active Member

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    Wow that is a really interesting article, and has really shown me the dedication and hard work that Uber have put in just to survive.

    I'm soo glad you guys never gave in, as your game Pa has really seen me through a very difficult time.

    I feel inspired, I don't want to gush to much, but you guys are awsome.
  20. jables

    jables Uber Employee

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    Hey tatsujb,

    I will poke over there to see if anything can be done, but can't make promises, as it's not an Uber owned site.

    Mod support is coming in the future however. We are not ignoring it. Overall allowing players to create their own stuff for the game is a team goal, and whereas we have many unofficial ways to go about it, we will be working to get official versions of stuff in place. Symmetrical maps announcement is one example of this work being done.
    GoodOak likes this.

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