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Autodesk buys Wild Pockets game design platform (exclusive)

December 20, 2010 4:41 PM
Dean Takahashi
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Autodesk, the 3D computer-aided design company, has purchased 3D game design platform Wild Pockets, VentureBeat has learned.

Wild Pockets, which launched at DEMO in Fall 2008, was working on technology that allowed ordinary folks to create their own game worlds using simple 3D animation tools. The goal was to democratize game development.

San Francisco-based Wild Pockets offers a free, crowdsourced 3D game platform for browser-based games. Formerly known as Sim Ops Studios, Wild Pockets was the brainchild of Shanna Tellerman (pictured), chief executive and founder of the company.

The technology came from a project that Tellerman did at Carnegie Mellon University. Neither Autodesk nor Tellerman commented on the rumor. But Tellerman’s LinkedIn page shows that she now works as a product manager at Autodesk.

It’s not clear what Autodesk will do with the technology, but Autodesk makes a variety of game-making tools such as 3ds Max and Maya.

  • http://twitter.com/rodolfor Rodolfo Rosini

    I had high hopes for Wild Pockets. First MMO for the iPad, was released quite early, could have been a runaway success. Except that it was not. It's not that the game was bad but MMO being social games are not well suited to tablet computing due to lack of a keyboard (or push-to-talk capability) and the experience was not that great. Plus the advantage og mobility was lost due to the need for constant connectivity. Single player games in the end rule on the iPad (see Infinity Blade and Angry Birds).

  • http://dogpatchlabs.com/2011/09/06/dpl-sfo-remembering-our-inspirational-home-preparing-for-next-chapter/ DPL-SFO: Remembering Our Inspirational Home, Preparing for Next Chapter – Dogpatch Labs

    [...] over $100 million in funding.  Second, eight companies moved to acquisition, including AppJet, Wild Pockets, Thing Labs (Brizzly), Rec Rec, Movity, Fridge, and LOLapps.  Other big names to remember include [...]

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