While the company was announced by mid-2022, in actuality, we had been active since the beginning of that year. Our main objectives are:
- To provide products and services to make Godot usage by enterprise and independent developers easier.
- To aid the development of Godot to make sure it becomes a viable option for game development studios.
Throughout the past year, our team has doubled in size and we have been focused on getting our products and services to a point where others can use them with confidence. We are excited to start announcing our main products in the coming weeks and months (stay tuned for GDC!). We also spent a large amount of our resources during the past year to support Godot development itself, making sure it is as good as it can be.
Code contributions to Godot
During 2022 (and ongoing this year), W4 Games contributed to Godot in multiple ways to ensure the upcoming Godot 4.0 is as good as it can be. This involved work in the following areas:
Rendering
W4 Games contributed most of the OpenGL ES 3.0 support present in 4.0, via financing all the pull requests in this area made by contributor Clay John. Clay has also taken part in the finalization and stabilization of the general rendering code (Vulkan) to make sure it works as well as possible for the upcoming Godot release.
Additionally, W4 Games contributed improvements to the Vulkan backend, as well as a Direct3D 12 rendering backend, via financing the work made by Pedro Estébanez. As a skilled Godot contributor, Pedro also spent a good amount of time helping fix complex bugs in the core engine.
Networking and HTML5
Fabio Alessandrelli, co-founder of W4 Games, led the development of both the HTML5 backend as well as the new multiplayer API in Godot 4.0. This work makes the creation of online multiplayer games utilizing Godot much easier, thanks to automatic scene and property replication. His work was funded entirely by the company.
David Snopek also implemented a dedicated server export mode, which helps optimize the performance and resource usage of multiplayer games using Godot as an authoritative server.
GDExtension
We also made significant effort to test and improve GDExtension support, thanks to the work of Gilles Roudière and Fabio Alessandrelli. We make great use of GDExtension at W4 Games, so we want to ensure it works as best as possible.
Documentation
Our teammate Max Hilbrunner is one of the maintainers of the Godot documentation, and W4 Games is sponsoring his work to ensure that Godot 4.0 releases with up-to-date and high quality documentation.
GDC booth
For the first time, Godot will have an official industry presence at GDC! W4 Games will be sponsoring a 110 m² (1200 sq ft) Godot booth (which is donated to the Godot Foundation), which will be located at the central area of the expo, together with the other large game engines!
The Godot project invited a number of high profile Godot users to showcase their games! Visitors will be able to test up to 16 games and get a feel for the different types of games which can be made with Godot. They will also be able to talk about Godot’s strengths and weaknesses with those same developers, and with many engine contributors.
See our recent announcement for details on our GDC presence. If you want to learn more about W4 Games and meet our team at GDC, please fill this contact form. We have a limited amount of complimentary GDC Expo Passes you can request.
2023
For us 2023 will be a pivotal year, as we expect to launch our product and service offerings and start engaging more deeply with the game industry. We are looking forward to continue being part of a vibrant ecosystem of individuals and companies who all contribute to the success of the Godot project.
Please stay tuned for our future announcements!