## Questions & Answers

"Nice to meet all of you. My name is Dr. D'Plae. I know everything about DirectPlay. Questions?" |
| "Yes, hi there. I'm looking for game developers to do great games on an unlimited budget...and I especially like working with smart guys!"
"Why should I consider supporting DirectPlay?" | "Microsoft is pouring millions into developing DirectPlay and marketing it as a network and online games standard. Many online services (such as AOL and ImagiNation) are supporting it. It is the defacto-standard. Basically you write to it once and play it on many services with no further custom programming."
"Why should I use the ImagiNation extensions found on the DirectPlay CD?" | "Because you want your title to take advantage of the features that best show-off that service. It will differentiate you from all the other plain titles that run on the same service. Also, there are some cool value-added features that ImagiNation will support on top of DirectPlay for their network service. This extra stuff will run on AOL - the world's largest online audience."
"Will adding ImagiNation extensions mess up my game outside of The ImagiNation Network?" | "No worries! Our extensions enhance the playing experience for our members. If your game is run outside of our environment it will work just as well as it ever did without our extras."
"Why do I care if my game is lobbyable? Why is supporting community such a big deal?" | "Human beings are social animals. We come together to play, to chat, and to interact. Games have proven to be more marketable when they can be folded into a social community. With DirectPlay, and our extensions, your game generates a community of interest filled with a cross-mixture of players playing longer hours and demanding more."
| "Hello, I am a games company executive and it is my responsibility to make sure that our shareholders make money."
"How do I make or save money on this stuff?" | "You will save money because your company no longer has to spend development dollars reinventing communications software. In fact, DirectPlay makes you money by giving you the opportunity to run your games on more services. It will be easier to do deals with online service companies since there will be fewer technology conversion issues."
"Will my developers ask me to buy more PCs, more hardware or more software because of this?" | "No, you should be able to use your existing equipment if it is up-to-date."
"Will this make people work harder? | "This will help you hit ship dates earlier because you will have less to develop from scratch, debug, integrate, test, etc."
"How will this agreement increase the overall usage metrics, re-distribute market share, decrease $ per development line per bug ratios, and blah, blah, blah..." | "Oh, uh, let's see how can I put this. When everybody gets behind one good way of doing things, especially the basic types of things that are in DirectPlay, then everyone in the market benefits - especially consumers. Why re-invent the wheel?"
| "Yeah, I am the corporate lawyer and frankly I am a little worried."
Will my company be protected using your software? Are there any potential lawsuits in my future? | "The stuff is promoted and supported by Microsoft. They've committed to providing it to developer's worldwide through a royalty-free license. There's nothing to fight over. More free software for developers to write, and more software for Windows - that's the bottom line!"

| The DirectPlay Plan |  | DirectPlay Q&A