Editor's note: After publication, Mr. Duncan reached out to clarify that the $45k figure is an average salary at Curse, rather than a minimum, and that pay rates for staff positions are very competitive when measured against industry norms. He also provided a short statement:
"At Curse we have a very aggressive recruitment program. Our goal is not only to be one of the world's best gaming companies, but one of the world's best companies period. In order to attract the kind of talent we are looking for to move the company into the future, we offer a fun and exciting work environment coupled with an excellent benefits package and extremely competitive salaries. Starting salaries vary depending on the position and the candidate's experience level."
If I had a dollar for every product I get pitched, that's supposedly been created specifically for gamers, I'm not sure I'd have to write another article for the rest of my life. Truth be told, it's rare that messages promising such "innovation" end up anywhere other than my Trash folder. After all, gamers aren't the monolithic entity that so many advertising executives seem to think we are. So you can only imagine the magnitude of the eye roll that took place when I spotted "Skype for Gamers" in the body of an email that hit my inbox last week. But let's keep giving that imagination of yours a workout, shall we?
Now, picture my surprise when further investigation revealed the message was from Curse Inc., parent company of the famed Curse mod repository and a number of other game-related sites like Minecraft Forums, MMO-Champion, FPS General and more. That shock doubled once I learned development of the so-called "Skype for Gamers," officially called Curse Voice, had resulted in another multi-million dollar round of VC investments for Curse.
That cash influx is also going to give Curse leeway to hire 30 new employees; nearly doubling the size of its full-time staff while continuing to offer competitive pay rates -- the average starting salary is $45K (annually) for full-time employees -- and giving Curse's southern HQ the opportunity to run coding events in Huntsville that bring local talent to the company's attention.
All without so much as a peep from the enthusiast press, online or off.
Fortunately, the International Digital Times was able to get in touch with Curse Inc. VP of Marketing Donovan Duncan just an hour or so before his trek to PAX East began, and he was kind enough to share a number of details on the company's current plans for Curse Voice. We also talked about the company's plans for the future, Curse's growth over the years, and the possibility for expansion into the console marketplace. It was mostly just me prodding him for more info about Curse Voice, though.
"We have something that I think the entire company is excited about," Duncan said, when I asked just how much weight the company planned to put behind the new voice-over-IP service. "We're incredibly comfortable saying [Curse Voice] is going to be a product that will double or triple our revenue in the next couple years."
For those who may not already be familiar with the service, Curse Voice is a new endeavor from Curse that combines the voice chat functionality of programs like Skype, Mumble or TeamSpeak with game timers (and other mods) designed to improve a player/team's overall performance. So, yes, Curse Voice is kind of like Skype for gamers, but with a level of seamless integration that the Microsoft-owned voice-over-IP service just can't match at this time.
The Curse team also promises Voice will be more user-friendly than most existing voice-over-IP clients, including the gamer-preferred trio mentioned above, saying that Curse Voice users who join the same League of Legends game will automatically be partied together and placed in the same chat channel. Party members will also be able to see their team's Champion Ultimate and Jungle timers, making it easier to coordinate your strategies for each with fellow Curse Voice players.
At present, Curse Voice only supports League of Legends, but Duncan says Curse Gaming will regularly expand the lineup of Voice-compatible titles throughout 2014, and Curse Voice will apparently even be a launch feature for a handful of games coming to market later this year. What's more impressive, is just how much interest is already being shown in Curse Voice, despite the fact that the service only supports one game and has yet to receive any significant coverage from the press.
According to Duncan, more than one hundred thousand Curse users requested access to the service when sign-ups first opened earlier this month, and interest is only expected to grow as word of the upcoming chat service spreads. Just as impressively, thirty thousand Curse users already had access to the service, mostly in Europe and the United States, and Duncan confirmed roughly sixty percent of those users were online and in-game while I was interviewing the Curse executive last Thursday morning.
"We want to make sure that, number one, it could never, ever, ever cause a game to fail or slow down in any way," the Curse Gaming VP told me, going on to say that, "Number two is making it usable by any gamer, anywhere. If you live in the Netherlands, and I live in South Florida, we should still be able to play right? Otherwise, the product, in our minds, is useless."
In the future, the Curse Gaming vice president says we can likely expect some kind of Curse Voice support for Minecraft or World of Warcraft, but Duncan made it quite clear that the company isn't limiting itself to any one particular platform or genre. Like any group of people, the employees at Curse are a diverse bunch, many of whom likely have an idea or two on how Curse Voice could tie into their favorite game(s). And who's to say what sorts of ideas will arrive with Curse's next 30 employees, most of whom are expected to be hired for the Curse Voice team, when they join the company this year?
You also can't forget about the community that Curse is trying to serve in the first place. There can be little doubt that some of the games that ultimately receive Curse Voice support will get that support as a direct result of Curse users' demands for such functionality. Duncan says the Curse Voice team studied the mistakes of previous gamer-oriented products and services, with the goal of making Curse Voice easier to install more user-friendly than existing services like TeamSpeak, while also making sure they don't lose relevance as quickly as other gamer-focused communication initiatives (like Xfire).
Again, that's likely to begin with Voice features for games like Minecraft and/or Call of Duty, but Duncan says the company is always looking to fill a void not being filled by other services. Even the PS4 and Xbox One libraries could see some form of Curse Voice support down the line.
"Fortunately for us, you know, I think the current software out there doesn't really support what we want to build," Duncan told the International Digital Times, adding, "There's not really a cool voice solution or something that will have the same level of detail and kind of unity...so consoles are definitely on the horizon for us."
Unfortunately, there's no timeline in place for the public debut of Curse Voice, though Duncan did say Curse Gaming is preparing to release quite a bit more information about the service sometime in the new few weeks. The Marketing VP also said Curse planned to reveal additional game support at that time, but that's about all the Curse Voice information we could get from Curse's head of marketing for now.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more on Curse Voice as we keep an eye on the now-in-beta voice-over-IP service in the months leading up to the official launch of Curse Voice.
