Shack Interview: Bigfoot Networks

You may recall an announcement about Bigfoot Networks, a company currently working on a line of network products designed to reduce lag in online games. The company recently received a large amount of funding, and is preparing to launch a consumer-targeted card some time this summer. Last week, I sat down with CEO Harlan Beverly at GDC to try and get a handle of what Bigfoot is all about.

Bigfoot makes use of a variety of technologies collectively referred to as LLR, or Lag and Latency Reduction. The company makes a couple disclaimers about what its technology can and cannot do. It obviously cannot actually increase bandwidth, since that is dependent on your ISP. Additionally, the technology will affect each game differently.

Rather than being a standalone product, LLR is a technology that powers a chip which can then be integrated into hardware such as network cards, motherboards, and so on. The long term goal is to have servers using the technology and clients using the technology, but in the short term Bigfoot plans to reduce a consumer network card for home use. "We realize that gamers want this stuff now," Beverly admitted. "If you can get lower ping and less lag, especially twitch gamers, they want that yesterday. So that's why we've decided to go ahead and productize it."