Parsec

Closing the distance with Parsec

Acidhog and his girlfriend, Jenny met online about 6 years ago in a Sonic Drawing Group. They started talking and eventually fell in love over their shared interests. Unfortunately, however, they live almost 5,000 miles away from each other. Acidhog lives in England, and Jenny lives in Texas. They spend plenty of time chatting and hanging out online, but they’ve always looked for a better way to play some of their favorite emulator games online, together. They tried a lot of solutions, but eventually, they stumbled on Parsec, which let them connect, hangout, and play games together that didn’t support online gameplay before.

Since the netcode on many emulators never really worked for them, they would use Teamviewer to connect and watch each other play games. They did try to play games together through Teamviewer, but the experience was suboptimal, to say the least. With low frame rates and cumbersome set up, they struggled to play. Normally, they’d just watch each other play the game and chat about it.

One day Acidhog discovered Parsec. He told me he was quite skeptical considering the history of game streaming products and online co-op technology. He was surprised to see that Parsec “worked amazingly with no lag or problems.”

Next, they wanted to test gaming with other people. AcidHog invited his brothers to join him and his girlfriend. Then, he invited friends from other countries. They set up an online party room on Discord and got a bunch of people involved. One of his friends, Beta, wanted to play Megaman Battle Network, but the online multiplayer never worked because the netplay on the GBA emulator didn’t meet their needs. They were able to play “like it was nothing” with Parsec.

Co-playing Sonic 06 online works with Parsec

Now, they were convinced. They all decided to try playing more games, like Sonic 06. Acidhog has started to use Parsec to co-play Castle Crashers (which is a really fun game if you haven’t played before). Acidhog thinks “Castle Crashers is better with Parsec because when I play it using the built-in online functionality, loading times and pauses happen often but when I use Parsec, everyone is happy.”

We’re excited that Parsec is being used by couples like Acidhog and Jenny and their friends all over the world. This fits exactly into our vision to change the world of gaming forever and bring people together for some really fun, online gaming together. We’re recreating the couch gaming of our youth, so you and your friends can share an experience like Jenny and Acidhog.

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