Raptr is a social utility for gaming made by people who love games. We allow you to connect with your gaming friends and see what the world is playing. We do this by letting you:
Raptr allows you to chat with all of your friends from the top IM services (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, Xfire, ICQ, and Facebook Chat) in one friends list. You can even chat with your friends on Xbox Live! With the Raptr client, you will no longer need to have multiple IM clients running to challenge or invite your friends to play a game with you.
Whether you play PC, Xbox 360, or Flash games, you can use Raptr to automatically share what you're playing and how well you're doing. You can broadcast your playing status to all of your friends on the top IM services as well as friends on Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed.
Raptr is currently in Beta and we'd love your help in making Raptr a better service. Please send feedback to feedback@raptr.com.
Dennis (a.k.a. Thresh) was previously a die-hard PC gamer as the world champion of Doom, Doom 2, Quake, and Quake 2 and was called the "Michael Jordan of Videogames" by the Wall St. Journal. These days, you're more likely to find him playing Guitar Hero (X360), Starcraft (PC), Bejeweled 2 (XBLA), and Desktop Tower Defense (Flash). Dennis founded Raptr out of his frustration of not being able to easily keep track of his friends playing across so many platforms. Prior to Raptr, Dennis co-founded three successful startups: Xfire, Lithium, and Gamers.com.
Dave was recruited by Raptr because of his most excellent ping pong skills, but was soon made VPE after a shoulder injury sidelined him. Dave has a passion for driving simulators like GTR 2 and Gran Turismo, and demands to be addressed as 'Schuey' when he is behind the wheel. Prior to Raptr, Dave led multiple development teams at eBay, where ping pong skills are not so highly valued.
Ranah is really glad that working at Raptr doesn’t involve singing karaoke like his last start-up SingShot did. He lived in Japan for 5 years, loves snowboarding and traveling, and is very happy that Flash games have become so popular. Ranah also did stints as a VP at EA and Rhapsody as part of his journey to Raptr.
When not honing his massively unimpressive gaming skills, Norm can be found enjoying photography, the outdoors, power yoga, the gym, and long walks on the beach, but not at the same time. Prior to joining Raptr as its first engineer, Norm enjoyed stints at Adobe Systems, Walmart.com, Gamers.com, NBC Internet, and CNET.
A master at multitasking, Pat manages to simultaneously look carefree and worried as he kills bugs dead while managing to also sneak in new features and defeat coworkers at ping pong. Despite being a former professional video gamer, Pat still managed to make his parents proud having landed gigs at places like Google and E*TRADE before throwing it all away to help found a 20 person startup.
Rico has an active interest in systems, security, and network infrastructures. His technical experiences have made an impact at Anheuser-Busch, SUN Microsystems, E*TRADE, and Right90. Besides rocking out on Rock Band, you'll find him outdoors surfing, snowboarding, and riding his Ducati.
Kevin tries to answer the question, "what is the best experience possible for Raptr?" by playing lots of games. Sadly, he excels at few of them and only claims the title of Mario Kart DS champion because nobody at Raptr plays. Kevin was the designer on Yahoo! Pipes, and currently an artist, author, blogger and twitter addict.
Tommy escaped the claws of Academy of Art University with the power of art direction. He owns most popular game consoles and gadgets that end up sitting around looking pretty. He is a creative who pushes the limits to scare people. Each day, he is solving visual conundrums, which lead to a wonderful tradition of happy hour! Tommy loves tapas, wine, beaches, and traveling.
Zach does not like talking about himself, but he will tell you that games are fun, and should be played with your friends. Some games he recommends Mario Party, any MMO, Settlers of Catan, Diddy Kong Racing, and Magic the Gathering.
Andrew has been a web developer for as long as he can remember, working at such companies as Netscape, AOL, Ebay, 1UP.com, and most recently Yahoo! He's written a few books on javascript as well as worked on several open source game projects. He is a huge RPG fan and hopes to actually finish one someday.
Michael's enthusiasm for games began at an internet cafe where he engaged customers in games of Quake and Half-Life. Realizing he had no future in first person shooters, he embraced the design life and founded a multi-disciplinary 5 person design studio with partner Kirstin Nienhuis in Charleston SC, before both moving out to San Francisco and joining Raptr.
Wally is one of original engineers for Yahoo! Answers from inception to beta and then its GA launch, growing the global product to 20 million users over 6 months in a dozen languages. He vehemently hankers for more Joss Whedon, Stephen Colbert and world peace. On the weekends, Wally enjoys reading, swimming, hacking the open web and pondering life's complexities.
Aaron is the definitive rhythm gamer at Raptr. When he's not making sure that our users are having fun with the site, he's playing Beatmania IIDX and Guitar Hero/Rock Band. He also enjoys trolling various web forums and offending as many people as possible.
Patrick, a recent Cal graduate, goes by his gaming handle 'Hacky' around the office, reflecting his love of technology and gaming. You might find him slaying monsters in World of Warcraft or capturing intelligence in Team Fortress 2. Or you might find him playing a strategy, action or role-playing game on the computer, console, handheld or tabletop.
A gamer since the days of 1st Edition D&D. These days he plays games like Lost Odyssey, Crysis and Burnout. Matt grows some of the hottest peppers found on earth, fixes pinball machines, loves movies, BBQing, board/card games and Futurama. Matt has worked at Sega, 3DO, Activision and other small game studios and even has a few pen-and-paper games published. This is his first non-IT job in over 15 years and he's still in shock that he now only has 1 person to babysit, his daughter.
A South African native, Marcel gets many strange looks on a daily basis, whether it's from an inappropriate moment, a powerkite story, or sucking at CoD4 after 400+ hours of gameplay. Marcel is also responsible for the Raptr videos floating around the net… for which he apologizes for, profusely.
Matt was born and raised in Illinois but always felt like he belonged in California. Apparently Yahoo! agreed when they shipped him out here a few years back. He soon after moved to Raptr, an obvious choice because all he can think about is how much he loves video games and how terrifying sharks are. If you can't find him, check the foos table; he's probably practicing his brush pass.
Lucie doesn’t own a television nor any video game consoles but is fascinated when topics of conversation that circle the office are around potions, gold, and armies. When she’s not terrorizing her fellow co-workers, she can be found holed up with a book, sleeping, writing a blog, globe trotting, catching some waves, or shreddin’ some gnar. She was born and raised in LA, wiggles when she’s happy, and vows that the best taco truck in the western hemisphere is in Pasadena, CA.
As a perpetually accident prone human being, Kailei quickly discovered that pulling apart and breaking things was her special talent. Despite the handicap of having a liberal arts education, Kailei has been systematically breaking software for a living since 2001. Before coming to Raptr she worked at shops like Ingenuus, the Learning Company, and Xfire.
Larry joins Raptr from EA, where he analyzed macro trends in the gaming industry and mastered the fine art of trash talking on Madden. When he's not playing games on Xbox Live, he loves watching Michigan football games, playing basketball, and snowboarding. Larry also worked at Deloitte Consulting and E*TRADE before joining the gaming industry.
Yao has never stayed in one country for more than ten years, living in Taiwan, growing up in Argentina (home of the best asado in the world), and earning his CS degree in Canada. One day, Canada suddenly got toocold, so he moved to sunny California. Before joining Raptr, Yao worked as Site Reliability Engineer at Google. At Raptr, Yao is now writing code to help connect gamers around the world.
Obsessed with video games ever since his parents bought that Atari 5200, Keith is glad to have finally combined that passion with his other one: building software for normal people. Originally from Louisiana, he moved out west for a job at Yahoo! in the Brickhouse innovation group. Now he can be found designing backend systems, beating up coworkers in Street Fighter IV, and reminiscing about when he played Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2 competitively. Shazbot!
Allen has been a gamer since before he could remember. He is currently plays World of Warcraft, Call of Duty 4, and assorted Xbox 360 games, but enjoys any genre and platform. Besides gaming, he likes to stay athletic and keep up with sports. Fun fact: Allen has been classified as “the buff Asian guy” as exemplified by his habit of breaking things due to over exertion of strength.