Just about every time I’ve spoken to Kamcord founder Matt Zitzmann in the year since the company launched, I’ve asked one question toward the end of our conversations to gauge the team’s progress: “Have you guys figured out Android support yet?” Every time the answer has been “no.”
The ability to record gameplay videos on a mobile device without causing performance to nosedive has been a tricky proposition for Kamcord, and getting it to work as well as it does on iOS took months of polish. However, when I spoke to Zitzmann this time, the answer was “yes”; the team just opened up its beta SDK for Android developers to start tinkering around with.
The path to Android has been a long and bumpy one (Zitzmann says it was about six months of non-stop work) due mostly to the lack of resources. Kamcord’s founding team consisted only of three people, though the ranks were eventually fleshed out with (among others) an ex-Googler who helped the team “get on the map” as it worked to bring Android support to fruition.
As it happens, the task Kamcord needed to complete even required a bit of cooperation from Google itself. “We’ve had conversations with Google,” Zitzmann said, adding that the team shared what they were able to do on iOS and received access to APIs that helped them capture the on-screen action without affecting performance.
Kamcord is riding a wave of early interest from Android developers, but Zitzmann is even more bullish on the company’s future now that they’ve finally broached the Android frontier. As far as he’s concerned, Android support will be a crucial cornerstone of the company’s push into Asia considering the prevalence of Android hardware and the explosion of profitable mobile games in China, Japan and Korea.
What’s more, support for Android means that Kamcord has access to devices that could theoretically help it achieve its goal of becoming a destination for gaming video content rather than just a facilitator for it. The OUYA and Android-powered TV gadgets like it provide an in to living rooms where gamers could save, share and view replays of their exploits while lounging on the couch.
It’s far too early to see if Kamcord manages to become the content heavyweight it aims to be, but support for a breadth of devices is precisely what it needs to help push it along.
