Overwolf Partners With TeamSpeak To Give Online Games A Social Boost (And In-Game Voice Chat)

A slice of good news for gamers: Today, TeamSpeak, a company which makes voice communications systems to let gamers chat while playing games, has partnered with Overwolf to begin offering gamers some serious suped-up social and voice communications functionality during gameplay. TeamSpeak users can install a simple widget to get in-game notifications, chat, the ability to change voice settings, and manage channels without leaving the comfort of their favorite MMO games.

For those unfamiliar with Overwolf, the Israeli startup that makes software to overlay social media in games, the company’s mission is, put simply, to “Zynga-fy online games” (in a good way), providing a software client that seamlessly adds a social layer to games, providing us with a convenient way to share achievements, access Facebook, Twitter, Skype, MSN, web browsers, and gameplay recording while playing multiplayer online games.

Obviously, neither company is without competition in the gaming world, especially Overwolf, as the ‘socialization of everything’ has certainly come to games in full force, but for game publishers, Overwolf provides an easy way to integrate social media within games to boost virality and reduce user acquisition costs without touching a line of code.

Overwolf has partnered with companies like Frogster Online Gaming, Games-Masters, gPotato and Aeria Games, which have launched their own branded versions of the service as a way to connect their online games with various social platforms.

It’s a great way for gamers to interact with other members, post screenshots or videos, search databases for new tricks, cheats, and explanations while playing games, and Overwolf is hoping that by providing a channel into already-existing social networks they can bypass having to create their own gaming social network from scratch.

TeamSpeak, too, has been looking for easier ways to boost their in-game support, so with their new partnership with Overwolf, both are able to offer a deep set of communications tools that players already had on the desktop during the online, in-game experience. Overwolf CEO Uri Marchand said that gamers and Overwolf users have been champing at the bit to get TeamSpeak support, as TeamSpeak has become very popular among online gamers, which use the service to strategize and speak to other team members while playing, including realtime voice chat, file sharing, and so on.

While many game development companies have been trying to enhance user experience by offering more social tools, Twitter and Facebook integration, YouTube support and so on (as we wrote of Trion in April), this partnership between TeamSpeak and Overwolf could be of great value to smaller development operations that don’t have the time or resources to build social and communications functionality from scratch.

For more, check out Overwolf here and TeamSpeak here, or the video below for more on how the partnership works in-game: