In this month’s Company Spotlight, we are looking into ExitLag, an innovative one-of-a-kind platform that helps address issues related to lagging during gameplay. Developed by Leandro Sandmann and Fabiano Skowronski, ExitLag helps people around the world improve their connection and enhance their gaming experience.
Leandro Sandmann talks with Exeleon Magazine about ExitLag, his gaming journey, and the future of the company in this interview.
Talk to us about your growing up years. What hooked you to online gaming?
I was only 11 years old when a friend of mine introduced me to the MMORPG called Tibia. Launched in 1997, it was one of the first in the industry. It was around the same time that I also started to learn programming language. I was instantly hooked on both. Fast forward a bit, and I put that experience to use, creating game-related applications until ExitLag was born.
What led to the start formation of ExitLag? What was the pain point you wanted to address?
I made a lot of friends playing Tibia, one of them was Fabiano, Exitlag’s co-founder. Because all the Tibia servers were located outside of our home country of Brazil, we struggled with lag issues and packet loss. These issues would affect our game. Fabiano did some tests and found out that the change in routes could optimize our experience while gaming, which was like a miracle back then. We began to work on a solution for ourselves, but soon all our friends were asking to use it as well. The network of people using it started to grow and we started a subscription business without even noticing it at first. Over the years, we started to increase the number of games we would support and improved the technology to be the best it could be. We realized that it was a problem for gamers worldwide.
What were the challenges/complications that you faced when building this software?
It was hard to scale quickly at times. There was some unexpected growth and it was hard to keep the pace with how fast things were moving. We also spent a lot of days and nights focused on improving the technology and making sure it was the best it could be. I remember investing a lot of time into creating a product that would be resistant to DDoS attacks without sacrificing high performance. Our proprietary multi-path technology was also a big leap in performance for our users and we were very happy to be able to deliver it to them.
What has been the response thus far from the gaming community about the software?
We get a lot of great messages, but more and more, people are saying that ExitLag is indispensable as a network optimizer. Of course, this makes us really happy. From casual to competitive gamers, everyone wants to have lower latency and a better experience while playing.
How has the gaming industry changed in recent years? What can we potentially expect in the coming years?
The gaming industry has experienced absurd growth in the last three years and has become the most prominent entertainment market in the world, surpassing the popularity of movies and music combined. I think, over the next few years, we will have even more players embrace e-Sports, especially with the explosion of technological advancements like the 5G.
What does the future look like for ExitLag? What are you most excited about?
Exciting! We are thrilled about the launch of ExitLag Mobile. So far, the feedback received through the closed beta test has been remarkable. I think we are set to make history by pioneering the market with a gaming accessory for network on mobile devices, but there are still a lot of challenges ahead. We want to be present on consoles and routers eventually, which constitutes more work on our end. But our mission remains the same: to help every player out there, no matter where in the world they may be playing, have the best gaming experience possible.
