Alongside our daily coverage of online worlds, WorldsInMotion.biz is also going to be building up a database of the major virtual worlds in our new Online World Atlas.

This virtual world guide, which will become the basis for the forthcoming Game Developer Research papers on virtual worlds, MMOs, and virtual items, includes information on the world, its payment model, key features, useful links, and a brief in-world guide, including exclusive screenshots and analysis on in-world interactions.

We're expecting to add approximately two worlds per week to the Online World Atlas, so check back often to see the latest specifics on a multitude of virtual environments. Currently, we've completed overarching analyses on the following worlds:

Habbo Hotel (Sulake Labs) - June 2007
Club Penguin (New Horizon Interactive) - June 2007

If you have comments, feedback, or ideas on the worlds that you'd like to see profiled in the Online World Atlas next, please contact us via email at editors@worldsinmotion.biz.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

We've spent some time checked in to Habbo Hotel, the teen-focused virtual world from Sulake. We played games, explored a wide variety of rooms, drank colas and tried to make friends in dance clubs. So what's the verdict?

Get ready for three acronyms in one sentence! According to a recent report on a Korean news site translated by blogger IM69, Korea's National Tax Service (NTS), their equivalent of the IRS, has begun charging value-added tax (VAT) on real-money transactions (RMT) in virtual worlds.

The NTS has begun adding the new tax automatically to all virtual transactions involving real money as of July 1st, says the report, translated as follows:

Sellers who do between 6 and 12 million won ($6,500 - $13,000)/half year in business will have VAT auto applied by transaction's middle-man.

Sellers who do more than 12 million won/half year in business will need a business license and will pay the tax by themselves.

“This is not about defining RMT legal/illegal; we don’t see any contradictory facts to Amendment for Game Industry Promoting Law - we are not about to judge if RMT is legal or not,” he added.

The interesting complication comes in when you take note of the fact that, according to the report, many online games stipulate in their terms of service that in-game goods and currency are actually property of the developers, not the users. Thus far, the industry has yet to clarify its stance on the issue, so it's still unclear who, exactly, will be legally responsible for actually paying the tax.

[Via Next-Gen.biz]

Mannea LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of online media and ad company Church & Crawford, announced the development of a new, soon-to-be-deployed technology that will allow users to navigate virtual worlds using existing web URLs.

Mannea feels that currently, users in virtual worlds face challenges finding preferred locations unless they appear in a built-in search function, or unless the user is able to create a "landmark" with in-world location info.

The company's new technology, so far unlaunched, claims to allow companies or individuals to tie their web-based URL to a virtual world location (providing Second Life as an example in their press release), so that users can find locations by simply typing in a web address.

An obvious payoff of this sort of technology is that companies that have considerable investments in their online marketing will not have to incur further expense to make users aware of new virtual locations, supporting the security of existing brands.

[Note: Linden Labs already provides the SLurl service to the same effect-- it's unclear how Mannea's plans are different, or if they plan to tackle other virtual worlds outside Second Life. ]

Here's an interesting read: some thoughts on the shelf life of MMOs. In the article, Celia Pierce-- a director at Georgia Tech's Emergent Game Group-- pegs the life of the average user within a virtual world at about 18 months, and discusses some of the challenges designers face in retaining their userbase and keeping them from losing interest.

While new online worlds are cropping up all the time, others-- like Motor City Online and Earth & Beyond (both by Electronic Arts), and Bandai-Namco's Gundam Online (set to go offline Dec. 15)-- get shuttered for good due to lost users. How to spot an online world on the decline? According to the article, abandoned homes and vast stretches of vacant land are a sure sign that the inhabitants are on the move.

Pearce suggests that the market for fantasy worlds might be a little oversaturated, with World of Warcraft squarely in dominance and flanked by the likes of Ultima Online, the EverQuest games, and, most recently Dungeon Runners.

She also cites what she refers to as an "addictive curve," wherein: "People are playing 40 hours or 30 hours a week and they get burned out and wonder, 'Why am I spending all this time doing the same thing over and over again?' Then they go into another game and 18 months later find that they're doing it all over again."

LucasArts producer Jake Neri, who works on Star Wars: Galaxies (now in its fourth year) notes that keeping content fresh and customers focused is "not an easy challenge." After a decline in users following some considerable systemic changes in 2005, Neri and his team had to come up with a fresh angle.

"What we wanted to do is figure out a cool way to help our player base gain access to that land," says Neri. A new initiative called the "galaxy-wide demolition plan" was forged, wherein players who mark virtual homes that have been abandoned by inactive players will be rewarded with points redeemable for in-game items, such as home furnishings and pet robots-- rewarding the players while making available the virtual land for current players to develop anew-- all with as little disruption as possible to the narrative flow of Galaxies' fantasy world. "What we came up with was this idea that Darth Vader and the Empire wanted to clear out abandoned homes on the various planets," Neri says.

Still, Pearce doesn't see an end to the high turnover rate for online property anytime soon-- as the article says, it's much easier to create a virtual homestead than it is to put down real-world roots, and even easier to abandon one. But it seems likely that users will keep creating fantasy homes just as quickly as others are vacating theirs-- for as Pearce says: "For many people, this is their only opportunity to own a vacation home."

[Via HamptonRoads.com]

[For more about Celia Pearce and the Emergent Game Group at Georgia Tech, which investigates how culture emerges from game design, check out the EGG's website, or dig an interview with Pearce from our sister site, Gamasutra.]

A critical eye's been fixed on virtual worlds and gaming in general lately, with academics, pundits and parents wondering whether such play is constructive-- or destructive-- to children. Examining the issue is London-based Brunel University's School of Sport and Education, where Dr. Simon Bradford and Nic Crowe followed a group of kids ages 13 to 16 for three years, as they played RuneScape, a fantasy MMO from Jagex.

According to the press release, the research found that rather than creating a legion of pale, anemic shut-ins, online worlds "enhance, rather than constrict the imagination of young people," by letting them experiment with different identities and abilities, and try their hands at opportunities and situations they might not have access to in their offline lives.

"We met many players taking part in online role playing, sometimes to extend or to compensate for experiences in the real world," said Dr. Bradford. "For example, young people whose parents could not afford a summer holiday enjoyed virtual holidays online– hanging out with friends, visiting beaches and going to clubs at night to meet new people.”

Further, according to the study, kids seem to be able to reap benefits from interacting in virtual worlds that reach beyond leisure, such as managing virtual currency and property. Bradford noted "how entrepreneurial young players engaged in business deals online, experiencing positive opportunities often not open to them in the material world.”

It isn't immediately clear what specific markers were used to evaluate the study participants, or how many there were. Still, Brunel says it plans to continue its research into gaming, hoping to study behavioral differences in gender next.

The Serious Games Institute announced its "first European conference on the practical application of virtual worlds," set to take place September 13th and 14th in Coventry (the SGI is an initiative out of Coventry University).

According to the announcement and draft program, this year's theme will be "The Reality of the Virtual World," and will focus on various ways businesses are using virtual worlds, promising an intro to the serious uses of virtual worlds for organizations considering jumping in.

A lot of the panels seem to be Second Life-oriented, though there are others like "The Economics of Virtual Worlds" and "Virtual Disaster Management." Still, the conference claims to be a "first," and invites corporate professionals, multimedia developers, and public sector organizations to attend-- for £395 per day (£295 for academics) not including dinner!

[Via 3pointD.com]

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Today we take our first glance at RuneScape, the fantasy MMO from Jagex.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Today we explore the magical realm of Gielinor a little more as we look into RuneScape, the MMO from Jagex.

Just came across an interesting article in Wired by Clive Thompson, discussing some implications of an increasing trend-- the substitution of text-based chat in online gaming and virtual words with real-voice chat, via apps like Ventrilo.

The pros? Well, for one thing, speaking's a lot clearer, in a world where computer literacy varies, and linguistic proficiency when using a keyboard is still somewhat of an unrefined art. When exploring a virtual world, don't you wonder what that fellow typing "PPppppppp..;" is really trying to say? Not to mention that those who are less-than-speedy typists often find themselves struggling to keep up in a conversation, while high-speed keystroke wizards wait minutes for a response. Particularly in an action game like World of Warcraft, where large numbers of players commonly engage in high-intensity team play, an inability to keep up on the keyboard can actually be a barrier to participation.

On the flipside, Thompson points out that many users tap into online worlds to become their avatar, ditching their mundane personae behind. But while using your own voice to communicate might be faster and easier than typing messages, it also pierces the veil of illusion that's part and parcel of becoming someone else-- in Thompson's experience, the aura of compelling power surrounding his competent WoW quest leader evaporated in a puff of smoke when Ventrilo revealed him to be a squeaky-voiced, foul-mouthed adolescent.

Worth noting that there are other implications if voice chat in virtual worlds becomes increasingly more prevalent-- voice can give away age, for one thing, a potential hazard in communities that endeavor to maintain child safety. How would voice chat be moderated? Voice can also betray one's nationality or gender; would the hulking orc soldier stand out as he abstains from the verbal confab-- for fear of being found out as a female? Thompson provides as example the story of Krista Lee Malone, a University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee student who, when studying the impact of voice chat on virtual worlds, found that women in particular, when using their voices, suddenly attracted lots more unwanted attention from younger men.

Overall, while the increasing prevalence of voice chat certainly has the prevalence to become, as Thompson says, "the latest culture-shock in online worlds," it remains to be seen, owing to all these factors, just how far voice can encroach on a world once governed entirely by text.

[Via Wired]

Beijing-based online gaming developer Perfect World (Zhu Xian, Legend of Martial Arts) developed an eponymous MMO that launched in China in 2006 and continues to be published internationally, claiming over 30 million registered players. Now, it has filed for an initial public offering on Nasdaq to sell up to $100 million in ADRs. The recent filing with the SEC didn't say how many shares will be offered, nor did it indicate a price range for the IPO.

Perfect World says it will use its proceeds from the IPO for research and development and general corporate purposes, and that it has applied to list its shares under the symbol PWRD.

[Via Forbes.com]

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

We've spent some time this week playing RuneScape, where we learned survival skills, traded with other adventurers, and battled monsters in the fantasy realm of Gielinor. So what're the over-arching facts about Jagex's MMO?.

In case you don't spend enough time at the computer and want to vacation there, too, Italy-based Mario Girosa is ready to help make your dreams come true with Synthravels, which bills itself as "the first online virtual travel agency." Currently, they're conducting tours of a long list of online worlds.

Membership to the site is free, and you can also get freebie selected trial trips conducted by a virtual tour guide. They advertise meet-and-greets with in-world celebrities and access to select locations, too. You do, however, have to be registered at the applicable world and have the software installed, where necessary. Looks like a guide will meet up with your avatar at a selected date and time, and show you the ropes.

Maybe it's not the best vacation (not yet, anyway!), but it might be a neat option for brand-newbies to online gaming for whom the learning curve can often seem steep.

[Via IBNLive.com]

The name of Tetsuya Mizuguchi, designer of synesthetic surreality trips Rez and Lumines, is already familiar to gamers. So is Japan's popular weekly game mag, Famitsu, which reports that Mizuguchi's agreed to collaborate with Japanese ad agency Dentsu to build a virtual Tokyo in Second Life.

No word on Dentsu's specific long-term biz plan for the virtual city, but the marriage of game design aesthetic with online architecture certainly sounds like fun. Mizuguchi was initially wary of the idea and declined, but later changed his mind, relenting, "My work all these years has been to entertain people through video games, but this Virtual Tokyo concept could be the next step and path."

Mizuguchi and Dentsu also discussed plans to open a Ski Jump Pair International contest in the heart of virtual Tokyo, inspired by artist Riichiro Mashima's Ski Jump Pairs. According to Mizuguchi, a giant ski slope in the heart of Virtual Tokyo will be the site of an international competition where users' ski-posing avatars "will compete based on longest distance, landing, comedic performance and so on. We've already been running tests in Second Life and this is quite fun. We hope to do this contest regularly."

Interestingly, rather than attempting to replicate the real-world Tokyo, Mizuguchi and Dentsu have designs on a city that, like a "museum of Japanese culture," captures its image and feel. "How do people in Tokyo perceive the city? How about foreigners?" Mizuguchi wonders. "That's what we want to express."

[Via 1Up]

MTV's Jeff Yapp chatted about the media giant's future musings on virtual worlds at the recent Under the Radar Digital Entertainment and Media Conference in Mountain View, CA. "The scale and the scope of this thing is absolutely immense; we have fairly ambitious plans," Yapp said, amid footage of Doppelganger's Virtual Lower East Side and MTV's Virtual Laguna Beach being synthesized as mobile, web, and TV content. "We believe in 'one avatar, one world'; the ability to take your avatar-- that personality, that 3D representation of who you are-- anywhere you want to go." Check out the video at CNet (for all you gamers, there's Rock Band stuff, too!).

Yapp's presentation was a keynote separate from the virtual worlds group presentations at Under the Radar, where Doppelganger and Kaneva were the highlights. During the panel, Doppelganger (Virtual LES) CEO Tim Stevens said their service currently has 150,000 users, growing at a rate of 10% weekly. Kaneva, whose 3D social networking site just went public beta in April, said that despite its resemblance to MySpace and its ilk, it sees its primary competitor as television and movies-- go figure. Both of these companies glean their primary income from sponsorship and the sale of virtual goods.

Another participant in the group was Meez, an avatar specialist. Through Meez's website, users can design custom avatars that can then be exported to other services. Photobucket members, through a recent partnership with Meez, can now export and store their 3D avatars on Meez. Despite having 2 million registered users (and 425,000 newcomers each month) to Photobucket's considerably larger estimated 40 million, Meez apparently gets enough revenue from sponsorship, virtual goods, and their associated promo partnerships to be able to pull it off.

Finally, founder Corey Bridges discussed Multiverse, an MMO development platform that runs in a "world browser" (according to Bridges, that's like a web browser) and can be used by anyone to make their own online games. Multiverse is the platform University of Indiana prof Ted Castronova is using to build Arden, his MacArthur-funded Shakespearean world. In a round of fundraising led by hedge fund Sterling Stamos Capital Management, Multiverse recently snagged $4.175 million.

[Via Webware.com]

The UK's Gambling Act of 2005 is set to see its last remaining provisions come into force this September, and it could mean that MMOs will have to change the way they do things.

According to GamesIndustry.biz, the Act will regulate the online gambling companies that will be permitted to operate from within the UK for the first time-- but since it defines "gambling" as "a game of chance for a prize," MMOs will have to obtain Gambling Commission operators' licenses to be able to offer virtual goods and currency to players, since those have actual monetary worth.

Further, MMO gaming does qualify as a "game of chance," since the Act applies that definition to "any game which involves elements of both chance and skill, or where superlative skill can eliminate chance. The definition of 'prize' includes cash prizes, products and virtual prizes which can be exchanged for money."

"This is something all current operators of these games, and those looking to enter this market, should seriously consider now," said Alex Chapman of Campbell Hooper-- adding that his firm is already working to obtain licenses for clients, and is in continued discussion with the Gambling Commission over the MMO issue.

[via GamesIndustry.biz]

Disney's Toontown, its virtual world aimed at kids, has earned its dollars primarily from subscriptions. Now, however, Disney will be shifting Toontown towards an advertising-supported model.

Since its 2003 launch, Toontown users have paid a monthly subscription fee of $9.95 (after a free trial)-- though a free public beta was launched late in May. Apparently the free beta was a useful draw-- Disney execs said they noticed increased user response, and Disney now says it's talking to advertisers in preparation for the launch of an entirely ad-supported version of Toontown.

One primary goal, of course, is making Toontown accessible to a broader userbase. "We've had such a great success with Toontown that we wanted to make a portion of the game accessible to even more people, which will take our Tooniverse to new heights, beyond the more than 17.5 million Toons that have already been created in the game," said Paul Yanover, Disney Online Executive VP and Managing Director.

Another likely motivation for the shift, along with growing interest from advertisers in virtual worlds, could be increased competition from other kid-focused worlds like Club Penguin and Nickelodeon's Nicktropolis-- the latter's userbase is pegged by comScore at 1.4 million unique users as of May, trumping Toontown's 1.165 million. Nicktropolis has said it will eventually feature advertising, too.

[Via MediaWeek]

Earlier this year, Trion World Network, Inc. announced a partnership with Hewlett Packard to develop the technology infrastructure for a dynamic, multi-platform content delivery system. Now, the broadband games and entertainment publisher and developer announced it has raised hefty dollars in investments from some very big players. Time Warner, GE/NBC Universal's Peacock Equity, and Bertelsmann AG's BDMI all pitched in their vote of confidence-- to the tune of 30 million dollars.

The latest round of funding, led by Rustic Canyon Partners, is an additional boost to a previous fundraising effort in an undisclosed amount supported by DCM and Trinity Ventures, who also joined in this time.

Worlds in Motion spoke to Trion CEO Lars Buttler about Trion's ambitious vision. "Imagine Amazon, or Google, or Yahoo in large-scale gameworlds," he said. "And the platform also allows you to tap into the same experience from any connected device. We're taking the game experience out of the client and putting it into a sophisticated infrastructure."

Buttler's ideas on the evolution of media delivery might explain why heavyweight broadcasting companies are taking notice of Trion's work. "A dynamic platform allows you to build constantly," Buttler explained. "If traditional games are made like movies, you launch and keep your fingers crossed—we built it more like TV shows. It’s a very fundamental shift in the risk and reward profile."

So what's next? "We have built this technology, and now we are building channels," says Buttler. "Every channel is a large-scale gameworld. Some of the channels we built completely in-house, and others, we just publish what third parties have built. It's the classic Electronic Arts or Activision model applied to a completely different experience."

Buttler should know-- he's the former Global VP of Online at EA. And he's not the only member of the team to come from a game industry background-- other EA professionals came along, and NCSoft former lead architect Robert "Jay" Lee joined up to apply his 20 years experience in large-scale game design. Also on board is game designer Jon Van Caneghem, known for Might & Magic. Buttler says the highly experienced team helped inspire investor confidence. "It's a group of people that in this quality and this diversity nobody else has ever brought together," he says. "If we hadn’t this team people wouldn’t have believed we could pull it off, and whoever we show it to 'gets it' right away."

Even so-- 30 million dollars? "As a publisher and developer, we really have to do a lot," Buttler explains. "We build the tech base, we build content, we co-develop with other parties and we also publish-- that means you go to the consumer any way possible on a global scale. Whenever a market is so disruptive and new, you can't stick to only one piece of the value chain."

"We're creating a whole package with a 20-year vision from the beginning to the end of the chain," Buttler adds.

How will it work? "Every channel is accessible across a number of devices," Buttler says. "And that's web, PC client-- that's even mobile phones. But the point is, it will not be the same experience. It will tap into the same gameworld, but it will be tailored to the capabilities of the device. On a mobile phone you wouldn’t want to play a large scale game, but you want to be in touch with your game—alerts, info, et cetera."

Buttler says the product on the very first channel-- what he likens to a television pilot-- is already built, will be announced by the end of this year, and available to the consumer by next year. He's hesitant to provide too many early details, but allows that, "at its core, it will be a large-scale game. But it will be a large-scale game that has a tremendous amount of elements of social networks, and it will be a game that will evolve almost like a TV show evolves."

Looking over recent developments in connected entertainment, Buttler says that both social networks trying to be more game-like and games trying to incorporate elements of social networking are a step in the right direction. "But all of them have downsides, or are missing certain elements. But they are the first ones, so it’s logical. What we try to do is just take the next step. And we won't be perfect either—but if you build it dynamically, you can learn from the users, and change, and continue moving forward."

"We're all gamers and entertainment junkies at the core," Buttler stresses. "First and foremost, what people love is great entertainment—great games. That’s what we are passionate about-- at end of the day, what is the greatest experience that you can get now where users are all connected to each other? The most powerful, most fun, challenging [experience] that you can give people?"

Hit the jump for the press release.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Today, we start with a bird's eye view of Entropia Universe, the futuristic virtual society byMindArk.

Habbo, the online world targeted at teens, and AddictingGames, MTVN Kids and Family Group's largest online game channel, are becoming partners, with AddictingGames becoming the exclusive North American online games distributor for Habbo.

According to the announcement, AddictingGames' 23 million monthly users will now be able to join Habbo through their site via a newly-launched landing page, while Habbo will provide its monthly 7.5 million with a click-through portal for Addicting Games.

"An AddictingGames and Habbo relationship is a natural because we have so much in common: a teen audience, constantly updated user-enhanced content, and a commitment to providing users the best possible experiences," said Dave Williams, Senior Vice President of AddictingGames. "We think AddictingGames visitors will love Habbo's virtual world environment; it complements our existing web games and community."

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Today, we explore the continent of Eudoria on Calypso as we take a closer look at Entropia Universe, MindArk's distant-planet futurescape.

Disney announced on the Pirates of the Caribbean Online site that they won't be making their summer launch goal for the MMO themed around the blockbuster films, originally intended to coincide with the release of the latest Pirates film, At World's End. Though the game's been in Phase 1 beta, the movie release came and went, and will probably end up on DVD before Pirates of the Caribbean Online is ready for the public.

In an official statement on the site, Disney said of the "updated launch timing":

"Our end goal is simple—make a great game! In order to achieve this we believe we need some additional development time and have therefore decided to move the launch of the game to this fall. This gives us some extra time to further enhance the game, respond to additional data we've collected during beta testing, and incorporate more of the input we have received from our players."

The company anticipates a Fall 2007 launch instead.

Israel-based Elron Electronic Industries Ltd. announced its move into the internet and cellular field with a $600,000 convertible loan to Journeys Ltd., an Israeli MMO company developing a casual online multiplayer game.

Journeys is still a fledgling company, founded earlier this year by three entrepreneurs: Guy Bendov, one of the founders of Double Fusion specializing in in-game advertising, Sharon Priel, former Vice President of Technology of The Marker, an Israeli financial online and print publication, and Assaf Priel, one of the founders of Inkod-Hypera, an Israeli visual concept house.

We do know Journeys is a casual game designed for both gaming and non-gaming audiences; according to their media kit, it'll provide users with "adventures, social experiences and competitions through traveling in a virtual world, under their own terms." No other details as of yet on Journey's game plan (figuratively or literally); their site's still primarily a bare space, though they've got a developer blog started.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

This week, we paid a visit to the futuristic planet of Calypso, exploring, trading, and being mentored as we harvested sweat from monsters to bottle and sell. So what's the big picture about MindArk's Entropia Universe?

Industry event management company Virtual Worlds Management announced the speakers and format for the Virtual Worlds Fall Conference and Expo set to take place October 10 – 11, 2007, at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California.

The two-day event will have five individual tracks to cover the different facets of the virtual worlds space: Entertainment and Marketing, Virtual Worlds for the Enterprise, Business Strategy and Investment, Community and Customer Service, and Design and Development. Speakers from Second Life, The Electric Sheep Company, There.com, Areae, IBM, Whyville and many more will be in attendance, with the full speakers' list available on the website.

The company says it expects 1,000 attendees to the conference.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Let's take our first look today at Nicktropolis, the online playground for teens and 'tweens created by Nickelodeon.

What would it look like if your Second Life were more like your first? DRAFTFCB, an advertising agency with offices in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, decided to make a video of real people living life as avatars do, and anyone who spends any time in virtual worlds will get a real kick out of it:

The video pokes fun at avatar behavior in Second Life specifically, but the particular conventions and animations being emulated are common to most 3D virtual worlds these days, and demonstrates that perhaps online society has a bit more growing to do before it behaves more like ours!

Nexon has announced that its MMO, MapleStory, has 67 million registered users across Asia and North America. What's more, Nexon aims to increase the number as Maple Story gains official support in Europe.

Though it was released in South Korea in 2003, MapleStory didn't come to North America until 2006-- where, according to Nexon, the fantasy MMO gained three million subscribers in four months. Now Europeans can join in, and the company's promised weekly content updates and localized events with tie-ins to real-world happenings on the continent.

MapleStory has always been free to play, but characters can purchase bonuses and virtual goods for their avatars; revenue from such micropayments is the primary component of Nexon's reported $250 million earnings from games.

"Now gamers all over Europe can enjoy MapleStory's delightful visuals, vibrant community and simple, yet truly compelling gameplay," said Calvin Yoo, director of international business development at NEXON Europe. "We look forward to making many more exciting MapleStory announcements over the coming months."

[via Gamespot.com]

Korean online game publishers Webzen (Mu Online, SUN), Nexon (Kart Riders, Maple Story) and NCSoft (Lineage, Dungeon Runners), along with internet content service provider NHN (the Hangame portal), have teamed up with the Korea Culture & Content Agency (KOCCA) to promote their latest online games with the opening of an interactive Online Gaming Hall and Digital Mobile Content Center at the Korea Center in Los Angeles.

KOCCA is the creative content division of South Korea’s Ministry of Culture & Tourism, while the Korea Center on Los Angeles' Wilshire Boulevard opened in 2006, with the mission of introducing and promoting Korean creative content within its exhibition space of over 3,000 square feet.

One of the first online games featured at the Korea Center is Nexon's Audition, which claims to have registered over 100,000 North American users in two months. Other games on exhibition include Webzen’s Huxley, NHN’s GunBound, and NCSoft’s Lineage.

“The featured Korean online games and mobile content have already gained widespread popularity and success in Asia,” says KOCCA Managing Director Daniel Kim. “This event is significant in that the leading Korean online gaming and mobile companies are jointly displaying their creative content in the Korea Center exhibition space. People of all nationalities can now visit the Korea Center and experience Korean games and mobile content firsthand, thereby increasing awareness of Korean creative content to an even higher level in the United States.”

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Let's take an in-depth tour of Nicktropolis, Nickelodeon's online world for kids and 'tweens.

At the Digital Life preview in New York City, a rep for Mattel told Scientific American that Barbie Girls, its new online world for young and 'tween girls, has signed up 3 million users in its first 60 days, and is growing at a rate of 50,000 new users daily.

The Barbie Girls' world lets kids customize Barbie avatars, dress them in various fashions, design virtual homes, adopt pets and chat with other users. It works on the free-to-play, pay-for-goods (with "B Bucks") model.

Engadget also reported from the Digital Life preview that Mattel plans to launch a Barbie Girl MP3 player (shown above) as a companion to the world, which girls who have met in real life will be able to sync with each other's computers to participate in "Secret B Chat," a more private and more permissive variation on Barbie Girls' standard, heavily-moderated "B Chat." The Barbie Girl MP3 player will reportedly retail at $60 and include 512MB of memory and a miniSD expansion slot, which along with $10 accessory packs, will unlock additional content in the Barbie Girls virtual world.

Barbie Girls is still in open beta ("Hey Girl! We're in beta!" it proclaims).

[via ScientificAmerican.com]

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

We spent the last couple of days in Nicktropolis, collecting blobs, playing minigames and exploring in Nickelodeon's online world for kids and 'tweens.

The UK's Edinburgh Interactive Festival, set for August 12-14, 2007 at the Royal College of Physicians, is focused on "expanding the creative culture of games." To that end, they're planning keynotes, debates, panel sessions and cross media industry discussions to examine gaming's impact on consumers and entertainment companies as well as traditional media.

Recently, the Festival's lineup has been expanded to include virtual worlds, with EVE Online creator Hilmar Petersson and Linden Lab's Jim Purbick joining the discussions. Purbick will participate in a 'Developing for Second Life' strand of panels on the 14th, while Petersson will head up ‘Exploring EVE Online’ on the 13th, and will also contribute to the ‘Virtual Societies’ discussion on the 14th.

In his welcome statement on the Festival's homepage, Chairman Chris Deering said, "For our delegates, partners and speakers, Edinburgh offers one thing in particular above all other industry events - a unique networking opportunity for those who are truly passionate about games. It also offers a stimulating and challenging two days of conference, debate and discussion that brings together people from all tiers of the worldwide games and interactive industries."

[Via MCV]

Faculty and students at Bowling Green State University and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have created a program that transforms the standard GPS display-- showing a person's position on a map-- into a 3D virtual representation of their surroundings that changes as the user moves.

The program, called Pocket Virtual Worlds, is still in the prototype phase, but project directors Larry Hatch and Jared Bendis are currently working with 239 special photographs they took about a year ago at the Alamo battle shrine in San Antonio. Taken through a mirrored, three-dimensional upside-down cone, the resulting circular images can be unwrapped to create a panorama. Next, the photos are connected in a sequence of paths plugged into a computer program, resulting an image display that changes with the user's direction-- thereby allowing a user to explore the Alamo in the display of a GPS device simply by walking around.

"We had 20 to 25 people surrounding us when we were taking pictures," said Hatch. "They were wondering what in the world we were doing."

"It's really hard to show people the 'wow factor' if you show them the building you work in," Mr. Bendis said, figuring that the nationally-known Alamo site, which not everyone has the opportunity to visit, was "a good place to start."

Hatch and Bendis hope to advance the program into an interactive learning gaming system, with the goal of eventually using the technology to let classroom-bound students take "virtual field trips" of locations like the Amazon rainforest, with classroom projects and discussion launched from what they "see" around them. Since the program can use digitally-created images as well as photographs, students could also theoretically explore outer space or locations in history.

"We lock them into a desk all day, and they don't like it," said Hatch of the average school day.

The group is currently using PDAs as a display unit, but the goal is to have a company interested in the software create a handheld device like the Nintendo DS, wherein students could switch between virtual worlds within the same device as they would switch games.

And like switching games to play, it'd be possible to swap virtual worlds in the same device, Hatch said.

According to Hatch, the team hopes to perfect Pocket Virtual Worlds and have it ready for corporate consideration in about a year, and is heading to Austria with four students from BGSU's Digital Media Research Group to tweak the program at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences.

[Via ToledoBlade.com]

Washington-based casual MMO developer Thinglefin, Inc., has announced the completion of a Series A financing round led by California Technology Ventures.

The new financing will provide Thinglefin with the ability to self-fund development of their unannounced massively multiplayer game. According to Thinglefin, the game will run in a Web browser and be free-to-play.

"In all seriousness, there will be modestly priced premium features that we hope people find attractive, but they are certainly not required to play the game. And honestly, we expect the vast majority of our audience will play for free," said Thinglefin founder Toby Ragaini on Thinglefin's blog.

"To that point, we’re not going to create a free-player 'ghetto' by segregating the paying and non-paying audiences," Ragaini added. "As a gameplay experience, our customers will benefit from all the people playing, whether they are paying customers or otherwise."

Ragaini also added that Thinglefin is developing a casual game-- which, from his perspective, means accessibility.

"Accessible refers to the fact that you don’t need to purchase, download, or install any software. You can play it in a browser whenever you’re interested enough to come check it out," Ragaini clarified, also touting the game's "shallow learning curve" as "a fancy way of saying its easy to play. There are no complicated inputs or instructions. If you can use a mouse, and manage an AIM buddy list, you can play our game."

Ragaini also envisions a multiplayer game that will "reward any amount of time that players can afford to spend playing it. If you can spare 5 minutes, you will have fun. If you want to invest more of your time, the game will reward you with increasing layers of depth and replayability."

“We have high expectations for our investment in Thinglefin. The audience for Web-based casual games continues to expand, creating enormous opportunities,” stated Alex Suh, Managing Director of California Technology Ventures. “The Thinglefin team has a compelling vision for how to reach new audiences and retain those customers with a combination of accessibility and engaging gameplay.”

“We’re going to be creating a dialogue with gamers,” said Ragaini. “We’re looking forward to receiving feedback from our audience when it’s the most actionable: during development.”

Hit the jump for the full release.

Interesting article from the LA Times' Alana Semuels, profiling some companies whose virtual outposts in Second Life might be losing their appeal-- if not their viability altogether.

Online retailers in Second Life are finding that users, already spending $6 a month for premium citizenship, just aren't prioritizing shopping to the degree that was anticipated-- making some marketers take a second look at their Second Life investments.

According to the article, other companies, like Best Buy, Sun Microsystems and Dell Island are also finding their virtual outposts going empty, devoid of visitors and staff. American Apparel's virtual store apparently now posts signs that it's closed up shop.

Advertisers have found a variety of problems in Second Life. Firstly, avatars don't have human needs, like food and drink; transportation is accomplished by teleportation and even clothing is optional. According to the article, Ian Schafer, chief executive of online marketing firm Deep Focus, said his recent tour of Second Life turned up empty retail outposts-- and packed casinos, brothels and strip clubs. Schafer said he found in his research that "one of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia."

Another problem for some is Second Life's smaller userbase: "You're talking about a much smaller audience than advertisers are used to reaching," said Brian Haven, a Forrester Research analyst, who notes that despite its much-touted userbase of 8 million, only about 30,000 to 40,000 users are logged on even at peak times.

Additionally, many corporations have incurred the backlash of angry residents resentful of traditional storefronts and what they perceived as a prioritization of publicity rather than a genuine interest in virtual life.

With that in mind, the article says, companies like IBM Corp are expanding from Second Life into other virtual environments, like There and Entropia Universe.

Millions of Us, a consulting firm that helps brands enter virtual worlds, previously worked exclusively with Second Life-- and recently announced that it had formed a partnership with teen-targeted Gaia Online, a site popular with teenagers, and CEO Reuben Steiger said that more partnerships are expected in the future.

"It's not about whether Second Life is good or bad," Steiger said. "It's just that there are a lot of alternatives."

[Via LATimes.com]

Germany-based startup Game Domain International (GDI), creators of online world A World of My Own (AWOMO), is set to list in London at a value of €1bn (£670m), and is currently drawing up a prospectus prior to seeking a dual listing in London and Frankfurt.

Roger Walkden, the former European head of Activision, has been appointed chief executive of GDI.

AWOMO presents a PC game delivery channel in the format of a 3D virtual world; recently, they partnered with UK social networking site Bebo to invite Bebo users to participate in beta-testing their service. According to the article, it's believed that GDI already has agreements to distribute 100 games from 18 publishers on the AWOMO platform.

Currently, in-world locations lead to online retailers, but GDI's backers believe that eventually consumers will prefer to buy and download all their games directly in digital form.

Virgin Games, a subsidiary of Virgin Group, has a 20 percent stake in GDI. "We believe that AWOMO will do for PC games what iTunes has done for music," said Simon Burridge, Virgin's chief executive, also a non-executive director of GDI.

AWOMO's full commercial launch is set for year-end, with a flotation of GDI penciled in for the first quarter of 2008.

[Via The Independent]

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Last time, we took a thorough look at Nickelodeon's Nicktropolis, a playspace for kids and 'tweens. Next, we turn to Disney's Toontown-- targeting the same audience and estimated by comScore to have a similar-sized userbase (though Disney's as mum as can be on its numbers), Toontown could be called Nicktropolis' biggest rival. So let's start with an overview!

We've all heard the old adage, "cheaters never prosper." But maybe cheaters can affect the prosperity of online worlds, too.

A new book just out this week, "Exploiting Online Games," plans to address this very issue. It's written by security researcher and Cigital CTO Gary McGraw and his colleague Greg Holgund, who look at the ways online games (which, following the client/server model, store data like avatar locations on a server in realtime) might be vulnerable to malicious types who could manipulate the world, or users' investments therein.

The gaming market's expected to reach $12 billion in annual revenue by 2009, and with most virtual worlds now creating their own in-world economies founded in real user dollars, online game developers have got a lot on the line. "These software companies are installing spyware to make sure gamers aren't cheating," McGraw told Information Week-- adding that World of Warcraft has a similar tool in place called The Warden.

McGraw and his colleagues created a piece of software in response called The Governor, in order to suss The Warden out. McGraw found that The Warden also reports on gamers' computer data not necessarily related to WoW-- like what version of Windows the player uses, and even what they're writing in their IMs.

The idea of a virtual economy-- now, for all intents and purposes, a reality-- opens up the same crime opportunities that a real one does, from money-laundering to fraudulent investments, but it seems McGraw's book is mainly concerned with the farther-reaching implications for enterprise defense of distributed software. "If you think about the kinds of security issues tied in with MMORPGs, they're an indicator of things to come as we adopt SOA [Service-Oriented Architecture]," he said.

[Via InformationWeek]

Sparter recently launched a global platform for virtual currency exchange and virtual goods trading, supporting a variety of worlds-- World of Warcraft, EVE Online, MapleStory and Runescape, to name only a few. They call it Gamer2Gamer-- and gamers are something the latest member to join their team has a bit of experience with.

According to their announcement today, Sparter is welcoming Yoshi Maruyama, former GM of the Xbox division of Microsoft Japan, to its advisory board-- the man responsible for bringing industry heavy-hitters Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy) and Akira Toriyama (Dragonball Z) to work on upcoming Xbox RPG Blue Dragon. Prior to working with Microsoft, Maruyama was also senior VP and and COO of Squaresoft Inc.

"Yoshi is a visionary and well respected veteran of the gaming industry. We know that his expertise in the sector, his experience in working as a publisher, and his keen sense of the global market will be invaluable to us as we continue to improve Sparter’s platform and services," said Dan Kelly, Sparter CEO. "More importantly, Yoshi understands how vital it is that we as an industry support consumer interest in trading virtual items. I am incredibly excited that a publishing executive of Yoshi’s stature has agreed to work with Sparter in creating a workable solution for both gamers and publishers.”

No question-- Maruyama as an advisor is a good get for any organization working in the online game space. But Sparter's mission is a bit controversial, since many virtual worlds actively discourage, if not forbid outright, the buying, selling and trading of virtual money and goods, or any out-of-world RMT (real money transactions). Is it or isn't it "Chinese gold farming"?

Not necessarily. "In our judgment, the problem is that consumers need something, they want something, they see value in the ability to trade, and the industry isn't supporting it," Kelly told 1UP recently. "What's happening is, [gold-selling site] IGE is serving our customers because the industry is not. They're charging a huge amount of money for taking something from one gamer and moving it to another gamer. That money is coming out of the pockets of our consumers. In effect, IGE has imposed a tax on the purchasing power of our consumers, and every day they're taking money out of their pockets -- willfully, the consumers value the service, otherwise they wouldn't do it -- and it's leaving the industry. What we'd rather see happen -- our belief, and ultimately the problem we decided had to be tackled -- consumers want this, it can be good for the industry, so what we want to do is keep it between gamers. That's how we keep it good and not require that gamers go to B2Cs."

As co-creator of the original MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) set up on the PLATO system at the University of Essex, Richard Bartle has an interesting perspective on the current state of online worlds. In an interview with the UK Guardian's Keith Stewart, Bartle shares his thoughts on a variety of relevant topics -- whether social interaction in online worlds can be compared to the real-world (Bartle says yes), the evolution of computer-controlled NPCs (versus the volunteer altruists Bartle remembers) and on the power of virtual worlds in light of their relatively limited individual shelf lives.

Stewart asked Bartle, "If you could take over control of one major MMORPG - which would you choose and what would you do with it?" His answer?

I'd take over World of Warcraft and I'd close it. I just want better virtual worlds. Sacrificing one of the best so its players have to seek out alternatives would be a sure-fire way to ensure that unknown gems got the chance they deserved, and that new games were developed to push back the boundaries.

Er, I would get to do this anonymously, wouldn't I?

For more from Bartle, including thoughts on social networking and the "Web 3D" idea, check out the interview!

[Via GuardianUnlimited]

Doppelganger Studios got its start with virtual music club The Music Lounge, and soon moved on to its next project-- building the ultra-hip Lower East Side of Manhattan into an online world, Virtual Lower East Side (VLES).

Now, as InformationWeek reports, Doppelganger's ready to add some intriguing new city hotspots to its slate, with Tokyo's Harajuku and Shinjuku districts, Paris' 7th Arrondissement, and Milan, in addition to planned communities like Seaside, Florida all tentatively slated for an August 2007 release. Since its launch in May 2006, Doppelganger's only signed up 150,000 members-- so it makes sense that they're looking to expand their reach.

"We wanted to base it on a real world city because that's the environment the average user is familiar with," said Andrew Littlefield, the company's chief creative officer and founder. "And it gave us an opportunity to insert advertisements."

Advertisements clash with fantasy environments like the World of Warcraft, explained Littlefield. But teens readily accept them in a world with more verisimilitude.

"In a focus group, 90% of teens preferred commercial-rich environments because they felt it was more real," Littlefield said.

But Littlefield believes a light touch is necessary. "Teenagers today have really been the target of the most sophisticated media campaigns since they were born," he said. "They're very, very used to ads so one of the things we wanted to do was introduce these things with a very light touch, so it didn't feel like ads being jammed down their throats."

[Via InformationWeek]

We'll probably be talking more here at Worlds in Motion about the great blogs to watch for ideas and discussion on the virtual worlds space, but for now, let's peek in on the personal blog of Raph Koster, whose intriguing Areae project is still under wraps. As a designer and director with exposure to the multiplayer and online worlds concepts since the early nineties, Raph's experienced point of view on the space is invaluable-- game guru Tycho of Penny Arcade fame calls him a "prophet."

Raph can also be relied on for snippets of inside info:

I just got an anonymous tip that the figures reported for BarbieGirls.com are not only accurate, but that there is internal concern that the servers won’t handle the load once the toy MP3 players with virtual item asset codes hit the stores.

With those figures-- 3 million users in 60 days while still in beta-- Raph's informant could very well be spot-on.

Another good blog-to-watch is Nabeel Hyatt's Brinking. Nabeel is the founder of Conduit Labs, a venture-backed group of gaming and entertainment vets putting together an as-of-yet unnanounced online social networking/virtual world project. He moderated the "Why Virtual Goods Matter" panel at the recent Virtual Goods Summit, and, according to his site, was nominated by MIT Technology Review in 2004 as one of the "Top 100 Innovators Under 30." Currently on Brinking, some thoughts on how Nielsen's new attention-based web metric boosts social networking sites, as well as a discussion on CyWorld's $80M virtual goods biz.

One more today-- Adrian Crook's FreeToPlay, subtitled "alternate revenue streams for digital entertainment." Crook currently heads up Relic Labs, an internal group at THQ developer Relic Entertainment, where he develops new game concepts using emergent themes like casual gaming, Web 2.0 and free-to-play business models. His latest tells readers "10 Things You Didn't Know" about surprise dark-horse Shockwave hit Sherwood Dungeon by Maid Marian Entertainment.

We'll be taking a closer look at some more neat gems from all of these important sources in the future!

GoPets, an online world established in South Korea in 2004, lets users explore, play casual games, and create and customize virtual pets. Now, Microsoft Casual Games has announced it will partner with GoPets to launch the game on Windows Live Messenger, integrating the virtual world with its instant messaging service.

The service is now available via IM to Messenger users in the U.S., Australia, Japan and Korea-- but Microsoft says it'll expand it to more than 30 countries by the end of 2007.

“GoPets is an online community where anyone can adopt a pet, customize it to their liking and interact with other pet owners anywhere in the GoPets virtual world at any time of day,” said Erik Bethke, CEO and founder of GoPets Ltd. “With direct access through Windows Live Messenger, it will be even easier for pet fans to make friends all over the world through common interests and shared experiences, such as chatting and playing games on the Windows Live Messenger and GoPets platforms.”

GoPets' basic membership is free, with special access for premium membership, and goods and currency-- "gold shells"-- for sale. Currently in an open beta phase in fifteen languages and eight territories around the world, GoPets recently surpassed 640,000 registered users, but that number is likely to grow, since Windows Live Messenger's userbase is pegged at nearly 260 million active accounts worldwide.

Erik Bethke, CEO of GoPets, recently spoke at the Casual Connect gaming conference in Seattle, on his online worlds philosophy. He'd rather use the word "citizen" than "user," for one.

"I believe that when we sell something with virtual currency, people believe it's theirs," Bethke said. "They should be able to buy, sell, trade and everything."

Our sister site, Gamasutra, ran an announcement Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group president Cyma Zarghami made at this week's Casual Connect conference in Seattle. According to Nickelodeon, it's committed to invest $100 million over the next two years in development, distribution and creation of casual gaming titles, sites and platforms.

According to the company, the investment is a part of MTV's strategy to secure a leading role in the gaming space -- including casual, console and handheld games, as well as related media, which includes virtual worlds. Of the initiatives announced, Nickelodeon also says it'll use some of the money to add new multiplayer games and tournaments to Nicktropolis.

The investment will also support the expansion of AddictingGames to include casual MMOGs with the introduction of AddictingWorlds. AddictingGames recently partnered with Habbo, adding another virtual world to its existing partnership with sister site Neopets. According to the article, increased emphasis will be placed on user-submitted games on the site, including more prominent upload capabilities and game-making engines.

Also announced was the upcoming transformation of Neopets into Neostudios, which will focus on developing new virtual world gaming experiences online while continuing to grow and evolve the existing ones. The first of these will launch at the end of 2008 with the goal of launching a new game every other year.

"Particularly in the kids' space, with more than 86% of kids 8 to 14 gaming online, we see great momentum for online casual gaming," said Zarghami. "This investment will not only benefit our audiences, but also our marketing and distribution partners."

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Today, let's take a tour of Toontown, and hit the streets of Disney's animated 3D world.

Montreal-based Weblo.com announced that it's secured $3.2 million in VC funding from VantagePoint Venture Partners. VantagePoint managing director Geoff Mott will also join Weblo's Board of Directors.

Weblo's virtual world puts up virtual duplicates of real-world properties, real estate and digital domains for sale. Asset websites within Weblo are member-owned and developed, earning revenue through advertising and property sales.

Weblo says it'll use the new funding for global marketing and continued technology development.

"The Company is addressing a unique opportunity in the rapidly growing
virtual world market by creating the only parallel universe based on the real
world," said Mott. "The Company has already achieved significant momentum and we believe it
will continue to appeal to a wide range of internet users providing them with
an innovative new way to have fun, create value and earn money online," he added.

Gala-Net (Rappelz, Space Cowboy Online), who makes its games available through the gPotato portal, has announced that its latest gPotato title, Upshift StrikeRacer, has entered open beta. According to Gala-Net, the beta will showcase 10 of the racing game's available customizable vehicles, with a total of 18 upcoming.

Upshift StrikeRacer will be free to pay (requiring a client download and installation), and Gala-Net says it'll feature social networking elements along with weapon-equipped, destructive multiplayer racing battles. Eight StrikeRacers can compete against one another at one time, in various different modes (time attack, player-versus-player, etc). Community tools will also be available -- Club web pages, for example, where users can upload music, photos, and blogs.

John Young, Gala-Net's vice president and producer, says the game can be enjoyed by "anyone with five minutes to kill," who enjoys combat racing. “The game’s unique mix of head-to-head racing and social networking in a multiplayer environment will appeal to both solo and group players looking for a quick and exhilarating gaming fix,” he exhorts.

Upshift StrikeRacer’s open beta period will run until the game officially launches in August.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

We've spent some time this week riding the playground trolley and taking anti-Cog missions from Toontown HQ as we toured Toontown. So what's the verdict on Disney's world-- and how does it compare to its competitors for the hearts and minds of kids and 'tweens?

At BrokenToys, the blog of Scott "Lum" Jennings (also most definitely another "blog to watch"), veteran multiplayer game designer currently of NCSoft, he provides a valuable perspective on some of the features most frequently-demanded by players of multiplayer online worlds and how feasible they really are-- or aren't.

Notably, Lum comments on the idea of an in-world economy driven 100% by players. In-world economies can sometimes work on a very steep curve (see Entropia Universe); thus Lum theorizes (accurately, I think) that games need some NPC-backed economy, at least initially, to "establish a floor of inherent value for in-game items."

Lum also discusses the precarious balance between high-tech environmental rendering and real-world physics and the all-important smoothness of the client-server relationship. "Smoothly supporting that trumps working ice floes," he adds.

Other concepts explored in Lum's article are the ways in which ultra-realistic features-- like weather that affects the avatar-- could be perhaps too bleak or frustrating, and an environment that allows the player too much control could cause organizational problems for world-builders. "That being said, in moderation, player impact on the game world is a good thing - arguably a necessary thing. Players want to feel as though they matter. Placing their stamp on the world is a path to this. The key is in limiting it so it doesn’t overwhelm the entire world," Jennings says.

Some interesting ideas, too, about in-game items and how the balance between the rare and readily available-- and the ways in which they're obtained-- can affect the player's experience, a particularly relevant idea as virtual goods gain in value in the space in general, and microtransactions and trading are the norm.

[Via BrokenToys]

World Market Watch's 3D Mailbox is a peculiar idea-- it takes the regular email client and transforms it into a 3D world with avatars, representing the different types of email, hanging out in a glamorous house that looks more like the set of a reality TV show than anyone's inbox.

Funny thing is, the app populates the avatars based on certain characteristics of the incoming mail-- for example, whether a message is male or female depends on the sender's name. Locations like your trash bin or sent mail become areas for the avatars to hang out. Strangest of all, messages designated as spam become obese people with the word "SPAM" tattooed across their chests, and when deleted, they swim out into the nearby ocean where they get eaten by sharks.

Sounds bizarre, and apparently it doesn't work too well. In a screed on the app's home site, 3D Mailbox's creator proudly embraces its designation as "Worst. Software. Ever." Maybe there is a limit to the usability-- and practicality-- of the whole 3D-web concept!

[Via Webware]

Starting in May 2008, Disney games for the portable Nintendo DS will come bundled with kid-friendly software that allows players on a Wi-Fi connection to create avatars, socialize and swap goods in a virtual environment. While the Nintendo DS has always had embedded firmware to facilitate simple chat, the Disney product, called DGamer, will work directly with the Disney games-- kids can share their high scores and vote in polls, too. The DGamer world will also synch directly with a compatible web portal simultaneously.

DGamer was announced at Disney's recent E3 presentation (check out the video), and is slated for a worldwide release in May of 2008 with the first compatible title to be The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

Disney has raised its profile in the console and handheld gaming market considerably in recent years-- they've recently acquired acclaimed designer Warren Spector's Junction Point studio, and have said they will invest $130 million more in game development during 2007. This growth has been concurrent with the development of Disney's online world, Toontown-- now, it seems, Disney's ready to take the next step to marry gaming, virtual worlds and social networking in the portable gaming arena.

“It’s really a perfect environment for people to exchange information and to share their community, and it’s great for the Disney audience,” said a rep.

Videogame software developer Trilogy Studios announced it will continue to collaborate with MTV Networks on MTVN's Pimp My Ride virtual world, which it helped launch.

Virtual Pimp My Ride features the same larger-than-life, West Coast-style car modification that popularized the MTV show of the same name. It also lets users personalize avatars and race their vehicles in multiplayer challenges. According to the company, Trilogy will help evolve the world, adding new features, additional functionality and "a deeper level of engagement."

The announcement marks an expansion for Trilogy's virtual world software development studio, which is aimed at developing new virtual world properties for media companies. "We’ve developed a business model that enables media companies to successfully monetize their franchises through virtual world networks including micro-transactions, in-game advertising and sponsorships, premium subscriptions and e-commerce," said Michael Pole, Trilogy's Chairman and CEO.

Melbourne's X Media Lab will hold a conference August 10-12 at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image called “Digital Worlds: Social, Virtual, Mobile,” to showcase virtual worlds, social networks and mobile communities. The event will also feature a Professional Day, including the opportunity for designers of online worlds to nominate their own projects for consideration by professional mentors-- and there's a considerable list of mentors in attendance. From X Media Lab's site:

International Mentors include world renowned film-maker and co-founder of Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation, Shekhar Kapur (Director of “Elizabeth"); Dr David Liu, CEO of Beijing’s Cyber Recreation Development Corporation, and the world’s most ambitious virtual world project; Dale Herigstad, 4-time Emmy Award winner, including the first Interactive Emmy; Francisco Cordero, the General Manager of Bebo, the UK’s largest and fastest growing social networking site; Kamar Shah, Nokia’s world-wide head of Marketing; Kevin Anderson, the Head of Blogging and Interaction at The Guardian newspaper; Marcelino Ford-Livene, Head of Interactive Advertising for Intel’s Digital Home Group (Los Angeles); Director of London’s SMARTlabs, Lizbeth Goodman; Martha Ladly, for ten years the Editor and Producer at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Multimedia and now the Director of Toronto’s Mobile Experience Lab; Australian Film Commissioner Tom Kennedy; Telstra Big Pond’s General Manager of Innovation, Jason Romney; Liz Heller, Founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based marketing innovators Buzztone; Brian Gruber, Founder and CEO of Fora.tv; and Stuart Knight and Nicholas Dryden, the founders of Xtaster.com, the UK’s funkiest music community.

We are also deeply proud that the Lab will include a delegation of the Chairman, the Founder and CEO, and the VP Technology from the Cyber Recreation District in Beijing, the biggest digital media industry government investment in China.

China's homegrown alternative to Second Life is in development; it's called HiPiHi, and 10,000 ethnic Chinese from the mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore are currently testing it. A recent Newsweek feature went in-depth with HiPiHi's 38-year-old CEO and founder, Xu Hui, whose goals include 100,000 users signed up in the first three months and partnerships with international firms to establish virtual continents. Hui tells Newsweek he'd like to see disparate virtual worlds interconnected as part of the same universe; "We're on the same road to a dream—virtual worlds are just beginning," he says.

The article discusses some of HiPiHi's challenges, like authoritarian Beijing's censorship of anti-government criticism or sentiments in support for Taiwanese or Tibetan independence, among other verboten issues. Because of this, the article says, any online communication is subject to monitors quashing "incorrect" speech. "There will need to be some HiPiHi nannies—it can't permit a lot of the things that Second Life permits," says David Wolf, CEO of Wolf Group Asia, a Beijing-based consultancy. "It will be Second Life with Chinese characteristics."

It's also unclear if HiPiHi will be allowed to have a virtual economy, either-- the article says it hopes to have something akin to Second Life's Linden dollar, but Beijing policy-making can be heavy-handed and capricious.

It can't be predicted how well the freeform virtual world environment will be embraced by the Chinese-- outside of metropolitan areas, as the article notes, few have access to the highest-end technology, and Chinese gamers tend to prefer more structured and immersive gaming environments like World of Warcraft. "The virtual-life model hasn't been tested in China yet, and it will be a challenge for operators to get a large number of users in the beginning," says Liu Bin, a Beijing-based analyst with tech and Internet consultancy BDA. "I think this is a major problem."

On the other hand, a strictly-controlled virtual environment, or what the article calls a "family-friendly Second Life", might be appealing to Chinese women and parents, and as such could enjoy a broader audience and more acceptance-- especially since the Chinese team is apparently endeavoring to improve on the Second Life interface and make it more user-friendly.

[Via Newsweek]

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Today we'll take an overview of Sherwood Dungeon, one of the completely free multiplayer games on Gene Endrody's Maid Marian portal.

Cartoon Network has announced it will debut its first massively multiplayer online game at San Diego's 2007 Comic-Con on Wednesday, July 25th. According to a press release, Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall is scheduled for a summer 2008 release, and conference attendees will be able to check out playable demos on the show floor, while a panel of FusionFall creators will provide an in-depth look at the game on the following day.

FusionFall will reportedly be set in the Cartoon Network universe; players will work together to defend it from an alien invasion, with the help of Cartoon Network characters. It's set to combine 3D platform action with character customization, development and MMO-style open-ended exploration.

“One of the things we’re most excited about in FusionFall is the game play,” said Chris Waldron, executive producer of FusionFall. “With our audience and Cartoon Network characters, we knew we wanted to create a new kind of MMOG and develop a game that takes all the great action of popular console games and merges it with all the elements of MMORPGs that are so enticing to players.”

Cartoon Network developed the game through a partnership with Korean developer Grigon Entertainment (Seal Online, Gamebledon). what it calls an “East-meets-West creative approach."

“Our current offering of online games continues to be the main driver of Cartoon Network New Media’s success, and we’ve surpassed 2 billion game plays annually for the past three years," said Paul Condolora, senior vice president and general manager of Cartoon Network New Media. "FusionFall fulfills our goal of increasing the range of game play we offer, and we expect it to significantly expand our audience.”

In addition to the playable demo and panel at Comic-Con, new information can be found at www.fusionfall.com, beginning Wednesday, July 25. News updates, images and game-play footage will be available, and users will be able to sign up for the official newsletter and a chance to beta test the game.

On the heels of announcements that BarbieGirls, the online world based on Mattel's dolls, has signed up over three million users in three months, MGA has countered with an announcement of its own-- Be-Bratz, an online world with social networking elements based on its competing fashion dolls, will launch August 1st, around the same time as the Bratz movie hits theatres August 3rd.

Be-Bratz will require the purchase of a special doll (at $29.99) that comes with a USB key to access the world, while BarbieGirls doesn't require any purchase to join. BarbieGirls users will need the $60 BarbieGirls MP3 player in order to access the world's special features, though.

Users in Be-Bratz will earn virtual currency by playing minigames, which they can then spend on customizables for their Bratz avatar-- a virtual girl either made from scratch or based on existing Bratz characters, as the user prefers.

[Via PaidContent.org and ToyNews]

GE has quietly been using virtual worlds and online gaming to promote environmental education for the past two years. Geoterra, GE's flash-based game designed by ad agency BLITZ, lets users see the positive impact of greener choices and GE-branded products on an island's inhabitants through game-like attractions that score players on their performance in in three "eco-challenges."

Successfully completing the eco-challenges raises a player's Geoscore, as they create an island that represents GE's "ecoimagination" philosophy for a healthy planet. As a reward for completing the challenges, players can register with a U.S. or international map that tracks participant density in different areas of the world-- this viral component seems to encourage users to spread the word and tell their friends.

The Geoterra site is also linked to Ecoimagination For Kids, a portal of flash-based, kid-friendly minigames based on environmental education.

[Via BusinessandGames.com]

Aardman Animations, the UK studio of Wallace and Gromit fame, has launched a new world for kids called WebbliWorld. It's got games, films and social networking elements-- users create their own Webbli avatar from colorful, pleasingly odd geometric peacemeal and earn virtual coins-- "Webbles"-- by voting in polls, visiting partner sites and playing games.

The movies on the site feature new Aardman characters, plus various ad client tie-ins; the initial sponsors are Puffin Books and the World Wildlife Federation, and according to an article in ToyNews, further planned clients will sponsor different areas of the site as it expands to include more online community elements and a search engine.

"Whilst there are already some fantastic online sites for children to visit we want to make the name WebbliWorld synonymous with quality both in terms of design and content," says a statement on WebbliWorld's developer blog, which it says is in place to encourage a two-way dialogue about child safety. "We know that we have a long way to ago to achieve our ultimate goals for WebbliWorld and now that the initial site has been launched we are already working to design and deliver phase two."

A spokesperson for Aardman's TV commercials division said part of the goal in creating WebbliWorld was to demonstrate that the studio's animation design skills are just as relevant in web design as they are on screen.

The site's still a little thin now in terms of content, but it's only launched this month, and judging by these statements further developments are solidly in the works. The site's colorful, quirky character design is refreshing-- let's see where they go with this!

[Via ToyNews]

Educational enterprise software developer Blackboard, Inc. has announced they'll award a $25,000 grant to colleges and universities who integrate virtual worlds into their teaching programs. It's called the Greenhouse Grant for Virtual Worlds, and according to the Blackboard website, it's "designed to help build a collective body of knowledge, and reward clients (including former WebCT clients) who have successfully developed and deployed initiatives that promote best practices in the adoption of Internet technology in the educational environment."

In plainer language, any school program that enhances the student experience by combining virtual worlds with Blackboard software to share-able results is eligible for the grant; submissions are due by September 24th, and the winner will be announced at this October's annual Educause Conference in Seattle.

[Via The Chronicle of Higher Education]

MTV, Nickelodeon and Microsoft Advertising solutions have undertaken a massive global study of youth and technology, sussing out trends from the feedback of over 18,000 kids and teens from 16 countries globally. The study covered a broad swath of kids-and-tech behavior, including console and online gaming, mobile phone habits and internet use, on every topic from play to personal values and social relationships. The study found, for example, that the average young Chinese person has 37 online friends he or she has never met.

Called "The Circuits of Cool/Digital Playground technology and lifestyle study," the aim was to examine the young demographic's relationships to technology and examine the impact of culture, age and gender on technology use.

One of the interesting findings was that China was the only market wherein kids preferred online socialization and play to television, even over Japan, whose reputation for being the most "plugged in" nation was found to be somewhat of a fallacy (Japanese kids apparently prefer the privacy and portability of mobile phones best, as they socialize primarily away from home). This might explain why the multiplayer online community in China is growing at such an explosive rate, with such a high level of interest.

The over-arching message of the study was, though, that kids still like TV most of all, and that most respondents use social networking and similarly-purposed devices because their friends do, rather than having an interest in the technology itself ("kids are not geeks," the study said). This helps to explain the phenomenal rise of social networking sites, according to the study-- their popularity is based on collective usage. In the UK, one of the strongest reasons for using social networks is to keep young people from feeling left out.

The study also discussed the business impact of the findings on advertisers and marketers in the relevant digital spheres. "Traditionally, marketing has considered opinion formers and influencers to be a small number of people. Nowadays it has become a much larger group," said Colleen Fahey Rush, EVP of Research for MTV Networks.

Also among the findings was that friends have a much more powerful impact on kids' online behavior than ad campaigns. The study respondents said that 88% of the website links they viewed and 55% of the video content they downloaded were recommended by friends. "Brands need to provide teens with content that they want to share. Their reward will be the loyalty of brand-savvy groups," said Caroline Vogt, Head of International Research at Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions.

The latest in Beckett Media's lineup of magazines for plush toy collectors, called Plushie Pals, is focused solely on virtual worlds-centric merchandise, such as the Webkinz, Neopets and Club Penguin collectible stuffed toys. They're currently promoting a six-month subscription for $24.99, with a free Lil'Kinz (smaller versions of the Webkinz toys) thrown in. The magazine also has an online component, where users can check the current issue's headlines, vote in polls, and see toplists of the most highly-prized (and highly-priced!) toys. When the rare Webkinz are selling for eyebrow-raising prices, it's clear we've got a craze going on!

“We’ve had our eyes on Webkinz for about eighteen months and since the 2007 releases, we’ve seen dramatic increases in value on the secondary market. Seeing a Webkinz like Cheeky Dog sell for over $1500 was incredible," said Doug Kale, Beckett Media plushie collectibles expert in a press release. "The Webkinz craze has all the same feeling and buzz of Beanie Babies or Pokemon. This is the perfect time to launch Plushie Pals, since the values of Webkinz and Shining Stars as well as Beanie Babies are seeing tremendous action on the secondary market."

Plushie Pals magazine will be produced on a bi-monthly schedule with a cover price of $5.99. Beckett media says 75% of its readership are girls with an age range of 6-14 and a combined annual purchasing power of $40 billion, the primary demographic for plush collecting.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Let's continue our look at Sherwood Dungeon, one of the completely free multiplayer games on Gene Endrody's Maid Marian portal, and have a tour!

Entropia Universe, which we recently toured, will be getting a sharp new look. According to a statement on its website, Crytek (Far Cry) has signed a license agreement with Sweden-based MindArk, creators of Entropia Universe, that will allow Entropia to use Crytek's game engine, called CryENGINE 2. The transition's expected to be completed by 2008, and Entropia users can expect more realistic graphics, improved physics, and more lifelike animations.

"When we saw what the engine was capable of, we immediately understood that it would be perfect for Entropia, as both MindArk and Crytek are pioneers in their respective fields," said MindArk's Jan Welter Timkrans.

"We think the combination of our CryENGINE 2 technology and their extremely popular virtual playground will result in a new kind of rich and immersive experience that has not been possible until now," added Crytek managing director Avni Yerli.

Seems MindArk hopes that the engine boost will help Entropia compete a little better against World of Warcraft and Second Life in terms of subscriber numbers, where its approximately 600,000 users are dwarfed by WoW's recently-announced 9 million and Second Life's reputed 7 million.

An article in the San Jose Mercury News says IBM will publish official guidelines this week for some 5,000 employees who have presences in Second Life and other virtual worlds, where the company hosts meetings with clients and partners.

The guide will reportedly be a sort of "code of conduct" that will govern avatar behavior and appearance in virtual worlds, and it seems IBM's the first to present such a rule set, keeping in mind that many companies currently use virtual worlds to advertise brands and communicate on behalf of their corporate identity.

While, as the article says, critics are skeptical as to the rules' efficacy-- or their necessity-- IBM execs argue that creating a code of conduct is more like a corporate green light encouraging workers to explore the possibilities of the 3D web.

Seems IBM also hopes to earn money consulting other businesses on virtual worlds strategies. According to the article, IBM executives say clients are already approaching them for assistance crafting their own set of guidelines.

"The 3D Internet will have a big impact on business, on IBM and on our clients, and the only way to figure it out is to use it," said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, chairman emeritus of the IBM Academy of Technology and an engineering advertisement professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Intel Corp. is also drafting a tip sheet, and apparently plans to offer a voluntary course this year for its employees on the use of blogs, social media sites and virtual worlds.

"For those employees who may be hesitant, guidelines can provide the encouragement and Intel philosophy they need to actually dive in and start anticipating," said Bovara, who maintains Intel's Second Life mailing list.

IBM's rules seem to be mostly common sense-- observe nondisclosure agreements, and refrain from harassing other citizens. While there's no specific dress code, the guidelines suggest employees be "especially sensitive to the appropriateness of your avatar or persona's appearance when you are meeting with IBM clients or conducting IBM business."

"Building a reputation of trust within a virtual world represents a commitment to be truthful and accountable with fellow digital citizens," IBM says. "Dramatically altering, splitting or abandoning your digital persona may be a violation of that trust. ... In the case of a digital persona used for IBM business purposes, it may violate your obligations to IBM."

It's unclear what, if any, repercussions await workers who violate the rules.

[Via San Jose Mercury News/AP]

Red Herring's Ryan Olson put in some serious legwork recently to try and pin down the elusive U.S. user figs for the major MMOs and online worlds out there. His study shows some great comparisons between Nielsen-tracked stats and those done by comScore, but the big takeaway is the realization of just how fudgey the numbers out there are, depending on who you ask and what factors you measure. For example, registered users are not the same thing as active users, and Olson also scrutinized engagement level-- that is, how much time users are spending logged on, on average. As Olson says:

These numbers are all over the place and I wonder about their accuracy, especially given that Habbo (see below) says an average user spends 32 minutes on the site each time they visit. Gaia's engagement figures are even higher. So they visit once each month? Riiiight. Meanwhile, the highest-ranked offering according to comScore (Neopets) is tied for third in terms of traffic. Second Life, on the other hand, boasts stellar engagement numbers from Nielsen but ranks second to last in monthly uniques. Not overly surprising.

Know what this means? COMPANIES NEED TO BE MORE TRANSPARENT WITH THEIR DATA.

Olson's emphatic statement is supported by the fact that many online worlds don't release user numbers at all, and those who do are selective, often resulting in widely variant guesses-- as the article says, GigaOm says Club Penguin has 4 million active users, while TechCrunch puts the figure at 500,000. Olson also helps illustrate his point with a "report card" showing just what types of user data (active, registered and unique users) are released by whom. According to the table, NCSoft and Second Life are the most transparent, while Millsberry, Club Penguin and Webkinz are the least.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

This week we spent time in Gene Endrody's Sherwood Dungeon, at the Maid Marian portal. It's completely free for all players, runs only on Google ads, and attempts to marry stripped-down simplicity with polished essentials. So does it work?

Doppelganger Studios is best known for The Music Lounge, which through partnerships with record labels like Interscope and partnerships with artists and personalities including Tyra Banks and Maroon 5, brought celebs and pop culture together in a virtual world with an ultra-hip, cel-shaded vibe.

Now, on the crux of more big expansion announcements, Worlds in Motion got to talk with Doppelganger prez and CEO Tim Stevens on his vision for virtual society, and how he feels vSide, Doppelganger's soon-to-launch expanded world, will bring a fresh wind into the idea of online society. Click on the screenshots to see full-sized images.

How it Began
A self-styled "early stalwart of the internet," Stevens' background is in internet content advertising and marketing. "My whole focus has been in developing online content and properties that provide outlets for user engagment and advertising interwoven," he says. "It dovetails pretty well with the evolution and development of Doppelganger, and the manifestation of those ideas through our virtual worlds."

"If you look at what the web is, it's a very many-to-one type of medium," Stevens says on how he began moving into the virtual worlds space; he saw something missing. "It's a very effective and efficient bulletin board; you can put up photos, type, read, view videos, link them and so on-- but it's still a type of experience that's kind of the 'many' portion of the computer to the one, individual user. There's little realtime engagement with other people—there’s that personal element that’s been missing. Then you look at what is possible, and how other traditional media [have been] unable to really engage an individual to be participatory."

Stevens' priority is precisely that participatory feel. "There's really an opportunity to change the paradigm to create a new media property," he says, describing his aspiration to blend entertainment with personal communication, environmental control, social networking and the idea of a real-time community. "It’s our own brand category—we call it social entertainment."

Expanding the Experience
The first manifest of these germinating ideas was The Music Lounge, Doppelganger's virtual nightclub-- and Stevens found the results enlightening and encouraging. "What we found is we had such an engagement by our users, the ability to express themselves in terms of how they dress, emote, express themselves, in terms of how they dance and what types of music they like to listen to and when they’re getting together. We got a lot of user feedback that said, 'wow, we love this model, it’d be so much better if it were part of a bigger city and there were more venues and bigger opportunities to explore.'"

Thus, Doppelganger's vSide was born-- a series of three city districts interconnected through transport mechanisms. There are no flying avatars or teleportation devices here, though. "Part of what our users have really told us they like is that there’s density, there’s foot traffic, that you get from place to place by exploring, not by pushing a button and getting teleported somewhere," Stevens explains.

The three districts will all feature variegated cultural vibes; rather than being direct architectural copies of real-world cities, Steven says he hopes to allow users to experience elements of cultures that pique their curiosity, all in the same world.

It'll feature the same partnerships with music labels and real-world celebs that attracted users to the Music Lounge experience initially-- and Stevens that the celebrities themselves are always live behind their avatars. "We absolutely insist on it," he stresses. "This isn’t fake; this isn’t a game. This is real, real-time, you are who you say you are."

User Engagement: The "Aspirational Lifestyle"
In that vein, Stevens is passionate about the idea of allowing users to live what he refers to as an "aspirational lifestyle" in the game. vSide will focus on the mid-teens to early-twenties audience who, as Stevens says, "are entering that portion of their life where it is-- they are now starting to figure out their place in the world. What defines them as a person? What’s unique about them? They’ve seen a lot of TV and magazines, they’ve gone through a number of years of school, they're starting to think about what to do for the rest of their lives."

Stevens continues, "They have knowledge about their own interests-- music, photography, journalism, you name it. And what we very specifically develop our world toward is, this is the place where you can go and be those kinds of things in a community where if you’re good you can actually get recognized for those contributions in the world."

The recognition element is something unique-- users will be able to gain respect statistics in the community through the participatory elements, and higher statistics will allow them access to more exclusive content and special areas. In that way, vSide encourages a high degree of user engagement by rewarding involvement with advancement-- while there will be a microtransactions element to vSide with the virtual currency, "Creds," there are some features in -world that can't be bought-- for example, the opportunity to meet a favorite band.

What Makes it Different
The music element still features prominently in the vSide experience as it did with The Music Lounge; Stevens hopes that ongoing partnerships with Interscope, Warner Music, Downtown Records and various music-focused social sites will be a big win for all parties involved-- attractive to users and advertisers, and useful for those labels' talent, who Stevens says enjoy the opportunity to reach this coveted userbase in a brand new, cutting-edge way.

Stevens also feels that the continual evolution of the real-time participatory content will differentiate vSide from totally freeform experiences like Second Life as well as the pure game content updates of popular MMOs. He described an ongoing murder mystery story in-world constantly being updated with new info and evidence for users to explore on their own-- and noted that players won't be able to solve the mystery without partnering up. Story elements like these are aided both by in-world NPCs and real guide avatars, and are an example of the customizability of the vSide experience-- there's plenty to do for both the casual user and the deeply involved.

User Engagement
In fact, Stevens strongly believes that user engagement is a better measure of a world's success than sheer numbers-- while Doppelganger's 150,000 registered users in closed testing certainly sounds small alongside other worlds, those users spend, according to the company, 9.5 hours in-world per month, and most recently in June, the average in-world session was 1 hour, 11 minutes (up from 51 minutes in April). Compare this to figures that suggest the average amount of time spent on social networking sites adds up to 2 hours per user per month.

Stevens eschews the idea of working on existing models, and says his greatest inspiration for vSide was not in any other online community, but in highly-detailed video games-- he cites Halo and CounterStrike as influences, and hired an art director formerly of Bungie. "Nobody out there has figured out the power of the virtual world," he says. "Lots of sites have figured out how to provide an activity that has generated a lot of interest and a lot of users, but nothing that has really captured the imagination like television did when it first came out. I think all those companies are absolutely phenomenal and I think there’s space in the landscape for all of those kinds of experiences. It’s really knowing and being crystal clear... why are users coming into your online experience? What are they getting out of it? How are they connecting? I am building a business that will engage users 10-12 hours a month or for an hour each time for 4 to 5 years. I want ‘em from 14-15 all the way to early twenties. "

He continues: "Our vision is about delivering immersive, emotionally connected entertainment experiences. 'Immersive' is a key word there, because the world just... envelopes you, and you're are part of what’s taking place."

More expansions and partnerships with big-name personalities are on the horizon, as well as more in-game stories and opportunities for users to add and create their own. So when will we get to check out vSide for ourselves? The official launch date is August 7th, though stay tuned with Worlds in Motion and you just might snag a special sneak peek with us!

The Korean Software Industry Promotion Agency (KIPA) announced a lineup of six new MMOs for the 2nd half of 2007, to be available on their global service platform Game&Game.

In a press release received by Worlds in Motion, KIPA says Game&Game is an initiative with the aim of paving the way for Korean MMOs to enter the global market. It currently hosts five online games targeted at that market-- Cronous, Darkness and Light, Lunia, Bomb ‘n Dash, and Record of Lunia-- and KIPA hopes to follow their successful introduction by "testing the waters" with six new games:

­Pi Story (Anime MMORPG)

Red Stone(Western-style MMORPG)

Twelve Sky(Oriental-style MMOPRG)

Fiesta Online(Anime-style MMORPG)

MicMac Online(Anime-style MMORPG)

Kicks Online(Soccer MMO game)

KIPA says Red Stone is well-known for its success in the Japanese market, as is Twelve Sky (screenshot shown) and Kicks Online for the Korean market.

The new games will start in September, with information on each title to be made available on the Game&Game website.

Nexon's free-to-play MapleStory franchise kicks off its "Summer Break" event with what it calls a "colossal upgrade" to the in-game world, introducing a new territory called New Leaf City. In a press release received by Worlds in Motion, the company says the brand-new area, a "teeming metropolis," will give players a new locale for quests, battles and chat, and introduce new monsters, NPCs and secrets.

As part of the Summer Break event, the company promises a host of promotions and activities like experience boosts and opportunities to earn MaplePoints and win prizes, among other special events.

Nexon says three of the events focus on encouraging community interaction, including a Guild screenshot competition and prizes awarded for blog and forum comments. There will also be a sale on select items in conjunction with Summer Break, where users can buy "dozens of items" for a bargain using the in-world Nexon Cash they purchase.

A recent BBC article discussed the ways that social scientists and academics are using virtual worlds to study human behavior. A review in the journal Science reveals that researchers are able to use online societies as "virtual laboratories" to gain insights into real life, and suggests that MMO gaming behavior and online socialization can help scientists studying ideas about government and even the individual sense of self-- while other researchers are beginning to identify behaviors specific to online worlds and how those differ from real-world interaction.

According to the article, Dr. Willian Bainbridge, the head of "Human-Centered Computing" at the US National Science Foundation wrote in Science about how studies in online worlds offer scientists new opportunities by eliminating some of the problems researchers encounter when gathering subjects in the real world-- primarily, Bainbridge said, difficulties finding the right amount of research subjects quickly, or securing funds to conduct the research. The high userbase in popular online worlds (Bainbridge cited World of Warcraft and Second Life as examples) means a ready pool of subjects that can be recruited over long periods of time for little cost.

The worlds themselves also gather statistics on player behavior that scientists can easily analyze, Bainbridge added.

Early studies of online worlds have already begun to reveal the ways in which players' behavior mirrors their real-life-- for example, user avatars keep the same radius of personal space as people tend to in the real world, standing about the same distance apart. Many commentators also highlighted differences between individual online communities -- like the tendency of Second Life users to create a single character with whom they closely identify, while WoW users tend to make several different ones which, Bainbridge observes, they view as possessions. Bainbridge believes variations like these will shed light on people's ideas about self and presentation to others.

The article says online games could also let scientists run large studies of alternative governmental regimes that would be, as Bainbridge wrote, "next to impossible in society at large." out large-scale studies of alternative governmental regimes that would be "next to impossible in society at large," he wrote.

For example, Bainbridge wrote, WoW players' ongoing faction wars over valuable resources could be viewed as a "field experiment" in "how individuals can be induced to cooperate in producing public goods".

Makes you wonder if someone's jotting notes on your gameplay patterns! Many active users of WoW and other online games and communities often note, for example, their own tendency to gravitate towards certain types of characters and experience, and wonder what those choices might say about them. Perhaps we'll soon know more.

[Via BBC News]

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Let's kick off this week with a look at MapleStory, the hugely popular MMO from Nexon. Reported to have more than 60 million worldwide users (about three million in the US), we'll explore the world and find out what's driving such broad adoption.

Earlier today we reported that social scientists are looking at online societies as helpful representations of real-world ones; now, a Rome-based Jesuit magazine called La Civilta Cattolica reviewed by the Vatican Secretariat of State before publication has released an article identifying virtual worlds as an important new frontier for evangelism.

According to the Catholic News, which also identified "great dangers to faith" in virtual societies, Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro says it is not "possible to turn a blind eye to this phenomenon, or offhandedly pass judgment glorifying it or condemning it."

Spadaro surmises that the widespread popularity of online worlds may be a reflection of humanity's need to become better people by seeking another life, and that with so many users finding meaning in the intangible world, "at heart, the digital world may also be in its own way considered to be mission territories."

Spadaro also fears that people might become alienated from reality in an imaginary world, where the transient nature of identity fosters a "spontaneity that knows no limits or discretion."

Though the article suggests that residents of worlds like Second Life, which was its primary focus, might soon see more churches, missionaries and informational pamphlets, Spadaro also had some interesting insights, as he wondered if those who "[opt] for the simulated" might be expressing "a kind of diffidence and resignation" regarding real life -- and he also wondered whether online worlds, by creating low-risk environments where everything is "under control and reversible," make the real world seem frightening and result in "worrying emotional and affective consequences."

[Via CatholicOnline]

The Chinese government has long been concerned about the amount of time teenagers spend playing online games, holding the games responsible for victimizing young people, creating addiction and even motivating suicides as China becomes the second-place nation in the world in terms of internet usage. Chinese surveys, for example, find that 90 percent of college flunk-outs and 70 percent of juvenile delinquencies are attributed to online game addiction.

"[Online games] are bringing calamity to the country and the people, but some of them end up being held up as outstanding enterprises!" Said Chinese sociologist Tao Hongkai, according to an article in Shanghai Daily. Hongkai treats patients suffering from "hardcore game addiction."

The Chinese government also funds a military-run "boot camp" that serves as a rehab to which sufferers are consigned (though they can also commit themselves voluntarily), in the wake of a China National Children's Center report that found that 13% of Chinese teens -- 2.3 million minors-- are "internet addicts."

Earlier this month, the Chinese government began implementing rules intended, according to the published guidelines, to "clean up the internet environment" and "promote civilized internet use." Online game makers are now required to install software that limits playtime for underage users, who must register with their ID card, to three hours or less a day, and users' points are cut in half if they persist past that time-- with all of their gains wiped entirely if they play beyond five hours.

But more than 20 game operators have failed to implement the regulation, and now the Audio & Video and Online Publication Management Division of the General Administration of Press and Publication of China (GAPP) has issued a warning that those operators in violation have ten days, upon the receipt of the notice, to adopt the anti-addiction software.

According to the article in China CSR:

Kou Xiaowei, deputy director of the Audio & Video and Online Publication Management Division of GAPP, has told local media that fully implementing the anti-addiction system is an important measure taken to carry out the State Council's rule on molding Chinese teenagers' morals and promoting the sustainable and healthy development of China's online game industry. He has called on the companies to strengthen their social responsibility and consult with the concerned departments to ensure the anti-addiction tasks can be carried out smoothly.

[Via China CSR]

Caleb Booker and Nick Wilson of Metaversed have just announced their very first virtual worlds-focused weekly podcast, in which they'll discuss the top stories in the space.

Among the topics they plan to discuss in their first installment is the big rush of new youth-oriented social worlds, which we've been covering here at Worlds in Motion as we talk about BarbieGirls, Be-Bratz and Webkinz, and add worlds like Nicktropolis and Toontown to our Atlas, with more to come.

Also on tap for Booker and Wilson are "5 Things You Didn't Know about the Upcoming Twinity Beta," where they plan to talk about key facts surrounding the upcoming beta launch from German company Metaversum -- who describes Twinity as "a virtual world that is closely entangled with the real world. Twinity will enhance your real life instead of helping you escape from it."

According to Metaversed, who spoke with Metaversum's community and operations VP Jeremy Snyder, Twinity plans to have a real cash economy (as Entropia Universe does), and a mix of proprietary and open-source systems, and will model the "fairly standard" virtual world concept.

Like Aardman's WebbliWorld, KnowledgeAdventure's JumpStartWorld doesn't yet have a multi-user component, but it is an educational online service for kids that lets them explore a "3D Theme Park" with mission-based rewards.

One key feature about JumpStartWorld is the opportunity for parental engagement. From the press release:

One of JumpStart World's distinguishing qualities is the opportunity for parent participation. Moms and Dads can send their child photos and other forms of encouragement that appear in the world as the child plays, allowing parents to stay connected, even on the road.

So, not a "world" per se, but an interactive environment for kids with an online component that demonstrates the way this kind of technology can be leveraged to create connected participatory experiences that extend beyond the familiar "web-portal-with-minigames" interface. The website features avatars that "grow" with the child, getting taller (and hipper) looking at each grade level, and promising "personalized learning that responds to your child's pace" and "new play experiences every time your child signs on."

JumpStartWorld is available either in a retail box or via download, both at a cost of $19.99.

[Via Virtual Worlds Forum Blog]

Tabletop RPG and card game gurus Wizards of the Coast, Inc. has announced a partnership with Nexon America Inc. to launch the MapleStory iTrading Card Game (iTCG) in the US and Canada in November. The iTCG is comprised of real-world cards with codes redeemable for exclusive in-game content in the MapleStory world.

Wizards of the Coast did the a similar thing with the Neopets trading card game in 2003, with some differences. "Unlike codes in other TCGs that redeem online for limited-value vanity items, codes in the Maplestory iTCG will unlock exclusive online rewards and game experiences such as highly sought-after artifacts, rare virtual pets, and all-new quests," Says Laura Tommervik, Wizards of the Coast brand manager.

In a press release received by Worlds in Motion, the company says they also hope that fans of trading card games will find a point of entry into the MapleStory world through a format already familiar to them.

The MapleStory card game will play much like its online counterpart, the company says -- with the exception that the card game adds the character-versus-character element not possible in MapleStory.

The game is available in starter sets and booster packs. Starter sets contain 34 cards, including one code, one booster pack, game rules and a CD-ROM with the MapleStory online game client. Booster packs include 9 cards and one code.

"Wizards of the Coast created some of the world's most popular brands as a leader in role-playing, trading card game and tabletop strategy games," said Min Kim, director of game operations for Nexon America. "MapleStory's extraordinary world and rich characters give Wizards of the Coast a distinctive establishment to build the next great trading card game."