Next-gen console game and virtual world development company Trilogy Studios has announced it has raised $3.2 million in its latest round of independent equity funding. This new round comes on the heels of a "significant" investment in its virtual worlds endeavors from Chichen Itza Ventures, the lead investor in There.com producer Makena Technologies.

Trilogy and There.com have enjoyed a long-term working relationship, partnering up to build MTVN's Virtual Pimp My Ride (a collaboration it recently reaffirmed) on There.com's technology, and now Makena CEO and There.com producer Michael Wilson will join Trilogy's board of directors.

The partnership aims to merge the spheres of online social worlds with gaming, in large part to enable media companies to monetize their brands in online worlds through avenues like microtransactions, sponsorship and advertising. Trilogy says it will allocate the funds to expand the company's virtual world and casual MMO business.

Trilogy was originally founded in late 2005 by former Electronic Arts Los Angeles executives Rick Giolito and Mark Skaggs, along with former Vivendi Universal executive vice president Michael Pole. Worlds in Motion talked with Michael Wilson about the partnership and what There.com can learn from gaming vets.

"Virtual worlds are amazing social platforms; that’s what we built our virtual world about. The things we're known for -- PG-13, IP protection, and how all PCs can run There -- were all things designed to make the platform available socially to more people," he explains. "The thing is that in virtual worlds, just as in real life, people look for entertainment. Just standing around socializing -- there’s more to life than that. You go to movies, watch TV, entertain, play games, go to school, et cetera. We’ve been trying to bring a lot of that to our platform, because we think that’s important. It's the reason we partnered with MTV – they certainly know how to get a lot of people to spend time in front of the TV!"

So how will Trilogy help? "We look at their sensibilities, and ask how we can bring that to our platform. We're coming out and saying that the skills that the game industry has been honing for 20 years, we need them in these social virtual worlds. The fact we’re embracing it so much is important," Wilson says.

Wilson said that the first project the partnership will tackle is improving the worlds There.com has built for MTV. "We’re going to look at bringing “player compulsion loops” to the table," Wilson said.

Compulsion loops? "I’m going to point at World of Warcraft, because everybody knows they're really good at this," Wilson explains. "We study them all the time, because they do such a good job. There is something in their platform that compels you to go and do stuff; you want to do it, and keep doing it. Eight million people do that for World of Warcraft. So this whole compulsion element with the whole design of gameplay is part of a 'secret sauce' to make these worlds successful."

He elaborates: "Giving people interesting things to do, achieving status, being able to display that status, whether that's with exclusive merchandise or, say, a dog that nobody else can get. These are the sorts of things you can engineer to make the world more interesting and get people interested in spending time there; that’s where compulsion comes from.It's a great adjunct to the social nature of the world; you’ve got people meeting each other and now 'how good am I' at various parts of this game, at making clothes or holding events, becomes a way to have your own status to start conversation."

Since many people have historically seen the world of game design and internet socialization as being related but disparate, what's it like to work together now? "It’s great because they come from a completely different side of the world; they focus very much on art and gameplay and it’s really a lot of fun," Wilson says. "The cool thing is that, when we started getting art assets from them for Pimp My Ride, they were so tight, and good, because they know that the gameworld is very demanding. So it’s a great thing, and for them, I think they like hanging out with us because we’re MMO-plus-user-generated content."

He adds: "We take our partners very seriously. We try to do fewer quality relationships than many non-quality relationships."