On the heels of Mattel's resounding BarbieGirls success, and Be-Bratz, the follow-up effort from MGA, Hasbro has thrown its hat into the ring of virtual worlds with companion toys. It's spun its long-standing Littlest Pet Shop miniature toy franchise into an online world, Littlest Pet Shop VIPs (Virtual Interactive Pets).

Hasbro says the initial Littlest Pet Shop VIPs line, targeted at 'tween girls, will include a dog, cat, turtle, penguin and panda, plush toys with "secret codes" on their collar that can unlock the virtual version of the pet. As is standard fare, the pets and environments are customizable, and users can play 16 mini-games, earn "Kibble" points to care for the pets, play minigames and engage in community events.

Hasbro says the Littlest Pet Shop VIP toys, priced at $14.99, will be available on retail shelves exclusively in the New York Metro area in 2007 beginning in mid-October as well as online at Hasbro's online store, and several mass market retailer websites such as Wal-Mart and Target. A global retail launch, including 18 new VIPs, will follow in early 2008. There's also a limited free play mode available at the website, where girls can "borrow" a pet to check out the gameplay before bringing home their own.

“This is a very exciting time for the Littlest Pet Shop brand,” said Valerie Jurries, vice president of marketing for Hasbro’s girls brands. “We wanted to take this incredibly popular property and do something truly spectacular for the millions of girls who have come to adore the Littlest Pet Shop line over the years. Creating an engaging and meaningful online connection between girls and their Littlest Pet Shop pets was an instinctive next step. VIPs delivers a rich, immersive online world where girls and their pets can have endless hours of fun exploring, playing and bonding.”

Brescia, Italy-based Koinup has announced the launch of its eponymous social network, "entirely dedicated to your virtual life." Whereas MySpace, Facebook and their ilk are a social network for one's real life, it seems that Koinup is going for meta -- a social network to share, document and keep tabs on the life of your avatar and its friends in the virtual space.

Users can create profiles, write journals and stories, publish pictures and share machinima videos all based on their world of choice. Koinup promises almost unlimited free storage space for uploads, too, all with the aim of aggregating and enabling ease of access for multiplayer game and virtual world-focused content.

"Virtual worlds, MMORPGs and Metaverses are the new frontiers of internet entertainment and creativity," Koinup says in its press release. "Each day milions of people spend their time in virtual environments and use these innovative spaces to express themselves and to create art, photos and videos."

"Although Second Life has received the most attention from marketers and the press, its traffic is low compared with the crowds at virtual worlds specifically geared for children and teenagers," notes the report, titled “Kids and Teens Online: Virtual Worlds Open New Universe.”

eMarketer pegs the appeal for young folk down to the marriage of video game elements with social networking and communication -- connecting and communicating are "the two recurring themes" for online youth, it says. It adds that virtual worlds also allow kids to tap into their creativity, indulge their desire for self-expression and exercise their proclivity for exploration, compounding their appeal.

“The bad news [for marketers],” says Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst and author of the report, “is that it is difficult to know what all this virtual interaction really means. What value is there in a person’s avatar drinking a Pepsi? Or wearing a shirt bought from a virtual store? What if a person’s virtual activities have no bearing on their real-world activities?”

Rumors that Google may be making the move into a virtual world have been swirling for some time. The comparison between Google Earth and a fully-vested online world, or, at least, the potential for it to become one, has been made more than once. Now, students at Arizona State University are being offered the opportunity to test a new product "that will be publicly launched later this year" if they fill out a questionnaire -- the invitation page of which mentions "a major Internet company" and suggests the mysterious product is related to social networking, 3D modeling and video games.

Lots of signs here point to Google -- the project name is "My World," with a globe logo, and Google's Sketchup is its own 3D modeling software, after all. The questionnaire also asks if the respondents have a Gmail account, and if they'd be willing to get one if not. Additionally, the devotees at Google Operating System note that Google and ASU have a special relationship -- the university uses Google Apps, the site search is powered by Google Search Appliance, the university uses Google Maps and the campuses already have 3D models in... Google Earth. More than this, the university has provided photos for the Google Mars project, Google employees have been guest speakers at ASU, and Google has its own office on ASU's Tempe campus. Only ASU students can complete the questionnaire.

We already know Google is looking to outdo Facebook with an open social networking platform as soon as November -- if they're looking at these arenas as intently as they clearly are, a true virtual world would be the logical next step!

[Via TechCrunch]

Kaneva has launched a free in-world casual game called Dance Party 3D. They describe it as a social experience, a multiplayer dance game with dance battles, competition and a build-your-own-nightclub feature. Interestingly, Kaneva claims the number of users Dance Party 3D can support for gameplay and socializing is unlimited.

It also promises over 55 million possible options for avatar customizability, with new fashions available daily. Avatars teleport into one of the two new Kaneva clubs created to feature the game, or into one of the of Dance Party 3D Clubs created by Kaneva members. Once inside a Dance Party 3D club, players step onto the dance floor to start battling other players -- or, they can simply watch, chat with others and cheer on their friends.

User-created establishments, where users design the club layout and DJ their own music, can move up the leaderboards based on ratings from other users

Additionally, Kaneva’s also selling a series of four "collector" game cards in retail outlets in $10 and $25 denominations. The cards can be redeemed for immediate access to the game and unlock extra virtual dance gear exclusive to the cards and, in the $25 denomination, bonus credits that can be used to buy more virtual items in Kaneva.

Kaneva’s Dance Party 3D is free to join and play. It’s the first game to support an unlimited number of players for game play and socializing, along with the added ability to explore a growing 3D world with thousands of virtual homes and hangouts. ribe

“Kaneva’s 3D virtual world is full of fun, friends and exciting entertainment,” said Christopher Klaus, founder and CEO of Kaneva. “Today’s launch of Dance Party 3D is an expansion of our community’s love to connect, dance, compete, share music and build cool clubs.”

At the 2007 DEMOfall conference, which runs September 24-26 in San Diego, Web commerce and media solutions company View22 Technology unveiled a new "3D Web community" to allow users to create, share and explore interactive 3D scenes in their browser. It's called SceneCaster, and it aims to connect online worlds with internet commerce and social networking.

At the time of this article's publication there are few details available as to how, exactly, SceneCaster works; the website features a beta countdown and a "coming soon" screen. According to the press release, though, SceneCaster allows users to create, share and discuss their own 3D scenes or to transform existing 3D scenes using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Integrating with Google's 3D Warehouse and providing access to that content catalog, it aims to enable userrs to search for, collect and customize content for their own scenes.

"SceneCaster is one tool in the 3D Internet landscape that helps make immersive, social media accessible to everyone," said Sandy Kearney, global director, Emerging 3-D Internet and Virtual Business at IBM. "By providing an easy-to-use environment and a wide range of content, SceneCaster offers an exciting marketing opportunity for virtual environments."

A number of firms joined SceneCaster at DEMOfall 07 as launch partners, including Akamai, e-interiors, iStockphoto, Kohler, Oddcast, SmartFurniture, Wolfgang’s Vault and ZeroFootprint. Smart Furniture president T.J. Gentle said that SceneCaster can help his customers create virtual versions of their interior spaces to better visualize how SmartFurniture's products can fit into their design scheme, while allowing friends and family to collaborate. SceneCaster promises more partners and sponsors to be announced following its US debut.

Writer Daniel Terdiman has announced a new book, titled The Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life. It's all about making money in the metaverse, and while it focuses on Second Life, it seems like it'll be a useful tome for anyone interested in exploring avenues of self-motivated commerce in virtual worlds.

According to Amazon, the book, available on November 5th, overviews virtual world economies and highlights their opportunities and challenges. A chapter devoted to virtual business basics discusses marketing and advertising avenues essential to thriving Second Life businesses, and there are tips and tricks on multi-stage business plans, too. The book also explores less tangible avenues, like machinima, blogs and media, content creation and speculation on virtual currencies.

Terdiman will also be speaking at The Electric Sheep's upcoming Entrepreneur's Club gathering coming up on October 4th, presumably to promote the book and to share expertise.

The importance of allowing users to express themselves in their own personal way in online games and virtual worlds has been universally recognized these days. One company, however, feels that there are limits to this -- Chinese MMO company Shanda has actually frozen the accounts of male players who choose to play female avatars in-game.

Shanda subsidiary Aurora has stipulated that only females can play female characters in its King of the World MMORPG. What's more, those who claim to be female players actually have to prove it by appearing on a webcam.

Not only does this limit the customization options for male players, but it's a safe bet that being forced to verify their gender on-camera will turn off some female players, too, an odd move considering the desire in all gaming markets to open online gaming to more women. Neither has Aurora stated that female players are prohibited from representing themselves as male.

In social interaction online, many men bemoan the hazards of trying to establish social relationships with women who aren't really women, and Shanda and Aurora seem to be attempting to secure its userbase by alleviating this concern. It remains to be seen, though, whether the number of users discouraged by the policy, be they females facing a new barrier to entry or males no longer allowed to represent themselves as they like, will measure up to those who appreciate it.

But with Shanda's stock recently achieving a new 52-week high as it saw a 77 percent increase in year-over-year revenue in 2006 on the heels of its switch to a virtual goods-based model in 2005, perhaps it can afford to be exclusionary.

[Via MMORPG Blog]

A great article on the Digital Urban blog addresses the issue of copyright and IP rights in online worlds, correctly citing the gray area wherein it's hard to tell how real-world ownership rights translate to the realm of ones and zeroes. The article cites some Nike trainer sneakers the author received as a gift in Second Life, which were user-created, without any thought of permission to use the almighty swoosh.

While, as the article notes, some brands do have legitimate Second Life presences, others don't -- and it's as of yet unclear what ramifications that might have in a world where goods, logos and symbols can be copied, mass-produced, swapped and sold as readily as typing text. It's a good question -- what legal issues might loom around the corner for "fake" goods in a world where nothing is "real" in the traditional sense?

Moreover, the article continues:

Along similar lines does reconstructing the built environment in virtual worlds infringe copyright on use of branding with say importing a Woolworth's retail unit to communicate built form? Issues of copyright of geographic data are however perhaps minor in terms of the blatant cloning of real world goods such as trainers, cars and clothing in Second Life.

The looming threat of legal action is however worrying, if we can copy real world objects and use them virtually surely it is flattering to the company and not an issue of future court proceedings?

Not to mention that counterfeiting isn't restricted to virtual versions of real-world brands. I would argue that Blizzard doesn't find, say, gold farming or counterfeiting items in World of Warcraft "flattering", but many have suggested that WoW and online games should sell gold, rather than oppose the sale thereof.

[Via Digital Urban]

Electronic Arts is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the classic MMO game Ultima Online, which originally launched on September 25, 1997, with special in-game activities and rewards, plus a new amnesty program that invites former players back to try out the major game update, Ultima Online Kingdom Reborn, for free.

The "Return to Brittania" campaign will allow past subscribers in good standing to play for free through October 9, 2007 using their former account name and password.

During the in-game 10th anniversary celebration, players both old and new will be able to take part in a monster hunt with special prizes including an ankh pendant necklace, map of Brittania, an Ultima Online commemorative sculpture and virtue armor set. Additionally, all players will receive 10 décor tokens and a wand of fireworks in their characters' inventory.

Gamasutra is also planning a 10th anniversary celebration of its own for Ultima with a special feature on the game, to debut in the near future.

"Ultima Online has thrived for 10 years and achieved the status of an MMO classic, thanks in large part to the devoted player community," said Mark Jacobs, VP and general manager, EA Mythic. "We are very excited to celebrate this special anniversary with players."

[The preceding feature originally appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Worlds in Motion was piqued recently when we found out about Coobico, a new, free-to-play flash-based strategy MMO being developed by Linking People, a Hong Kong-based developer founded by a trio of German Web developers. Slated for early 2008, it's self-described as "MySims meets Habbo Hotel meets the Settlers," casting players on a deserted island and charging them with building a neighborhood, collaborating or competing with others.

That doesn't sound so revolutionary in and of itself. But what's interesting about Coobico is that it's not geared towards the usual suspects that many companies are rushing to appease these days -- the kids and 'tweens. Instead, Coobico is a casual MMO for adults age 30-44, the core of the casual gaming market.

We spoke to Worlds in Motion co-founder Lutz Winter about Coobico and creating an MMO for a different audience, and asked him what elements he thinks make an MMO "casual."

Traditional Elements for a Traditional Audience

"The genres of brainteasers, strategic-games and collect-and-build stick better with the casual market than shooters and hardcore-RPGs, because they don't require a steep learning of eye-hand coordination and endless hours of grinding and leveling up a character," Winter explains. "[With] World of Warcraft and the like, you can't compete if you are not spending enough time for leveling. According to a recent study from Electronic Arts, Jung v. Matt and German GEE Magazine, some 79 percent of the German gaming-market shares this opinion. This is not a niche market, it's an emerging trend."

An audience of players in their 30s and 40s is looking for something a little different in their multiplayer experience, then -- what is it, and how have they been underserved by other products on the market?

"'More' is the typical game-industry's approach to everything: more levels, more graphic power, more customization and even moreso, intertwining features. Here is a lesson that the game-industry can learn from the Web 2.0-world -- less is more, really," Winter opined. "Less is what a casual audience of above-30-year-olds are looking for. They don't want to waste their time and money on upgrading graphic-hardware just to play Crysis in all its beauty. They are looking for some thirty minutes of ease and challenge besides their working-life, their family and hobbies, instead of spending endless hours of grinding in an online-game."

He continued: "On the other hand, our target group are people who feel underwhelmed by casual titles like puzzle games, which miss appeal and [lack] replay value because they are just a bit too non-immersive; it doesn't earn me a lot of bragging-rights to beat level 30 of Tino's Fruit Stand."

Avoiding Community 'Culture Shock'

Communities are the key to online worlds, Winter says -- and the current community within MMOs currently reflects, he notes, the industry's "max-out principle," where the learning curve to fully engage in the virtual society is steep. "This doesn't mix well socially with the casual market," Winter says. "Such social discrepancies -- almost like culture shock -- are among the biggest shortcomings of recent multiplayer-products."

Winter recalls a story that illustrates his point: "I remember, I once followed a flame-war in a Final Fantasy XI forum, where players were bashing each other because the healer of a group had used the wrong spell to protect the group's tank against a certain monster (which he obviously didn't know enough about). One of the wranglers concluded that he wanted to make the online-life of that healer as miserable as possible from now on. Can you seriously imagine that above-30-year-olds have time or interest to engage in such bunk?"

Catering to a New Target Group

How does Linking People plan to reach, engage and retain this audience? "We will be winning a lot of contests, and thus make ourselves heard of," jokes Winter. "No, really, I recently read
(Guild Wars co-founder) Jeff Strain's presentation on "How to Create a Successful MMO", and I quite disagree with him on a multitude of facts -- he seems to never have heard the term 'Long Tail Market'! I second his opinion that people will not easily adopt new MMOs if they are already enganged in one or two of their choice -- but I beg to differ with his bottom-line."

The "bottom line" Winter cites is this Strain quote: "You must make a game that is so overwhelmingly superior that it can actively break apart an established community." Winter disagrees. "Instead, how about catering to a new target-group which never stuck with a traditional MMO in the first place?" He suggests.

Blending Social Networking With Massive Worlds

Winter goes on to describe Coobico as a "genre mix" of an MMO and a social network. "Alongside, we've got some additional viral features up our sleeves which will hopefully turn into a nice multiplier," he adds. "Word-of-mouth is a very strong medium to us: we will be offering a great product for free, and giving it a try will be a breeze. Coobico's quality will make adopters stay."

Are there any MMO games or social worlds providing a good example? Though Winter stresses that his aim is to create a unique mix of genres, he allows, "There are titles offering a similar gameplay, like The Settlers and MySims, but collect-and-build-games are typically not massive social worlds at heart. Social worlds like Habbo Hotel and Gaia Online, on the other hand, resemble other aspects of Coobico, but they are essentially just boosted chat-environments enabling you to play minigames, not real multiplayer-games."

However, Winter explains, socialization lies at Coobico's core -- the community must build settlements together, form groups and quest together. "Coobico will actively match settlers with their surrounding neighborhoods," Winter adds. "Neighbors are not an abstract concept in Coobico -- they are players running settlements close to your own estate; you can visit their village, and compete or collaborate with them."

Players will have a full-blown set of social networking features at their hands: they can keep a profile, take and collect pictures, pull in their favorite blogs and feeds, invite their friends and connect and communicate with each other as they play.

Exploring Coobico's Business Model

What about Coobico's revenue model? Winter says it's free to play, as subscription fees and club models "do not suit our market well." He explains, "Coobico will be free and sponsored by advertisement-partners through various forms of in-game-advertisement. Players will be able to purchase in-game currency to buy virtual gear, but this is just an option for those who don't like to earn their inventory and income through in-game-activities."

"We chose a revenue-model of in-game-ads because some of our asian core-markets don't offer mature micropayment-solutions and markets," he adds. "Especially in our Asian markets, we are going to launch additional premium services once we established Coobico as a brand name there."

Earlier this year, Trion World Network announced a partnership with Hewlett Packard to develop the technology infrastructure for a dynamic, multi-platform content delivery system. Following that, the broadband games and entertainment publisher and developer announced it had raised 30 million dollars in investments for their endeavors. Now, the company has announced some new additions to its executive leadership.

The company has brought on Peter Matiss as vice president, marketing and sales, and Won Seok Chung as senior director of business development. Matiss was previously Webzen America's VP of marketing and sales, and prior to that, he helped build a variety of franchises like RollerCoaster Tycoon, Monopoly, Risk, Dungeons & Dragons and Sid Meier’s Civilization for Atari. He'll now lead all brand development, marketing and sales activities at Trion.

As for Chung, he's former department head and director at online social networking destination Cyworld, where negotiated contracts and strategic partnerships. Before joining Cyworld, Chung spent several years as a NCSoft executive, spearheading joint ventures with the likes of Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Intel, NVIDIA and Sina. He'll play a similar role at Trion, identifying and negotiating strategic alliances for the company globally.

The company adds it's currently interviewing potential partners, IP owners and developers for its global publishing platform.

“Matiss and Chung are critical hires for us,” Dr. Lars Buttler, CEO and co-founder, stated. “Trion is a new type of publisher, uniquely positioned to be the go-to partner for premier IP created for the connected world.”

Jakks Pacific and Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products announced that they have executed a domestic-based master toy licensing agreement to produce a variety of products based on the Neopets virtual world, by which Jakks will create a full line of toys and merchandise to capitalize on Neopets and its characters. The Neopets world lets kids adopt virtual pets, accumulate points for virtual goods, and play minigames.

According to comScore, Neopets drew 5.9 million visitors in the month of August, making it Neopets' strongest month yet and marking a 50 percent increase over the same period last year. The company says 'tween users spend an average of 2 hours and 33 minutes on the site.

The Jakks toy line will focus on plush Neopets toys, but the aggreement also covers action figures, accessories, playsets and plug-and-play interactive toys, as well as role-play products, vehicles, youth electronics, water toys, novelties, stationery products, kites, and craft activity toys. Jakks’ Neopets collectible plush products are expected to begin to hit retail shelves in early spring 2008, with figures, playsets and other Neopets products shipping to retailers nationwide for fall.

Additionally, the plush toys and other upcoming Neopets consumer products will tie into a new multiplayer “Neopets Key Quest” in the game. The toys will contain codes that allow kids to unlock virtual extensions of the toys to use as part of the Neopets Key Quest game, with virtual versions of the toys represented in the users' Neopets profile.

"We plan to add engaging real world components to the already hugely popular virtual world of Neopia," says Jakks CEO Stephen Berman, "and maximize the deep online connection kids have with Neopets through a collectible roll-out strategy, which is one of Jakks’ core strengths. Neopets has all the makings of a great toy property.”

“Consumer products based on the Neopets brand will continue to expand to mass retail in 2008," added Nickelodeon & Viacom consumer products president Leigh Ann Brodsky. "We are thrilled to have a creative partner like Jakks Pacific aboard as our master toy licensee.”

"Father of the MUD" Richard Bartle once identified four different types of online gamers, who could be sorted based on their answers to a series of questions known, sensibly, as the Bartle Test. According to Bartle and his test, those who play online are either Achievers, who prefer to gain concrete measurements of succeess; Explorers, who prefer discovering areas, creating maps and learning about hidden places; Socializers, who prefer to interact with other players, or Killers, who prefer to be in conflict with other players.

Bartle has maintained that a mastery of each gamer type on the part of MMO developers will help them tailor and balance gameplay to attract the broadest audience. According to Zen of Design, GoPets' Erik Bethke focused his business model solely on the Socializers -- "carpet bombed" them, in his words. Apparently, though, broadening the focus by researching patterns of item purchases in his pay-for-goods model yielding some interesting results, as Zen of Design reported:

One eye-raising stat came from the fruit tree. The fruit tree simply produces a piece of fruit once per hour, providing what Erik describes as one of the few ‘Achiever’ elements in an otherwise purely Socializer game.

What they found was that people who purchased the fruit tree were 11X more likely to be active players, and of active players, 4X more likely to be heavy users than your standard active player. Thus, fruit tree buyers (and theoretically, Achievers) are 44X more likely to be profitable customers than your average schmuck. At least in GoPets.

Another eye-raising stat came from the Content Creator, one of the few ‘Explorer’ elements in an otherwise purely Socializer game. What they found were that these people were 16X(!) more likely to be active players, and 4X more likely to be heavy users than standard active players. Thus, content creators (and theoretically, Explorers) are 64X(!) more likely to be profitable customers than your average schmuck. At least in GoPets.

Bethke himself chimed in on the discussion and reported that mixing it up, even emulating the crafting dialog layout from World of Warcraft, resulted in revenue that doubled in only seven days. Now Bethke wants to expand GoPets to include questing and combat. It's interesting evidence directly from the field that these ideas have solid merit!

[Via PlayNoEvil]

Worlds in Motion recently spoke in-depth with Nexon America's Min Kim, who among many topics discussed KartRider, the multiplayer online racing game in closed beta ahead of its move to US shores. Now comes the official announcement -- Nexon America has given the green light for KartRider open beta testing scheduled for October 2nd.

KartRider features oldschool kart racing with a variety of personal customization options for character personalities and cars. It prioritizes accessibility and convenience, aiming to make the controls easy and the gameplay oriented for bite-sized sessions, a mechanic increasingly called for in appealing to casual audiences. There is already a very serious overseas userbase for KartRider, though -- Nexon says over 30% of the South Korean population has played the game before.

KartRider's open beta will offer a choice of several characters and multiple race courses; beta testers can have two different carts, paint jobs and license plate modifications, and a "My Garage" feature that lets users socialize with friends, show off their kart modifications and check out new pit stop items.

Open beta testers can also try different single and team race modes including "item mode", which featuries the use of creative items used to gain an edge, and "speed mode", a test of driving skill focusing solely on speed and drift.

Nexon adds it's planned promotions, contests and in-game events geared to coordinate with the launch schedule as things unfold.

Forterra Systems has announced a strategic investment and technology advancement agreement with US intelligence venture capital organization In-Q-Tel to add more features to Forterra's OLIVE (On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment) software platform for virtual worlds.

Forterra's already demonstrated serious intentions for OLIVE -- quite literally, the Coventry Serious Games Institute most recently bought a license to use the platform for game-based learning. And prior to that, Forterra announced it had teamed with the Orlando-based Defense Department’s Joint Advanced Distributed Learning (JADL) Co-Laboratory to determine how MMO games might best be used in military counter-IED training.

So what are these new features? Firstly, OLIVE will be able to import Google's Sketchup 3D models (could this have to do with the nebulous rumor of a Google virtual world, since Google also has a close relationship with In-Q-Tel?). It will also add a network proxy that will allow the system to go through a greater range of firewall configurations, a 3-D conferencing and document sharing application; and additional 3-D content including scenery, avatars, buildings and other objects needed to support the new apps.

“Forterra has developed a technology platform and business model for virtual worlds that we believe is capable of supporting analytic transformation and the critical needs of the U.S. Intelligence Community as well as related applications in the private sector,” said Steve Bowsher, EVP of investments at In-Q-Tel. “Agreements like this with Forterra represent the best of public and private sector business models, designed to deliver innovative technologies to the U.S. Intelligence Community, linking them to new and emerging technologies in the commercial market and providing strategic incentives for companies like Forterra to develop and enhance technology solutions that benefit the federal government market as well as a broader commercial market.”

The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

It's easy to gripe about Second Life, what with its recent loss of luster and backlash in the media. A recent article in Inc. did a comprehensive interview with Linden Labs CEO Philip Rosedale, and a blogger at Found Read synthesized the interview into a clever top five that highlights what Rosedale did to get Second Life funded and off the ground (top five from Found Read, Rosedale quotes from Inc.)

1. Rosedale recognized his big idea for Second Life early, AND that it was too early for the market. So he waited, as Rosedale explains: "This is a nonstarter right now because for this to be interesting it has to be sexy, it has to be fun, it has to be fast, it has to be within human response times. It has to be like a video game. And in the mid-‘90s you couldn’t do 3-D on a PC."

2. Rosedale recognized that he needed more training if he was to be successful with his Big Idea later on. "I needed some experience working with other people and learning how you get people to work together and work on a really big system. I figured I would get to see all that at Real [Networks where he worked before founding Linden Labs]. And I did."

3. Even with big-name backers, Rosedale heard ‘No’ a lot because not everyone accepted his vision. But he understood that they accepted him. So he kept going. "Second Life was just unfundable. It was just the dumbest idea ever. Mitch Kapor [the founder of Lotus Development] was the only person who got it. Mitch invested in 2001 after I had invested about a million dollars of my own money. I think some of the early angel investors were largely investing in me."

4. When he saw that word-of-mouth marketing wasn’t working, Rosedale bit the bullet and made lay-offs. "When we couldn’t grow it as quickly as it needed to, we had one round of layoffs. There were 31 of us and 11 of us left. That was in late 2003, when we pretty well thought we were dead."

5. Finally, he recognized that getting customer buy-in meant “letting go” of the development, and placing it in the hands of his users. The rest is history. "We recognized that there was a core of people who were really starting to want to build the content and invest in it and really value it. And we said, What you have in Second Life is real and it is yours. It doesn’t belong to us. We have no claim to it. Whatever you do with Second Life is your own intellectual property."

The entire Inc. piece is worth a read, and credit to Found Read for so aptly summarizing the salient bits!

[Via Metaversed]

On September 24th, Raph Koster (on his first trip to Japan!) gave a talk at Tokyo University as part of the foreign game design session of the CoFesta Game Industry Seminar. 4Gamer has complete coverage of the talk in Japanese, but Livejournal user Jaerik was kind enough to translate.

Koster took an inventory of the audience, getting a census on their professions. After asking for a show of hands from sales and marketing pros, he quipped, "could you folks leave the room and come back later?”

Koster reflected on his past work as a pioneer of the essential MMO -- lead designer of Ultima Online, chief creative officer and Lead Designer for EverQuest II and Star Wars Galaries. That being said, he asserted, “I don’t believe the future of the industry lies in the way large companies develop games anymore.” The current business, he said, is focused on the gamer as consumer and has unconsciously fixated on catering to their preferences, without attention to the increasingly obvious fact that the "core" market is only one small part of a larger world.

He pegged another problem with the industry as it stands -- since the 80's, the scope of game content has increased in some cases by a factor of 150, with the average development budget over 22 times larger than back then. It's analogous, Koster claimed, to the film industry, wherein with projects so large and pricey, a "blockbuster" opening becomes a business essential, complete with enormous marketing campaigns with the aim of recouping production budgets. The result? A vicious cycle hostile to new and risky ideas.

But the advancements of communication technology has begun to poke holes in the approach -- word of mouth carries plenty of weight in an era of instant messaging and mobile communication, and Koster adds that young people seem to have become mistrustful of mass media, in favor of social networking and ligthweight web portals. Despite the strength of the retail game market in the U.S. and Europe, Koster believes that more than half of the industry's revenue will eventually come from casual and downloadable game content.

Moreover, Koster's much-championed user-generated content will be an extension of this trend, he predicts, adding that we'll soon see the game industry start to reflect the more than 50,000,000 people Koster says participate in generating their own content through blogs and websites. And, he continues, Web 2.0 concepts are the key to moving the game industry into the future.

The result? Users with an invested self-interest will raise the bar for the entire market, and the online products model as an adjunct will avoid expensive stockpiling problems with a focus on more long-term niche markets

“We tend to believe that the content makes the game, but this is not true. Rather, the system should be the game," Koster says. He concluded with his tips for the game design of the future: Good things come in small packages. Large things are expensive and fail easily; cyclical metrics are the way; large design docs are a nearly complete waste of time; use digital distribution aimed at niche markets; add user-generated content, leverage the role of individual fame to establish lifestyle image through associative branding, and have an open platform.

[Via Raph Koster's Website]

Learning about HiPiHi, "China's answer to Second Life," we've seen a bit of how cultural differences result in different approaches for virtual worlds. "Meet-Me," the virtual Tokyo by digital marketing company Transcosmos, hopes to leverage these cultural differences to make its product competitive in a Japanese audience.

Kunimasa Hamaoka, who oversees Meet-Me, told the Associated Press that the Japanese audience would prefer a more predictable, secure and socially proper environment than the anything-goes Second Life world provides.

Meet-Me's avatars have a softer, cuter and more fantastical look than the realistic bent popular in Second Life and in Western games like TheSims. In place of fantasy teleporting, Meet-Me is navigated via walking, running or vehicles like trains, much as in real Tokyo. Additionally, the world runs on Tokyo time in terms of when it's night and day.

"This will be a place where people can enjoy themselves with a sense of safety — like Disneyland," he said. "There's total freedom to act in 'Second Life,' which requires individual responsibility. It's very American. Almost everything is OK, including evil." By targeting the sensibilities of a strictly Japanese audience, Hamaoka hopes to achieve greater penetration in the Japanese market, often difficult for Western games, MMOs and virtual worlds.

When Meet-Me opens in December, it'll have cyberspace shopping, entertainment, games and Christmas lights. Like Second Life, visitors will be able to buy virtual plots of land, housing and furnishings, and customize their avatars' appearance, hairstyle and gender. Hamaoka also hopes to add virtual outposts for real retailers.

But unlike Second Life, Meet-Me will be under strict control by Transcosmos, with more policing, filtering and measures to prohibit profanity and obscenity in the hopes of keeping the peace. "apanese aren't going to take to the culture of Second Life," Hamaoka told the AP. "It's the kind of place where you can get shot in the back as soon as you log on."

A Linden Lab official told the AP that it sees Japan as a key market and hopes to continue building Japanese language services, adding that Japanese alternatives are more like video games and not in competition with outlets for creative expression.

Earlier this week, we took a look at a research report published by market researcher eMarketer about kids, teens, 'tweens and virtual worlds that found that 34.3 million US child and teen Internet users will visit virtual worlds once a month in 2007 -- and eMarketer expects that number to rise to 34 percent in 2008, and to 53 percent by 2011.

Worlds in Motion spoke to eMarketer's Debra Aho Williamson about her findings. "I think what’s attractive about virtual worlds for kids and teens is that they exist at a 'sweet spot' between online games, which are very popular with younger kids, 'tweens and boys, and social networks, which are very popular with teens, particularly girls," she explains. "I think that virtual worlds combine aspects of both of those things."

Zeroing in on major factors in online social worlds, she elaborated. "There are a lot of games, there's the opportunity to meet friends, interact socially, learn about other people and express your interests. So I think those are the two driving factors." Real-time interaction also plays a big role, she says. "[It's a] very immersive experience. You don’t just 'poke' somebody like on Facebook -- you can actually, physically, poke somebody. What that means is that there’s that much more real-time interaction, no latency, no making a post on someone’s wall and waiting for them to respond. It’s all occurring in real time."

What Makes Kids' Worlds Special?

So what does this mean for marketers? "First, a lot of marketers went into Second Life, and now we're seeing a backlash these days- -- it's maybe not working out as well as they hoped," Williamson says, but cautions against marketers being turned off completely from virtual worlds by anti-Second Life hype. "They need to take a second look," she advises, "Especially if they're in the market of targeting kids and teens."

Moreover, Williamson sees some key differences in kids' worlds specifically that separate them from Second Life or other generally-focused environments. "Several of them have years of experience being ad supported and developing ad campaigns within virtual worlds, she notes, highlighting Neopets, Whyville and Habbo -- all of which began their experience in the late '90s and early '00s and have been ad-supported since then. "The second thing," Williamson adds, "is that there’s a strong focus within virtual worlds for kids and teens on engaging users and coming up with a marketing campaign fully integrated with an environment. It's not an island you have to go visit, but something part of the fabric of the virtual world.

The Real-World Tie-Ins

Companies like Whyville do that very well, as Williamson says, with its educational campaigns on disease biology and environmental studies that are integrated within the Whyville world, as we found on our visit there. As a side note, eMarketer's report indicates that Numedeon is looking to continue growing in the virtual worlds space on the heels of their success with the kids:

“In the coming months we will go from being a one-trick pony to having multiple virtual worlds under management,” Whyville’s Jim Goss told eMarketer. “We’re going to build our own and have a portfolio of virtual worlds operating on the same tech platform,but going after different demographics.”

Virtual Playing Becomes Real-World Paying?

But from the standpoint of marketers, does what kids and teens do in virtual worlds necessarily have any bearing on their real life behaviors? "In a lot of cases, I think it does," Williamson opines. "I believe that children and young teens particularly will be more apt to be like themselves in the virtual world. But overall, I think people who like something in real life will follow those interests in the virtual ones. If they like music and street culture, they might gravitate toward VSide. Fans of The Hills go to vMTV. If they own a Webkinz they go to the Webkinz world. So there are obvious interest correlations. I think that you express your interests by which virtual world you choose to interact with."

Moreover, the high focus in customizing and decorating in these kids' worlds can play an important role for advertisers. "People take a lot of pride in decorating," she says. "If there are real brands available, they might choose those real brands just as they might in real life. I think ultimately a brand impression is a brand impression, and there's still a real person behind the avatar that will be exposed to the brand regardless of whether that person in the virtual world is similar or dissimilar to how they are in real life."

A Question Of Security

One caveat -- a parent herself, Williamson was concerned when the results of her research revealed that these kids' worlds were not as safe in terms of kid security as they sometimes claim. "I think that ultimately some of these worlds could be targets for sex predators just as social networks have been," she says. "Actually, it's almost easier to hide behind an avatar than it is to hide behind a social networking profile. In my research I registered for a whole bunch, and signed up for BarbieGirls. You can select your age, and I signed up as a 7-year-old girl." Williamson explains that she was asked to provide a parent's email address to verify she had permission to be on the site. "So I just gave them my address without saying anything about who I was, and all I got was an email that [essentially] gave me a [verification link] that said, 'You affirm that you are the parent of this child.'

From there, I had this experience in the BarbieGirls world, and I wandered around, and within minutes I [was] approached by several avatars asking to be my friend. My only choice was to say 'yes' or 'no', and I have no way to figure out who they are, how old they are, or anything about them. So as a parent, it definitely raised some concerns. I wasn’t sure who these people were that were asking to be my friends."

A Brave New Frontier

And safety is definitely a growing concern, given the other result that surprised Williamson -- just how much traffic the kids' worlds get. She cites July 2007 comScore data that pegs Webkins and Club Penguin at more than five million unique visitors each in that month -- and not just kids and teens. Nicktropolis had 2.2 million, and Stardoll, which is avatar-based but has no actual virtual world at all, logged 2.3 million visitors. Contrast that with only 414,000 visits to the Second Life URL in the same time period. "Obviously, you don’t have to go to SecondLife.com to actually get into the site," Williamson says, "It runs on its own. What this captures is only visits to the URL -- but still, it’s a huge difference."

Why, then, all the continued attention to Second Life? "Right now, it’s really the only world out there for adults," she says, although There.com and Activeworlds, to name a few, also target the same base. "I think that the majority of marketers target adults," she continues. "They don’t target kids and teens. So I think that’s one reason. Honestly, I also think Second Life has a great PR team and they did a lot early on -- it’s kind of funny, but all of a sudden there were all these articles, and I remember thinking, 'I wonder who they hired to do PR!'"

"Marketers are looking at something new and interesting to latch onto," she adds. "We’re on the vanguard, the edge, doing something 'cool'. Maybe we will get some PR from it, and maybe a little bit of learning. Its not an adjunct; it's part of the world. And I think that says a lot."