Avatar-based interaction and simulated worlds earn another point for emotional health work, as a report comes that researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth are using avatar-based simulation to help patients diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome to practice their social skills.

Asperger's Syndrome is considered a form of autism, and those diagnosed, while of normal intelligence, have trouble reading non-verbal cues, adapting to change and learning social behavior. Inside the virtual world, they're able to interact with other real people's avatars as practice.

From the article:

The virtual world includes settings commonly encountered in everyday life such as restaurants, shops, offices, apartment living and parks, where they can meet “new” people in a safe, controlled environment. For example, if the goal is applying for a job, their avatars substitute for them as they practice their interviewing skills with real people on-line until the fear and anxiety of a real encounter with a potential supervisor diminishes. This method is distinct from role-playing, which is a widely used method, in that they feel the same emotions as they would in direct encounters.

[Via UT Dallas Newsletter]

Worlds in Motion got a chance to talk with Millions of Us president and co-founder Chris Lassonde about the company and its perspectives on the virtual worlds space. He discussed a bit of Millions of Us's process in orienting new clients to virtual worlds, and what he feels are the big trends to watch.

What led you and Reuben Steiger to start a virtual advertising agency?

Opportunity meeting preparation. Everything we had both done in our careers up to that point, combined with a strong friendship and a kindred entrepreneurial spirit, allowed us to be in the same room at the same time and say "let's do this!"

In earlier years, you worked as Lead Programmer for Origin, on Ultima Online and its expansions; how has that prepared you for what you do today?

It's been an immense help. Being on the front lines of the first MMORPG put me in a position to learn first hand about the needs and wants of online communities, the composition of these communities at both the group and individual levels, customer support, and the core technologies that make these spaces work.

How have brand opportunities in virtual worlds evolved since you entered the space?

Brands are far more aware today then sixteen months ago about what they can do in virtual worlds now, and what they'll be able to do in the near-term future. They are coming to us with some rough ideas and asking us to help them develop their strategies for online communities. A year ago, they didn't even think they needed a strategy. They are also much more open today to the widely varying opportunities that are appearing across a fast-growing and diverse ecosystem of virtual worlds.

Do you think there's somewhat of a backlash against virtual worlds as an advertising platform, since horror stories of "deserted Second Life islands" and such have hit the media? Do you notice a change of stance among your clients?

I haven't seen a backlash against virtual worlds in general. We heard a lot of pointed questions about Second Life from clients after a brief flurry of unfavorable coverage this summer. For the most part, they understood that a dash of skepticism was inevitable for a service that had been riding high on a wave of hype for many months. They recognize that Second Life is still in its infancy, and that the enormous potential that had everyone so excited to begin with is still out there. Some of the less technically sophisticated platforms are much closer to realizing their immediate marketing potential, and our clients are very excited about those shorter-term opportunities.

Would you say it's easier or harder for companies to advertise in that way now?

It's easier, and it's going to get even easier as we move forward. While we can no longer do "first X in a virtual world" campaigns, with Gartner Research predicting that 80 percent of the online population will be involved in non-gaming virtual worlds by 2011, now is the time for companies to learn how marketing in these environments works.

What are the major challenges to brands entering virtual worlds, and how would you advise them?

The biggest challenge for brands is to avoid the same mistakes that were made on the 2D Web in its earliest days of widespread adoption, say 1994-98. Just as cautious, static "brochureware" was derided back then, its 3D equivalent is similarly flawed when placed in today's virtual worlds. It wasn't relevant then, didn't work then, and it won't work today.

Which platforms are you currently working with, and are there specific situational advantages to one over the other, depending?

We have published work through both Second Life and Gaia Online, and we're actively developing projects on a number of additional platforms. Watch this space!

What sort of creative process does Millions of Us go through when beginning a project with a client?

The first two steps in the creative process involves having a client "discovery" meeting where we listen to our client on what their brands means to them, their customers and their communities. Then we take that information and translate the brand and its supporting attributes into a meaningful, entertaining experience for a virtual world or online community.

What sort of development tools might your team members use to produce a project?

We use everything from Second Life, Google Sketchup, Maya, Photoshop, Adobe, Illustrator, and of course Microsoft Project for planning from start to finish. We are also big believers in using online tools such as Basecamp for the sake of transparent communication and collaboration. We make extensive use of wikis.

How do you see the state of social virtual worlds today, and are there any trends or technologies on the horizon that you hope to see more of in the future?

I think the biggest trend we are seeing today is the "avatarization" of social networks, and the corresponding "networkfication" of virtual worlds. In five years there won't be a difference between a social network and a virtual world.

Beyond virtual worlds, the piece of technology I want to see more than anything else is online calendar software that plays well with every gadget I have in my house from my computer to my Blackberry. It needs to play well with others.

[Patrick Murphy contributed to this report.]

Mobile media's an interesting topic. Different facets of the media space appear to be eyeing the mobile platform hesitantly, certain that they want to do something, but not quite sure what. Id Software just formed its own mobile gaming group with Fountainhead Entertainment, just on the heels of my conversation with Fountainhead's Katherine Anna Kang -- during which she pointed out that they'd found the quality of most mobile games was not what they believed it could be. A recent editorial at Games On Deck, our sister site devoted to mobile gaming, also presents the argument that, due to carrier conflicts, the mobile space has not yet reached a thriving point.

There is a lot of discussion at present about how mobile access might expand the worlds of MMOs and virtual worlds, allowing different points of access to a media experience. Worlds in Motion spoke with Empire of Sports' Christian Müller, who wants players of his sports-themed online world to be able to do exactly that with a cell phone.

Raph Koster is at MIT's Futures of Entertainment 2, not liveblogging per se (the MIT Cultural Convergence Consortium is already doing so), but he offers some thoughts on the panels he's attending -- in this case, from a session on Mobile Media:

...As more things, like broadcast TV (currently getting stuffed into mobile phones in Japan, which actually have TV tuners in them now) are added to the device, it may be that mobile ends up being the catch-all, the generalist.

Which makes me think that probably as we think of things like immersive gaming in the real world, ARGs, massively multiplayer geotagged environments, and virtual worlds on the phone, there may be a dedicated device that does it better. Most of these other examples have been of migrating capabilities to the devices. But the interesting stuff that will be the true core use of the devices will be the things that arise from the device — and it will be at its best when the other stuff isn’t there to serve as a distraction, in the way that the best GPSes don’t try to also be TVs but instead try to enhance the experience of geolocation.

There’s also the fact that the Net is shifting strongly away from pesudonymity and towards real identity. Mobile is strongly titled towards this side of the equation, in a way that the Internet isn’t. What does that means for virtual worlds, which so strongly reward identity exploration?

Though it remains to be seen what role, exactly, the mobile platform will play in virtual worlds, Raph's point that there are key reasons that show there's definitely a spot for it somewhere, somehow, is worth considering!

Free-to-play online game publisher Gala-Net has announced the creation of three new executive positions. The move increases the responsibilities of key company executives Brian Nah, John Young and Terry Kim. The executive promotions adds executive vice president duties for CFO Brian Nah; vice president and producer John Young becomes senior vice president of business development; and producer Terry Kim becomes senior vice president and executive producer.

The company says that the reorganization of its executive team is part of its preparation to increase its visibility in the North American online game market. The publisher currently operates its online game suite, which includes Flyff, Rappelz, Upshift StrikeRacer, Corum Online, Space Cowboy Online and Shot Online out of the gPotato portal.

Gala-Net co-founder and CEO Jikhan Jung said, “With our diverse game portfolio, great consumer value proposition and extensive community, Gala-Net has developed a reputation for being one of the leading publishers in online games. These three outstanding executives bring unsurpassed expertise in their respective fields to Gala-Net, and they will help us continue our efforts to provide Western gamers with the best online interactive entertainment experiences possible."

We're pleased to announce more of the speakers who'll be participating in the upcoming Worlds In Motion Summit! Nexon's Min Kim, Millions of Us' Reuben Steiger, Rmbr's Gabe Zichermann and GoPets' Erik Bethke will be joining the event; previously-revealed speakers include Areae's Raph Koster, Worldwide Biggies CTO and Nicktropolis co-creator Chris Romero, Conduit Labs' Nabeel Hyatt and Relic Labs studio head Adrian Crook.

The Summit, which is organized by the editors of WorldsInMotion.biz, will be held on Monday and Tuesday, February 18-19th 2008, as part of the 2008 Game Developers Conference. The Summit will focus on the intersection of online worlds and games, and the official description of the event is as follows:

"The Worlds in Motion Summit is a definitive event tailored for the growing number of industry professionals and Fortune 500 companies developing interactive online spaces for both entertainment and commercial purposes. Discussion forums will delve into online worlds, social gaming and media and player created activity.

These will provide insight for developers of all backgrounds into how the game industry is collectively building socialization into games and integrating personalization and player-generated content into gameplay — while widely accessible Web and networking tools are looking to the game industry for their way forward."

In addition, following its initial announcement, the inaugural Worlds In Motion Summit has announced two more speakers, and is expected to debut many more over the next few weeks. Now joining the event will be:

- Nexon's Min Kim
(Already a pioneer in areas of online socialization, personalization and microtransactions-based virtual economies in Korea, Nexon successfully brought games like MapleStory and Audition to a variety of markets around the world, including North America and Europe, and Min Kim of Nexon U.S.A. will discuss how knowing individual markets helped these titles achieve big success wherever they've gone.)

- Millions of Us' Reuben Steiger
(Millions of Us has successfully brought various music and television properties into the virtual world, most recently supporting CNN's Second Life launch, and Millions of Us CEO Reuben Steiger will be discussing how virtual worlds will play a pivotal role in the convergence of entertainment media, as formerly disparate content meets in a single online experience.)

- Rmbr's Gabe Zichermann
(Ten-year industry veteran Zichermann developed the concept for rmbr in early 2007 after realizing that he had stopped enjoying the process of dealing with his friends’ online photos, and that a game-centric approach might fix the problem. He will share his perspectives on web concepts and 2D virtual worlds as a dominant paradigm.)

- GoPets' Erik Bethke
(Author and developer Erik Bethke, CEO of GoPets.com, will discuss the tenets of user engagement, and share how taking a lesson from Richard Bartle's four gamer "types" helped grow revenue and create user engagement with his virtual pets product.)

The Summit is available to attend via several different Game Developers Conference 2008 passes, and more information is available on the Worlds In Motion Summit webpage.

Online entertainment company Sparkplay Media has appointed Rick Senat, formerly of Warner Bros., to its advisory board. Senat spent 25 years with Warner, during which he headed European business and legal affairs -- including the acquisition of the rights to all of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. Also under his umbrella was the company's diversification into consumer products and international theatres.

Sparkplay CEO Matt Mihaly commented, "Rick brings with him a tremendous wealth of entertainment experience and an invaluable understanding of the dynamics of the media business. We expect his knowledge and sense of perspective to prove a considerable asset as we strive to build Sparkplay into a truly world-class media company."

Sparkplay's first property, Earth Eternal, is scheduled for a 2008 launch.

IM and chat web utility Meebo has announced that its users can now play newly-available games on its platform. Third-party developers 3rd Sense, Absolutist, Clearspring Technologies, Come2Play, Gamebrew, MediaGreenhouse, Mochi Media, MyGraffitiWall, Jiggmin, Kongregate, PlayFirst, Presidio Studios, and ZeroCode have together contributed more than 20 games using the Meebo Platform API.

The initial platform launch, which took place October 30th, 2007, made voice chat, group voice calling, video and audio calling and live broadcast available to Meebo users, and now Meebo will offer a continually-updated catalog of multiplayer games that will allow users to play head-to-head or in groups online. Meebo says more than 200 developers have registered apps for its platform, and in the near future, the category will expand to include shopping, productivity and work applications, music and video entertainment.

The newly-launched titles include Animal Puzzle, Artillery, Backgammon, Battle Pool, Blackjack, Checkers, Chess, Connect4, Go, Kongregate Racing, Match4, Music Man, Picture This!, Pirate War, Platform Racing, Reversi, Sheep Me, Sploder, Sudoku Wars, Tactics 100, Texas Hold ‘Em, and World Travel Puzzle.

Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg explained, "If Google is search, YouTube is video and Facebook is a social utility, then Meebo aims to be live interaction. These multiplayer games will make the Meebo experience more fun and give our users new ways to connect live with their buddies.”

Worlds in Motion asked Sternberg about the idea to integrate multiplayer gaming into IM. "Meebo is all about connecting live with your friends, be it chatting or doing a video call. Playing games was just another example of things that friends like to do with each other online," he said.

There's clearly been a social gaming trend on the rise, as casual games gain appeal and widespread online multiplayer becomes a norm. According to the Gartner group, 66% of teens and young adults IM more than they e-mail , with IM expected to become a "focal point" of work-based communication by 2013. So how does playing a game in a Meebo IM differ from playing at, for example, a casual portal? "We think a place like Meebo is a great way to bring online casual games to a broader audience," said Sternberg. "There are definitely some great gaming sites out there, but not everyone is a gamer that will actively go and find those sites."

How will the developers monetize their Meebo apps? Through Meebo revenue relationships, through which ads will run alongside apps, with a share of those ad dollars going back to the developers. Meebo devs also have the option of declining Meebo's ad arrangements and running their own ads on their app, hand-picking advertisers that are particularly relevant or targeted to the application's intended audience. This arrangement is geared in particular for independent developers, allowing them to influence their own revenue streams.

Added Sternberg, "At any given time, Meebo users can have 50 or more friends online. They might be looking for something to do after homework or taking a five-minute break in their work day. Meebo makes it easy for an impromptu online game to happen between friends."

Chinese virtual world HiPiHi has announced a 3-way partnership with Hollywood-based Centric, an interactive agency focusing on social media and virtual worlds, and Japan-based virtual world service provider 3Di, to focus on creative arts inside HiPiHi.

Centric also maintains offices in Shanghai and Tokyo. As for 3Di, its recent projects include open-source community platform Jin-sei and Movable Life, a system that allows users access to Second Life using a web browser.

The company says the partnership is geared to take advantage of the virtual world medium's potential for art, media and video production. Centric says it will leverage its experience in Hollywood to bring internationally renowned projects into HiPiHi and promote it as an international platform for creative expression, while 3Di's content and service development base will support the projects.

HiPiHi founder and CEO Xu Hui said, "Virtual worlds open up new possibilities to redefine the mode of artistic/cultural production and creative expression, transcending the distance between art works and spectators, constructing a brand new interactive instrument of artistic creation and expression. Centric and 3Di will bring artistic creativity and cutting-edge media production technologies from Western culture into the HiPiHi world."

He continued, "This mix of Western-Oriental artistic and cultural fusion and exchange, in a virtual world medium that cuts through space-time constraints, is about to begin and give rise to amazing and wondrous opportunities. The eventual benefit in all these activities will far exceed any economical value affixed to it and will be a significant innovation in terms of fusing art and information technology."

[Patrick Murphy contributed to this report.]

Harvard Business School recently brought together six influential industry members in the field of massively multiplayer online virtual worlds to conduct a panel on the present and future of a burgeoning market space.

"I'm far from exhausted in the online opportunity," said Mark Kern, who left his tenure as team lead of Blizzard's World of Warcraft to found a new company, Red 5 Studios, dedicated to expanding the genre and market reach. He envisions a future of virtual worlds composed of 'synthesized content', produced by artificially intelligent game design systems which would take an hour of a player's free time and provide them "the ultimate experience catered toward that hour."

Who's Actually Playing?

In the meantime, numbers that he has seen indicate that only about 15 percent of core gamers engage in MMO games and worlds. Philip Rosedale -- founder of Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life -- added that his numbers indicate perhaps only a one percent market penetration in general. In a marketplace that could sustain hundreds of millions of players, current endeavors have only millions.

Philip went on to say that there is "a lot of growth yet to happen. Probably a lot of change, consolidation -- all the companies that you're seeing will probably go through a lot of evolution." Lacking clearly defined guides or genres, it is "not a mature market," and the space is like a vacuum.

The ROI Situation

Regarding the barriers of entry that new MMO developers face, Curt Schilling -- founder of the recently established 38 Studios -- said: "There are a few barriers here, and at the top of the list is going to be, and always will be, money." Few developers are internally funded, and, "when you're sitting in a meeting with venture capitalists, they are... Most of them are about ROI."

The focus on return on investment poses a challenge to new developers in the MMO space, because there is not yet a common-knowledge business model to calculate risk from.

Curt's company, fortunately, is similar to Blizzard in that it is entirely internally funded. "You have to meet deadlines, milestones, you have a budget -- all those things -- but when you can set those on your own, and you are creative, and you have responsibility to your team and to the product. It's different."

Mike Hirshland, of Polaris Venture Partners -- which works closely with Turbine Inc., producers of online renditions of Dungeons & Dragons and Lord of the Rings -- said that Curt's view of VCs is exactly right. "Three letters: R O I." He then shed light on the sort of capital needed for these projects: Large-scale MMO projects to date require three to five years of development time, at a cost of thirty to sixty million dollars to get the title launched, with substantial investments over time in order to regularly introduce fresh content.

To further complicate matters, the primary distribution channel is still in the form of boxed retail. "From a VC perspective," said Hirshland, "thinking about it is tough, challenging."

Where's It All Going?

Mark Kern, whose studios are supported by seventy million dollars in venture capital, noted that these projects are steering closer to Hollywood every day. "There is no possible way that we can do what it is that we want to do cheaper and quicker. VCs have asked us, 'Could you do something that costs a little less and comes out a little quicker?' Yeah we could, but it wouldn't be what we're going to make."

The fluid nature of these games and worlds provides developers -- and investors -- new opportunities to monetize user experiences: Cable internet and television provider, Comcast, likens the amount of time and money players spend in MMO virtual worlds to the amount of time and money spent on premium television channels, or Video On Demand services. In the Asian market, developers of MMO projects in South Korea have honed a system similar to America's highly lucrative ringtone market.

Philip Rosedale expounded on the Korean system: "Anybody know Kart Rider? Kart Rider was really an interesting thing. Korean game, very successful, about 100,000 online at a time. Lightweight -- very lightweight. The company made money by selling stuff that you would attach to your car; what's fascinating is that a lot of the stuff they sold was just cosmetic."

"They actually found that they could drive a hundred million dollar a year business," he noted.

Making Players Count

On the topic of monetizing Second Life, Philip explained that Linden Labs sells virtual land to its users for a standard monthly rate. The cost varies only by virtual acreage, and what players do with the land has no effect on the rate that Linden Labs will charge them. "You've got to use flat fees, you've got to use simple treatments on things."

Second Life's greatest draw for users, however, is the ability to produce and even sell their own content: "The interesting thing about user-generated content is that if there is any impediment to people creating it, they won't." Philip related the unsolved challenges of interface and infrastructure of MMO virtual worlds today to that of web browsers and the state of the internet in years past.

Chris Carella -- CCO of Electric Sheep Company, an advertising firm which focuses on virtual worlds, and has worked with clients ranging from the NBA to MTV -- agreed with this view. Employees of Electric Sheep Company have even gone to the lengths of developing a more browser-like prototype interface for Second Life, to ease ergonomics.

Corey Bridges -- co-founder of Multiverse, with a background in marketing for corporations such as Netscape and NetFlix -- agrees with these sentiments as well, and thinks that "the notion is enabling this entire medium to be opened up. Not by 'somebody made a werewolf suit', but by somebody saying 'oh, here's a new use for virtual worlds', along the lines of wikis, as-such, didn't exist ten years ago."

"The technology could've supported wikis ten years ago," he continued, "but it took some evolution of somebody saying, 'Hey, let's try this.' And then blogs, and podcasting -- these sort of things have come up organically."

A number of of panelists hope to blur the lines between virtual worlds like Multiverse, and the web browser as we know it. Corey's view is that once a platform can be developed which makes experimentation attractive and economically feasible, people will experiment. "And that's where you get real innovation."

Less a matter of 'if', and more a matter of 'when', MMO virtual worlds, the panel concluded, will become the context and interface for hundreds of millions of users, facilitating billions of dollars in transactions.

[The preceding article by Patrick Murphy originally ran at Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra. Thanks to Dan Weis for organizing this panel, Harvard Business School for hosting it, and Dr. Joshua Green for serving as moderator.]

Disney Online recently launched its Pirates of the Caribbean Online game, a world based on the successful film franchise, for both PC and Mac platforms. The pirate-themed world offers quests and adventures, customizable pirate avatars, treasure hunts, and lets players captain their own ship and crew with the aim of becoming the most legendary pirate. Worlds in Motion spoke with vice president Mike Goslin of Disney Online's VR studio about the film extension process.

So far I've heard your current team be referred to as Internet Group, VR Group, and Virtual Studio -- could you tell me what the official title is, and explain what the team's purpose is?

Our internal development team, VR Studio, is part of Disney Online. We have a great team with a keen understanding of MMOGs as well as the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise from our prior work with Walt Disney Imagineering. This team was also responsible for the development of Disney’s Toontown Online and will continue to play a big part in the creation of future Disney virtual worlds.

This is the first time that the Pirates of the Caribbean property has been made into a virtual world; could you describe the process that the studio has taken along the way to creating the new MMO?

Before we started building MMOGs, the VR Studio team worked on virtual reality theme park attractions. In 1999 we developed an attraction for DisneyQuest based on Pirates of the Caribbean that allowed players to sail around in that world sinking ships and gathering treasure. It was a lot of fun and had such strong appeal that when we later got into building MMOGs one of our first pitches was one based on Pirates.

We felt the online medium was a great new way to deliver the kind of experiences we’d been building for the theme parks. In 2000, we pitched the idea of multiple MMOGs, including Pirates of the Caribbean Online. This was before the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but we knew from our DisneyQuest experience that the franchise was popular and that the environment would translate incredibly well into a game.

We were thrilled with the success of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie in 2003 and immediately teamed up with the movie studio to weave characters, stories, creatures, and themes from the films into the game. We have shared everything from art assets to character storylines, and consulted with them during development. At the same time, we’re focused on building a world that can stand on its own with new stories, characters, and environments so fans of the movies can come into the game and live their own adventure.

What were the challenges in translating the Pirates world to a new medium?

Our biggest obstacle was trying to deliver an authentic Pirates of the Caribbean experience in that incredibly detailed and richly textured world while still running on a wide range of PC hardware.

I think the world we ended up with delivers an experience that lives up to the high standards of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The credit goes to our incredibly talented artists who did a lot with a little and our hard-working engineers who spent months and months tuning the engine.

What sort of development tools has the studio used to produce Pirates of the Caribbean Online?

We use a wide range of tools including both commercial modeling and animation software, paint tools, and so on as well as some applications we developed in house, such as our level design and editing tool.

Could you talk about the unique alternate subscription model that has been planned for Pirates of the Caribbean Online?

The game utilizes a hybrid business model, which allows players to scale their engagement. There is a free, ad-supported portion of the game and at any time players have the option to upgrade to an Unlimited Access subscription for a first-month fee of $4.95 and $9.95 for the following months. The Unlimited Access subscription upgrade allows players to unlock expanded features and play in a full screen, completely ad-free environment. Within the ad-supported free portion, ads are in external frames around the game window only and not integrated directly into game play.

We really felt it was important to open the game up to as many players as possible, and this hybrid model really allows us to do that.

A "Lookout" system was implemented, which lets players quickly engage in game activities; would you explain how that feature works?

The Lookout system matches players with activities as well as other players. For example, if you want to find a game of Tortuga Hold-em, you can register with the Lookout system and it will match you with other players and tell you when the game is ready. If you choose to join, you are teleported immediately to the card game so you can get right into the fun. We currently have the Lookout system hooked up to pirate-vs.-pirate (PVP) game types as well as card games.

The overall goal is to not make players walk around looking for something to do or for someone to play with.

What sort of user-generated content and network-building will be available in and around this title?

We allow players to create and run their own guilds, and have provided tools to manage guilds and other game stats via the web.

What lessons have been learned during the development process for Pirates of the Caribbean Online which will carry over into future MMO projects?

Here are some important lessons we learned from our experience developing Toontown Online and Pirates of the Caribbean Online that we will definitely carry over into future projects: Make it easy for players to join their friends; make it easy for players to find and join fun activities; support as low a minimum spec PC as possible, and focus on making the game as fun as possible!

[Patrick Murphy contributed to this report.]

Nexon America plans to hold a Black Friday sale for its most popular MapleStory items, offering a discount for certain Cash Shop items beginning Friday, November 23rd and ending on Sunday, November 25th, to recognize the kickoff of the holiday shopping frenzy in the U.S.

Additionally, certain highly coveted rare items will go on sale in the Cash Shop for exactly one hour during normal sale hours, which seems likely to cause some very Black Friday-esque holiday rushes.

Says Nexon America operations director Min Kim, “Predominantly targeted towards working professionals, teens and tweens have been largely excluded from the shopping craze, save from being dragged to the mall. Holding a Black Friday sale in MapleStory gives both younger and older Nexon fans an opportunity to join in on the fun of shopping and huge sales."

Adding to the excitement generated by MapleStory’s Black Friday sale are special sale hours that will provide one immensely popular item for exactly one hour during normal sale hours. The restricted sale items are to include best-sellers that usually fetch a high price at once-a-year discounts. Needless to say, Black Friday is highly anticipated by both Nexon America and its users.

Nexon America is clearly staying busy this holiday season in an effort to continue bringing the best of online entertainment to its users. Bringing the craze known as Black Friday into MapleStory further maintains its reputation for the highest quality events and promotions. For more information regarding MapleStory events and promotions, log onto http://maplestory.nexon.net.

Nexon America Inc. is the North American publishing arm of Nexon Group, a pioneer of interactive entertainment software and the world's leader in massively multiplayer online games. Based in Los Angeles , Nexon America was founded in 2005 to bring the best of online entertainment to the North American audience. The company's growing library of titles includes the world famous franchise MapleStory, the online multiplayer dance game, Audition, and the new online racing sensation KartRider. The foundation of all Nexon America titles is the Item Selling business model, in which users access the full game for free and can later opt to pay for game enhancement

Isometric 3D social virtual community Taatu has been out in France, Belgium and the Netherlands since 2005, and they've recently announced an English-language beta. TAATU CEO Philippe Moitroux said that his experiences at the October Virtual Worlds Forum in London helped him realize online worlds had become mainstream enough to expand further.

Taatu is free to access from any web browser with Flash on-board, members get customizable avatars and a free virtual apartment they can customize. Users can share media experiences, play casual games and socialize, even across cultures -- English beta users, for example, can meet users of the French or Dutch communities.

Taatu's core audience is young people aged 10 to 19, and according to the company, 49 percent are male users and 51 percent are female, who spend on average two and a half hours in Taatu every week and visit the site twice daily.

It looks quite a great deal like Habbo Hotel, with the isometric looks, the continentally hip sprites and the lego-like world -- actually, the resemblance is pretty startling!

The 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards, the highest honors in game development acknowledging excellence in game design, will return to San Francisco for a second consecutive year on Wednesday, February 20.

Presented by CMP Technology’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) and Worlds in Motion's Webby-award winning big sister Gamasutra.com, this year’s awards feature several new categories.

Two of these - the Ambassador Award and the Pioneer Award - are now open for nominations from qualified game professionals. Nominations are also now open for the Lifetime Achievement Award - all three are available for voting on after logging on with your main Gamasutra.com user ID.

The awards ceremony, held in conjunction with the Independent Games Festival, will be hosted during GDC 2008 in the Esplanade Room in the South Hall of San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

Special Awards Overview

The three special awards now open for nominations honor individuals whose achievements have made an impact on games and the game community as a whole, and not necessarily only over the past year.

The Ambassador Award honors an individual (or group of individuals) who has helped the game industry advance to a better place, either through facilitating a better game community from within, or by reaching outside the industry to be an advocate for video games to help further the art.

The Pioneer Award celebrates those individuals who developed a breakthrough technology, game concept or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history, paving the way for the myriad developers who followed them. The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the career and achievements of a developer who has made an indelible impact on the craft of game development.

Awards Advisory Committee

The Game Developers Choice Awards voting process is overseen by the editors of Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra.com, the leading media outlets for game industry professionals. All game professionals with a Gamasutra.com user account will be able to nominate and vote in the 2008 Choice Awards.

In addition, for the purposes of picking recipients of the Ambassador, Pioneer and Lifetime Achievement Awards following the public nominations, and to help adjudicate on the awards process in general, the editors of both outlets have set up an Advisory Committee of distinguished industry veterans.

They are: Bob Rafei (Naughty Dog), Brian Reynolds (Big Huge Games), Mark Cerny (Cerny Games), John Vechey (PopCap), Susan O'Connor (Susan O'Connor Writing Studio), Raph Koster (Areae), Julien Merceron (Eidos), Hal Barwood (Finite Arts), Clinton Keith (High Moon Studios), Ryan Lesser (Harmonix), Clint Hocking (Ubisoft) and Tommy Tallarico (Video Games Live).

Regular Awards Overview

In addition to the Ambassador, Pioneer and Lifetime Achievement Awards, Choice Awards will be given in the following categories:

• Best Audio
• Best Game Design
• Best Technology
• Best Visual Arts
• Best Writing
• Best Debut Game
• Best Downloadable Game
• Best Handheld Game
• Innovation
• Game of the Year

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At MIT’s Futures of Entertainment 2 conference, also covered by Gamasutra earlier this week, a panel of experts discussed the hot topic of user generated content and “fan labor”: how to foster it, how to monetize it, and what a company owes the fans in return.

But the discussion quickly spread to the question of what divides a fan from a professional content creator? And does money get in the way of true fandom?

Game designer Raph Koster of Areae, Inc. sat on a panel with fan fiction researcher Catherine Tosenberger; Jordan Greenhall, CEO of DivX, Inc.; Elizabeth Osder, senior vice-president of audience for Buzznet.com; and Mark Deuze, professor at Indiana University and author of Media Work.

The panel, aimed at media professionals and scholars, took place at the second Futures of Entertainment conference in Cambridge, Mass., which was cohosted by MIT’s Comparative Media Studies and the Convergence Culture Consortium. Henry Jenkins, the Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program, moderated the discussion.

Inviting the audience to express itself on your site is a keystone of web 2.0 businesses. As Deuze said, “There isn’t a media company in the news industry or games industry or in advertising right now anymore that isn’t talking one way or the other about, ‘What are we going to do with the co-creating consumer?’”

“It’s definitely been a big year of upheaval, and a year when web 2.0 consumers figured out that quite a lot of web 2.0 is built on gypping people out of stuff they made,” said Koster.

But he added, “It’s actually that sense of, ‘Well, I deserve something back from what I’ve done’ that causes most of the problems. Because historically, in every artistic field, artists starved to death until about 1890. So in some ways, the whole idea of creative content being something that earns money for ordinary people is kind of historically bizarre.”

“You’ve got this natural spectrum between pros and amateurs, but in some sense there’s another oblique dimension, which is the degree to which the individual who created content is creating it to maximize return,” said Greenhall. “Intuitively? As soon as you add dough to the equation, things get bad real quick.”

Several of the panelists argued that fans don’t want money, so much as the freedom to create without interference.

As Deuze said, “The basic social contract [between producers and consumers] consists of two values: leave me alone, I want to be able to do what I want to do; but acknowledge what I’m doing. And those are the two values that drive a lot of creative work, whether you’re a professional or a fan.”

Tosenberger agreed, saying that the writers of fan fiction don’t expect to influence or collaborate with the owners of a property. Describing the perspective of a fan fiction writer, she said, “The canon is your space. Fandom is our space. You do whatever you want, and we’ll respond to it any way we want, and you stay out.”

She explained, “A lot of the reason [that] fans write fan fiction or create fan videos or whatever, is to be outside this commercial milieu. Once you bring money into it, once you get the media companies setting up spaces, setting up clubhouses, etc., it brings in the idea of control. Who’s going to be allowed into this clubhouse? Only the people who are producing what’ll make the media company happy?” The companies also have to ask, “Which participatory fans do you want? The fans who are writing nice little fiction about Claire discovering her powers on Heroes? Or do you want people writing slash fic?”

While many fans don’t look for approval or compensation, some turn their work into a career in the media industry. As Osder said, “Web 2.0 is like the greatest farm team there ever was. There’s so much talent out there that couldn’t break through, that couldn’t be found.”

Deuze observed, “In the game industry, it’s common sense that if you want to get a job at a good company, the best thing you can do for yourself is to mod.” Deuze also observed that even after they go professional, “Most people who actually work in the media – the creative people, game developers – [do it] primarily because they’re fans. That’s their motivation.”

But for all the reasons that web 2.0 companies encourage fan talent and user participation, as Koster observed, they’re not after great content: fundamentally, they want metadata.

He concluded: “They invite the participation so they can measure it. The web is a database. [Users] add to the database. The content is there so we can watch people skittering across it."

[The preceding article by Chris Dahlen originally ran at Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]