We recently announced that MapleStory in the U.S. held an in-game event based on the cultural phenomenon of the Black Friday shopping day, and now MapleStory Europe has announced its own in-game events for the winter. MapleStory Europe has added new items to its Cash Shop, and additionally, will now offer a new Japanese-themed area, the Mushroom Shrine.

Notable are the "My Boyfriend" and "My Girlfriend" effect items now for sale in the cash shop. When equipped, a pointer will float over a character's head to indicate that the avatar alongside them is their in-game relationship partner. MapleStory provides a means for characters to marry, with the ceremonies and requirements differing culturally depending on the game's region, and relationships between characters are a big part of the MapleStory social environment.

The Cash Shop also adds a "Mushroom House Elf," a character who will mind a player's Free Market store when they're offline, and an item called the Water of Life, which will resurrect pets who have passed on for another 90 days.

Calvin Yoo, director of International Business Development at Nexon Europe, commented, “Innovative new items to the Cash Shop such as the My Boyfriend and My Girlfriend accessories help to capture players’ imagination and build in-game communities while new areas like The Mushroom Shrine add exciting new challenges that really keep people’s interest. Rest assured, we’ve got lots more great updates like these on the way."

GuildCafe Entertainment, developer of the GuildCafe.com social gaming platform, has announced that it has acquired the Uberguilds game community network. GuildCafe will now use the Uberguilds Network to build its Alliance Program, which will enable independent websites to integrate with GuildCafe's social gaming platform. Uberguilds founder and CEO John Findlay will become the new program's general manager.

The program provides hosting for guild sites and online gaming communities, essentially allowing user-generated content relating to online worlds to be part of the same network. It's aimed both at fostering a broader community and promoting gaming while opposing activities like unendorsed gold-selling.

GuildCafe CEO Jon Radoff said, "We began working with Uberguilds earlier this year and became impressed with the enthusiasm of their community. The feedback from their players has been invaluable in improving our social gaming platform—and their participation will help us make our player recruiting, matchmaking and strategy-sharing applications the standard for the gaming world."

ZDNet has an interesting report from the recent Gartner Symposium, where it was discussed that virtual worlds are actually driving overall e-commerce growth. Gartner VP Andy Kyte led the discussion, and noted that the cost of processing cash in Asian countries like Singapore is ever on the rise, sometimes tacking up to five percent more onto the cost of goods simply to fund those processing and payment systems.

A solution in this case is electronic currency, and virtual economies have been following this model for some time. Singapore actually decided to create its own electronic currency, to be called Singapore Electronic Legal Tender (Selt), and according to Kyte, this will go live by the end of 2008. And like the microtransactions trend in online gaming that originated in Asia before finding broader success globally, the adoption of Selt could have big implications for the rest of the world, too. "Lots of countries in the world are looking very, very closely at what is happening in Singapore," said Kyte.

The general success of concepts like Second Life's Linden Dollar are helping demonstrate that electronic currency is possible, thereby driving the push for electronic currency adoption, said Kyte -- though he notes that not all the kinks have been worked out, such as the security and taxation issues that surround online currencies. But once these are worked out, said Kyte, "it will only be a matter of convincing consumers of the technology."

Kyte expects many further ideas to solidify out of the current climate of new ideas and experimentation in the virtual worlds space, and notes that banks might lose out unless they find a way to get in step with the trend.

[Via ZDNet]

In the very earliest stages of virtual world adoption (which some may argue we're still in), pioneers envisioned an online 3D mall, where users could shop online in a virtual mall the same way they would in a real one. The logic behind 3D malls was sound -- users love shopping online because it's fast and easy, right? And users love new technology and immersive experiences, right? And yet, as ClickZ's Sean Carton points out in a recent, entertaining piece, 3D malls ended up becoming the poster child for why not everything needs to be a 3D-space, as "people finally realized online shopping would be about building mega-brands with features that facilitate online shopping (see Amazon), not repurposing real-world metaphors in cyberspace."

Nonetheless, Carton has noticed new 3D malls popping up around the online world. Blame an increased focus on retail and consumer spending during the holiday season, perhaps, or a climate of retailer anxiety in the U.S. at present amid a slumping dollar and the look of decreasing consumer confidence. The mall tends to be the first line of battle for this sort of situation, so perhaps the resurgence is coming from there. This issue is particularly worth considering on this "Cyber Monday," a day apparently created from retailer buzz in order to encourage folks to do their holiday shopping online following the Thanksgiving shopping weekend.

The virtual malls Carton noticed are called Kinset and The Mall Plus, both of which demonstrate faintly awkward 3D graphics and promise "immersive online shopping" and a "3D shopping experience." But we're inclined to agree with Carton when he says:

"While shiny graphics and breathless press releases are powerful influencers (not to mention well-funded tradeshow booths and savvy sales folks), one thing that's been proven time and again on the Internet is the stuff that works best online is the stuff that can only happen online. EBay couldn't happen in the real world. Neither could Amazon, Google, Webkinz, or other top online brands. What works best on the Web is what works best on the Web."

[Via ClickZ]

We know now that there are plenty of security issues surrounding virtual worlds, and now digital security giant and Norton software developer Symantec's Wayne Perriman has named them among its top security threats for 2008, according to eChannelline's Vanessa Ho:

Like McAfee reported in their 2008 trend report, persistent virtual worlds and massively multiplayer online games are becoming increasingly attractive to new threats with criminals, phishers, spammers and others as they turn their attention to these new communities. "There is virtual money associated with some of these communities," noted Periman.

Periman said that the real trend, which emerged in 2007 and would continue in 2008, is the overall commercialization of attacks. "It is no longer about going on the Internet and bad guys trying to make a name for themselves by demonstrating their expertise to anyone but the crime game."

The Korea Times is reporting that NCsoft's game business may be waning a bit, leading the largest online game company in Korea to turn towards non-gaming internet services. This year, the company has released four different social networking services from its in-house studio, Openmaru.

Two of the services, MyIDnet and Life Pod are personal data and scheduling programs, while NCsoft's Spring Note and Rolling List are social networking platforms. The company is also reported to be exploring the ISP arena, eyeing a place to break in between dominant regional portal operators.

NCsoft's sales reached 161 billion won ($175 million) primarily driven by its most popular MMOs, Lineage and Lineage 2, which have earned the company a combined 1.5 trillion won ($1.6 billion) since 1997. But those games are reported to be losing subscribers, with a 16 percent drop in Lineage revenues in NCsoft's fiscal second quarter.

PC games, ``Lineage'' and ``Lineage II.'' Both have earned the company more than 1.5 trillion won since 1997, but are gradually losing subscribers. In the second quarter alone, its revenue fell by 16 percent.

Additionally, the company's latest U.S. product, Tabula Rasa, spearheaded by renowned Ultima developer Richard "Lord British" Garriott, has apparently not been performing to the company's expectations amid mixed reception from players and game critics. According to the Korea Times, NCsoft will continue to monitor U.S. sales despite "ups and downs."

Despite this evidence, an NCsoft spokesperson apparently denied the shift in stance to the Korea times, stressing that games are the company's main business, the source of 100 percent of its sales.

[Via Korea Times]

Microsoft has confirmed that the Fall version of its Dashboard update for Xbox 360 will take place on December 4th, enabling users to view the friends lists of other Xbox Live members directly from the Dashboard and send messages, game invites and compare games and achievements.

The company noted that the prevalence of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook has created an expectation from consumers for these kinds of features in an online community.

When the Fall Dashboard update is distributed, the new default setting on Xbox Live will be active, so that members may view the friends lists of other Xbox Live members immediately. Microsoft says that members may keep their lists private by changing their settings ahead of the update.

Members 18 and older may elect to make their list viewable by anyone, members 13 and olders may select friends only, and all members may block their friends list from view by anyone. Microsoft says that more information about the Fall Dashboard update will be released later this month.

CBC News has an article about some research currently going on at Japan's Tokyo University experimenting with enabling avatar control in Second Life using one's own body and brain waves. Apparently, the research subjects work on a colored mat in front of a web camera so that the subject's position can be calculated in three dimensions, and the result fed back into the virtual world to create corresponding movement with the avatar.

Keyboard controls in general are usually a barrier to entry -- learning the controls made our acclimation to Entropia Universe challenging, for example -- so seeking a more naturalistic, motion-based control scheme is definitely a right-track kind of idea. But would people really want to strap a webcam to their hip and walk around on a mat when they want to visit their favorite virtual world? Adding extra steps and peripherals seems counter-productive to reducing barriers to entry.

But at another Japanese university, Keio University (also in Tokyo), another research team is reportedly taking a different tack. With electrodes strapped to the head, subjects can move their avatar simply by thinking of commands like "left" or "forward." But according to the article, there are some difficulties with this method:

"The difficult part is to stop thinking," said research student Takashi Ono as he made his avatar stroll through a virtual Tokyo neighborhood in Second Life.

"I want to go left, so I think, 'left' — but then the avatar turns too far to the left before I can get rid of the command in my head," he said.

The research team isn't planning to commercialize their technology, although they're seeking to patent it, and the use they've got in mind -- video games -- seems as if it might have a bit more potential than to navigate virtual worlds, where we're stressing ease of use and simple, universal methods of access.

[Via CBC.ca]

While the success of Facebook as a social networking platform has brought a lot of attention to its embedded game-like apps, and generated many parallels between advanced social networking behavior online and gaming, it's also made a lot of veteran fans of actual online games scratch their head a bit at calling, for example, vampire-biting your Facebook friends a "game."

The always-on-point Aleks Krotoski of the Guardian has an analysis of this phenomenon, and where Facebook games can begin to make a clear-cut entry into the virtual worlds space:

But back to Facebook. The social network site's commercial gaming apps aren't nearly as integrated as they could be. Most of them are the offshoot of game cultures, the ludic spray that fans bring to a different location than the game world. Today, the location of these playful activities happens to be Facebook. A few years ago it was an enormous library of self-published websites.

So what's out there that's attempted to be more than just another fan community? WowKon, a Facebook app that displays the latest World of Warcraft gaming news on your profile, is an example. Second Life Link app, which shows off your SL avatar to your Facebook mates. There are others, but as Raph explains, not very many people are using 'em. Sure, they support social interaction, but they do nothing to support the activities back in the game world. They are, simply, fan solutions. That's nowhere near as interesting as what was possible with the Dreamcast's interactive memory card (the dearly missed VMU).

What is perhaps a bit more food for thought is this: why bring a virtual world to Facebook as a small embeddable? Why not do the reverse, incorporate more advanced social networking tools into online social spaces? That option would seem to offer the most flexibility for the best of both worlds.

Recently, we reported that SparkPlay Media added a former Warner Bros. exec, Rick Senat, to its advisory board, and were slightly confused at the comment from Matt Mihaly of MUD-master Iron Realms as "SparkPlay CEO." Then, we caught up with Mihaly's blog, The Forge, and properly learned ourselves that Iron Realms has quietly spun off a separate subdivision called Sparkplay Media, and that the new division's first property, Earth Eternal is a browser-based, free-to-play MMO.

At The Forge, Mihaly confirms what Worlds in Motion suspected when we heard of Senat's appointment: "it’s fair to say that his mainstream media history speaks to our long-term ambitions."

Continues Mihaly:

"We have very definite ideas on how online gaming in general (from MMOs to casual) will evolve and we think what we’re planning strongly addresses that future. I’m looking forward to talking about what we’re up to, and in any case my strong suspicion is that we’re going to see a lot of groups planning similar strategies in the next 6-12 months, because our plans do not require a leap of genius to get to. It’s just a natural evolution for the industry, whether we’re the ones to execute first on it or not."

Congrats on the new project, guys!

Iceland-based CCP has announced that its massive "Trinity" graphical upgrade to EVE Online will be available as a free download on December 5th, 2007. Along with the announcement, the company also revealed that 200,000 users now subscribe to the EVE universe, which features a player-run economy and a single-shard server.

CCP explains it has developed a new graphics engine, and in this first showcase, all ships, stations and stargates have been reconstructed to appear more realistic through the use of advanced lighting techniques.

Said Hilmar Petursson, CCP CEO, “EVE Online players always inspire and amaze everyone at CCP, and it is invigorating to see our subscription numbers surpass 200,000 as we prepare for the Trinity release. We’re pleased that advances in graphics technology allow us to present the world of EVE Online as we had always envisioned it. We look forward to sharing the Trinity edition with the fast-growing, dedicated community that shares our passion to remove the barriers that constrain virtual worlds from meeting their full potential.”

Cookie Jar Entertainment has announced that an online RPG world based on its animated television series Magi-Nation, which currently airs Kids’ WB on the CW and CBC (Canada), will enter beta testing in December,

Cookie Jar says its entertainment strategy involves "reaching kids wherever they are, be it via through television, consumer products or online worlds." The online RPG, called Magi-Nation: Battle for the Moonlands is a free-to-play, web-based game that incorporates a micropayment model. Additionally, the company says "consumer products" will also be integrated into the online world starting in 2008.

The TV show follows the adventures of 15-year-old Tony Jones, an average teen from Earth who finds himself transported to the magical world of Magi-Nation, where friends and creatures join him to solve riddles, battle evil and discover the secrets hidden in each region of the Moonlands.

Kenneth Locker, SVP of digital media for Cookie Jar, said, “We are thrilled to be working on such an ambitious undertaking as Magi-Nation: Battle for the Moonlands and can’t wait to bring the Magi-Nation online entertainment package to our fans. Our young viewers are extremely Internet-savvy and routinely monitor their TV shows online. With this project we will extend that connection and enable players to have a fully interactive experience with their favorite characters in one of their favorite worlds.”

Worlds in Motion's big sister, Gamasutra, has been covering the interesting lectures out of the Montreal Games Summit, and this session saw veteran developer David Perry describing how what was supposed to be a year off turned into a 12-month crash course in the merits of the free-to-play business model in online spaces. In this excerpt from the full lecture coverage, Perry discusses what he learned.

Entering The World Of Free-To-Play

Perry recalled getting in touch in touch with a man named Howard Marks. He explains, "He bought Activision with Bobby Kotick, and this was when Activision was totally destroyed. They bet the farm on CD-ROM, and this was at a time when cartridges were the main way to sell games- but it paid off. He’s just bought Acclaim and is betting the farm on free-to-play games. Now, people who bet the farm are impressive to me.”

Perry said that free-to-play games are a concept they decided to look at because they were a major way to play games in China and the rest of Asia, and China's game industry is growing faster and faster and catching up on the US. So he decided to go to China to check out the game development community and visit the China Joy Expo.

“It’s an anything goes-atmosphere," he said, showing images of people selling luggage on the show floor to demonstrate. Next, he showed a picture of Chinese clowns at the Expo. "When then I saw those clowns, I felt real sorry for them, because I remembered those days."

He went to see a company and give a talk, and he showed an image of him with the entire staff, all of them staring at the camera rather intensely. "See how all of these people are looking at you?" Perry pointed out. "They really are looking at you. They’re watching everything you do, and playing every game you make, and they’re analyzing it and learning from it. It’s actually a little spooky.”

He then went on to describe his work with Nexon's Korea-based dancing MMO Audition, and how he became interested in it and interested in localizing it for the US. After speaking with the developers and giving them some hints and tips, he suddenly ended up with them asking him to take control of 3 MMO teams in China.

Putting More On The Plate

Perry continued, "So suddenly, remembering this is my year off, I suddenly have 3 fully-funded MMO teams in China. And I don’t speak any Chinese, so thank God for their producers!”

He described some of the interesting things they do in the game to build community, such as “punishments” for losing. Losers, for example, might have to wear panda suits. “Now, you’d think what the hell is that, we have to get that out of the game for America," says Perry. "But the thing is that it works as an ice breaker – it makes people start conversations and laugh about it together.”

He described how in the game, people can become couples, enter couples competitions and even have virtual marriages which could lead to virtual divorce.“We have teenagers getting 'divorced!'" Exclaimed Perry. "It’s crazy! The big question is, will it work in the U.S., though? I have no idea.”

He discussed some complicated licensing issues. "In China they don’t care about copyright," he explained. And the team ended up doing a deal with Warner music group. “It’s an example of the new relationships that we are forming now that are trying to push free-to-play forward," Perry noted.

Perry moved on to discuss Seoul and the Gstar expo. “compared to China Joy it’s a little more sedated, but it’s pretty similar.” He showed an image of a girl in a padlocked cage, with attendees doing push-ups to win the girl, and “Korean developer speed dating” where one can meet developers and be shown their game in a kind of speed-dating setting -- lots of small, two-person tables with laptops, he explained.

He talked about going to visit GameHi because he liked the look of an FPS they had, Sudden Attack -- "and they had this MMORPG that I liked the look of, and so suddenly, boom! I had another MMO! it was called Dekaron, and it had this Korean story which we rewrote entirely – a 4000 page story - and called it 2Moons, and released it in the USA for free. And most importantly, it had no development cost. The game immediately charted and it’s only in beta! It charted higher than Lord of the Rings Online.”

Monetizing Free Games

“In-game advertising is something that they don’t find very interesting over there, but here it’s different,” Perry continued. He discussed how he went to a Raiders game at McAfee Coliseum and how the stadium was covered in billboards and other advertising around the field.

“Players will have no problem with advertising if you don’t charge full price for your game and then include a little bit of paper that tells people that you’re sending their IP address to agencies and cover the game in adverts," Perry joked, referring to player backlash over Battlefield 2142.

Another condition required for players to accept in-game ads is that you: "Don’t delay or interrupt the gamer at any time with advertising, or require them to click anything to get rid of it," cautioned Perry. And finally, he advised, "Give them something valuable in return - obviously a free game is great. Make advertising an exchange."

He concluded, "If you compare this to TV, TV fails on every point. That’s why TV is dying and we’re going to kick TV’s butt."

The Evolution Of In-Game Ads And Item Sales

He then discussed how in-game advertising has evolved from banners and static billboards into advertisements interwoven with the story, and noted that they take great pains to offer optional advertising that the player can turn off. “We want to say that our game is totally free, so players can turn it off - but gamers who turn it on receive an XP boost," explained Perry. "96 percent of gamers want the experience boost.”

Perry also highlighted four key points regarding item sales. Firstly, don't charge too much. Secondly, don't upset the game balance -- in other words, don't make winning something that can be bought. Third, don't take what Perry calls "the velvet rope" approach, by disabling the fun parts and making players pay to unlock them. And finally, don't allow hackers, bots or fraud to devalue everything.

"In 2Moons we actually have a jail, so you can walk by and actually see the bots in jail,” Perry said.

He then discussed ideas for selling items, and noted, “The point is that you might not like any of these, and think they suck, but these are all ideas that are being experimented with. It really it is the Wild West.”

Going Down The Wrong Road?

Perry expressed that the rising cost of games is a move in the wrong direction. “There is a growing wall in front of poor gamers, and every year we place another line of bricks on the top of the wall to make it harder for them,” he said. But wealthy gamers want the full experience and money, so how about flexible pricing?

According to Perry, the only truly honest model for games is "crappy games = zero sales." He added that: “As long as the free games from China stay bad, then there’s no problem, but if they start to get it right -- create an Assassin’s Creed, a Mass Effect, a Super Mario Galaxy -- and for free, then we’re going to be in real trouble.”

Perry said he has no idea why he hasn't self-destructed after his busy year, but offers a few suggestions: "Every day make sure you’re doing something to grow your career. And if you have time -- you won’t think you have time, but you can make time -- try to pay something back into the industry.”

In answering questions, he noted that Chinese companies were worth billions of dollars, and could lead to a lot of disruption: "You should not be surprised if Epic or someone gets bought by a Chinese company," he cautioned. "And how would you feel if that would happen? I’m not trying to be all doom and gloom, but there is a lot of disruption is possible.”

Also in response to a question from the audience, he made a response to Jonathan Blow’s ethical questions about MMOs. "It’s hard to argue with free," Perry said, "People saying, 'I’m not paying for this unless I love it.'”

Concluded Perry, “After 25 years in the business, I’m stunned as to how wide-open this business still is. There are so many creative ways to still make a difference.”

[The preceding exerpt, with contribution by Mathew Kumar, originally ran at Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Casual game developer and distributor Big Fish Games has announced its acquisition of Thinglefin, an MMO developer founded by design and infrastructure vets who worked on The Matrix Online and Asheron's Call.

Earlier this year, Thinglefin announced it had completed a Series A financing round led by California Technology Ventures to self-fund development of its free-to-play, browser-based MMO.

At the time, founder Toby Ragaini, lead designer for Matrix Online and Asheron's Call, said Thinglefin is developing a casual game -- meaning accessibility, as Ragaini explained, "Accessible refers to the fact that you don’t need to purchase, download, or install any software. You can play it in a browser whenever you’re interested enough to come check it out."

Thinglefin co-founders Jeremy Friesen and Ryan O'Rourke, who worked on MMOs for Monolith and Sony Online Entertainment, will join Ragaini and a fourth Thinglefin employee at Big Fish Games.

Big Fish Games President and CEO Jeremy Lewis commented, “The Thinglefin team and product vision are best in class among emerging MMOs. Toby and his colleagues fit incredibly well within our ecosystem of creative freedom and forward thinking innovation, and they represent an important part of our long term strategy.”

Next-gen console game and virtual world development company Trilogy Studios has announced that former Sega of America and SCEA president Bernard Stolar has joined Trilogy's board of advisors. Along with the announcement, Trilogy also launched a website to debut its product line of virtual worlds and casual MMOs. Currently on display is There.com, Virtual Sports Network, its Virtual Pimp My Ride world for vMTV, and a futuristic world called Daybreakers.

Trilogy aims to combine game-like content and social networking with extensions of popular brands to enable media companies to monetize their content in online worlds through avenues like microtransactions, sponsorship and advertising, and says it will allocate the funds to expand the company's virtual world and casual MMO business.

The company 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. The appointment of Stolar comes on the heels of Trilogy's latest completed funding round, in which it raised $3.2 million dollars from There.com investor Chichen Itza ventures.

Stolar began in the industry over 30 years ago with various roles Atari, leading to his installment as SCEA's first president. He left SCEA to helm Sega of America, where he managed the Sega Saturn and launched the Dreamcast platform. He has additionally held positions at Mattel Interactive, Bam! Entertainment and Adscape Media, and is currently the chairman of the board and lead director at mobile media content provider Oasys Mobile, Inc.

Said Stolar, “Michael Pole and I have collaborated on a number of successful game projects over the years, and I view him as one of the most creative and forward-thinking people I’ve ever worked with. I trust in Michael’s vision, so when he asked me to join him in this emerging space, I was thrilled.”

A California-based company called Pure Verticals is developing a product it calls MUGC -- which stands for Monetizing User-Generated Content, and they've announced they're seeking to have it patented. It also plans to showcase the tech by Q1 2008 with a new website.

So what is it, exactly? It's a platform, that much is clear from the announcement -- and it promises to enable any virtual community or social network to offer its members control over how product placements and ads integrate with member content. As opposed to providing ad space alongside content for ads generated automatically or by a third party, users can select the products to promote and apparently tailor how the ads are displayed.

It also incorporates feedback and "reputation management features" designed to help user-generated content consumers decide whom to trust. Says the company, "MUGC users and the users of their content will no longer think of advertising, but of communities sharing important information about products and services that enrich their lives."

The company also says MUGC integrates proprietary page code with a kind of online shopping cart. Pure Verticals co-founder and COO Theresa Klinger explains, "The vast majority of social network sites do not provide their members shopping services, yet they have a clear need to buy and are only a click away. Ninety percent of the typical horizontal social network is comprised of interest groups, such as do-it-yourself, cooking, and travel."

She continued, "These members buy group-related products from other sites or off-line because they are not offered the opportunity to purchase within the social network site. It’s widely known that users will choose to buy products recommended by fellow consumers/members – so the ability to purchase right from the UGC offering the endorsement is a powerful – and completely missed – opportunity. Vertical networks are larger versions of these horizontal social network groups, but with the ability to deliver specialized services for their niche industries."

Explained Klinger, "The MUGC shopping cart allows any number of merchants to sell their products. While site operators will benefit from having many merchants participate, brand specific social networks may opt to act as the sole merchant."

Recently, we discussed the merger of social networks with virtual worlds, amid some buzz generated by ActiveWorlds' embeddable Facebook app. Now we look at the enterprise side of the issue, as eWeek has an in-depth article on the phenomenon, discussing some ways that big players are getting on the train.

One example is IBM's work integrating virtual reality tech into its Lotus Connections social computing software, a combination that might allow avatars to pull info from the user's Lotus Connections profile, like their professional background, skills, interests and recent projects, or even showing user info, opinion or expressions on in-world billboards where that avatar is present. In another example cited by the article, an avatar might enter a virtual library and be able to access their social bookmarks through a card catalog.

IBM VP of social computing Jeff Schick told eWeek the company's been wondering what a bookmarking service like del.icio.us might look like in 3D. IBM's not yet announced any official launch dates for concrete products along these lines, though.

The article notes another company, Unisfair, who is also working to incorporate social networking features into virtual conferences, to help skip the often-awkward process whereby avatars exchange contact info by typing it; instead, the contact info from a user's social networking profile could be automatically integrated with the virtual world.

The article also covers non-enterprise approaches to this issue, such as Second Life Link, the recently-launched Facebook app that lets users network with their Second Life friends, and says that these kinds of mergers are the key to making virtual worlds a mainstream phenomenon.

[The Mashing of Virtual Reality, Social Computing - eWeek]

Nexon and 7-Eleven have partnered to promote Nexon Game Cards in 7-11 stores. Sold in denominations of $10 and $25, the prepaid cards can be redeemed for in-game virtual items and accessories within Nexon's MapleStory, Audition and KartRider worlds.

7-Eleven and Nexon worked with InComm, a technology firm that develops, markets and distributes stored-value gift and prepaid products, to add the Nexon gift cards to 7-Eleven’s retail offering. Additionally, a 7-Eleven store and employee will appear in the MapleStory world, marking an entry for the convenience store into the virtual worlds space.

7-Eleven senior product director for business development and services Brad Haga said, "We have a great assortment of prepaid cards and now we have one especially for ‘tweens and teens who are the biggest fans of these online games. They’re perfect for young people on a budget and should appeal to the Slurpee-beverage crowd.”

C21 Media is reporting that Disney's getting set for a British version of Club Penguin to roll out by the middle of next year. Right now, the company is focusing its recruitment efforts on Brighton, England, the seat of its first localized version of the Club Penguin service.

Apparently, new hires will take a trip to Kelowna, British Columbia, the original Club Penguin HQ, for hands-on training prior to the UK launch. Disney famously picked up the successful kids' world earlier this year in a deal that may turn out to be worth up to $700 million.

Said senior VP of Disney's Internet Group Cindy Rose, "Club Penguin has already attracted a significant audience in the UK with its North American service, but we believe there is a real demand in this market for a safe online community destination for children that has local relevance," said Walt Disney Internet Group."

CMP’s Game Developers Conference, the world’s largest industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of interactive entertainment, has revealed session details for its newly-expanded lineup of single-track summits that take a closer look at the industry’s emerging trends.

Information on the content for the Casual Games Summit, the Independent Games Summit, the Serious Games Summit and, new for 2008, the Game Outsourcing Summit, the Worlds in Motion Summit, and the IGDA Education Summit is now available online at the GDC 2008 Summits webpage.

GDC (operated by CMP, as is Gamasutra) returns to San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center February 18-22, 2008, with the summits taking place the first two days of the conference.

The six focused summits at GDC08 are designed to foster and facilitate community-building within emerging influential sectors of the game industry:

The Casual Games Summit aims to present a global vision of the key forces driving the sector’s growth, with sessions including a discussion with Rebel Monkey’s Nick Fortugno and Joju Games’ Juan Gril about the key innovations of 2007, “The Year in Casual Game Design,“ and a talk about the rising variety of markets for casual games with rmbr.com’s Gabe Zichermann entitled “The New Demographics of Casual Games.”

The IGDA’s Education Summit is the only two-track summit, with one track aimed at novice educators just entering the game education genre, the second for more experienced educators looking for additional teaching tools. The summit features keynotes by the International Hobo Design Group’s Ernest Adams and by Persuasive Games’ Ian Bogost.

The Independent Games Summit aims to help all independent developers think about the critical needs for launching and marketing a game from game design to distribution methods to guerilla marketing concepts. Sessions include a sit-down with 2007 IGF Grand Prize winners Bit Blot (Alec Holowka and Derek Yu) discussing the development of their award-winning Aquaria, and a postmortem with Q Games’ Dylan Cuthbert on the PixelJunk series for the PlayStation 3.

The returning Serious Games Summit continues to lead the dialogue for the rapidly-growing sector that features use of interactive games technology for non-entertainment purposes. One highlight of this year’s summit finds Ben Sawyer of DigitalMill and Peter Smith of the University of Florida presenting “Serious Games Taxonomy,” aiming to develop a stronger definition of the entire field of serious games, including categorization and specific labeling within the large gamut of activity. Another session highlight spotlights Robert J. Stone of Human Factors Integration Defense Technology Center, Stephane de Buttet of Agence Rhône-Alpes Numérique - Lyon Game, and Jim Parker from University of Calgary/CPSC presenting their "Serious Game World Report".

The Worlds in Motion Summit, launching at GDC08, will explore the cross section between gaming and interactive networking tools like online worlds, player-generated content, social networking and general personalization. Highlights include SOE veteran, Areae co-founder and noted industry figure Raph Koster discussing the ways virtual worlds are increasingly relevant to the ways we play, and a discussion with Relic Labs’ Adrian Crook on the free-to-play business model and how it is evolving the face of online play.

The new-to-2008 Game Outsourcing Summit, incubated with GDC’s successful standalone summit in Los Angeles in 2006, was created for those industry professionals looking to increase development resource awareness, expand their knowledge of the outsourcing sector, hone existing relationships and establish new partnerships. The content for this summit, to be available at gdconf.com soon, will offer in-depth business-oriented seminars supported by research and market analysis from every region in the world. Speaker highlights include Xin Chung, founder, and Steve Gray, CTO and executive producer, of Shanghai-based Vykarian, as well a talk from Aaron Pulkka, senior director of outsourcing at Vivendi Games.

“The game industry is experiencing radical change and growth in several key sectors at once, so we at GDC are actively adapting our previously tutorial-oriented pre-conference schedule to feature pioneering developers in highly targeted summits,” said Jamil Moledina, Executive Director of the Game Developers Conference. “By integrating each of these emerging microcommunities into the curriculum, the GDC is well-positioned to remain the central hub of information and business for the entire game industry.”

Coventry University's Serious Games Institute has announced a partnership with Cisco and Giunti Labs to build a new learning environment that blends mobile learning with virtual worlds technologies, aiming to give the Institute's students a technology platform on which to build a digital model of the campus building. Ultimately, the goal is to have both the virtual building as well as the real one trigger location-based access to educational content.

The solution uses Cisco wireless location services to track real-world positions and movements integrated within the Giunti Labs Learn eXact learning content management system. The Giunti Labs software also allows repurposing of the digital learning content so that it can be used either in the virtual SGI or via any device connected to the Coventry University Cisco wired and wireless networks.

Giunti Labs, SGI and Cisco are also planning to start working on what they call ‘extended positioning’ - which means position detection systems that are interoperable among real and virtual copies of the facility. According to the companies, these systems will enable students who are visiting a place - either in the real world or online – to meet, despite being physically separated by thousands of miles -- in other words, a student in a virtual hall could connect to a student who is standing in the same hall in the real-world.

SGI says that Coventry University aims to create a "smart campus" by 2010 to attract more doctoral students, improve student and staff satisfaction, and grow its research income by 50 percent annually, among other objectives.

John Latham, pro vice-chancellor for business development at the university, said, "We set ourselves the goal of transforming Coventry University into a destination of choice for students and academics from around the world. Supported by the technology and expertise provided by Cisco and Giunti Labs, our SGI has a number of advanced virtual learning capabilities, such as drag-and-drop positioning of digital learning contents, three-dimensional hotspot positioning, and triggering and tracking of learning content by an avatar."

He continued, “We also have the tools and functionality for the creation, packaging and management of Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)-compliant contents which can be contextualised and delivered to Windows Mobile 5 personal digital assistants within the SGI Cisco Wi-Fi network. And we can also reuse location based content also in other virtual worlds platforms, such as Forterra and Second Life.”

Disney's apparently pleased with how things are going with Toontown, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Club Penguin and its other web media properties, as it seems a new virtual world property is in the works. The San Fernando Valley Business Journal is reporting the company is eyeing a 2008 launch for a virtual world site based on the Disney/Pixar film Cars according to Disney president and CEO Robert Iger, speaking at the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Long View Conference recently.

According to the article, Iger says Disney is going to invest “substantially” in online media extensions and virtual worlds over the next few years, citing their potential and the way they fit with the growth of consumer home computing for entertainment.

Iger explained young fans of the popular Cars characters would enjoy continuing their relationship with the film through online worlds, rather than waiting for a film sequel -- as a side effect, dynamic virtual worlds can keep the characters and their world continually present-tense and relevant to their audience. “You can live with and act with Lightning McQueen for years to come,” Iger said.

[Via San Fernando Valley Business Journal]