As part of a longer interview at Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra on CryEngine 2's Asian market intentions, Crytek's Harald Seely has been discussing the challenges of expanding the Crysis engine to support MMO developers and yet still support Crytek's internal projects.

The interview, conducted at the recent G* game event in South Korea, touched on issues of Asian MMO developers licensing Western engines which are not always initially set up to work in a massively multiplayer environment.

This was something that was also touched on by Webzen's Woon Yoon when discussing the Unreal Engine 3-licensing Huxley, which has been delayed, and which Yoon claims is partly due to Huxley being an MMO.

In the Crytek interview, Seely directly addresses the issue that leading engines such as UE3 and CryEngine 2 are often developed for a specific game first, and then rolled out to other developers, including online game developers, explaining:

"It was created to support the game, but it was also created with the idea that it would become standalone middleware which was capable of supporting more than one kind of game. MMOs were definitely always figured into the process, but in the rush to get a game out, you always take some shortcuts that later you have to go back and do more thoroughly.

That's an ongoing effort, because we have so many MMO licensees, and we have good relationships with them such that we don't want to see a lot of replication of work. We want to make sure that everybody who has a good idea and makes a change to the engine and makes it more MMO-friendly... that that gets shared with the rest of the community. So we foster that kind of interaction between them."

Just how do these interactions work, in terms of suggestions for what CryEngine 2 licensees need in order to complete their games? Seely explains:

"We have a team that's going to review each of those ideas, and that's the engineering team that built the engine to begin with. Since we have our own efforts internally to support for multiple studios now and multiple genres and platforms, it's important for us, internally, to make sure that the engine is as generic as possible, because otherwise, each team will end up with their own version of the engine.

And I've worked at publishers where that's the case, where in every project, they have an engine that's just for that project. It's really hard to leverage advances in engine technology across multiple teams when you do that."

The full interview with Seely is now available on Gamasutra, including much more detail on the engine's development and its deployment in the Korean market.

San Francisco-based Kadoink, a social media-focused web telephony service, has announced it has raised $7 million in financing from Sutter Hill Ventures. Its technology integrates SMS, IM and voice into a single hosted system that the company says is compatible with any carrier or handset.

Kadoink recently unveiled its communication platform aimed at bridging the web and mobile worlds, allowing users to share and publish content in online communities using mobile phones. The company says it's already deployed its tech with Bebo, Adidas, Zomba Records and various recording artists, and promises to announce a partnership with a sports broadcaster soon.

The company says it'll use the new funding to expand its presence in the social media space, and to develop new areas of the business. As part of the agreement, Andy Sheehan, Sutter Hill Ventures' managing director, will join Kadoink's directorial board. Commented Sheehan, "With our expertise in identifying emerging and entrepreneurial technology companies, we believe Kadoink and its patented family of technologies will be a highly successful addition to our growing portfolio. Kadoink possesses a powerful set of web-based telephony functionalities that we believe consumers and developers will soon adopt and embrace."

Kadoink CEO Scott Cahill added, "Securing our funding with Sutter Hill Ventures allows us to forge innovative deals with key partners in a diverse set of verticals such as social networks, virtual worlds, music artists and many more on the near horizon. We're thrilled to have Andy join our board and lend his tremendous insights and expertise to Kadoink's growth strategy."

3D software developer Altadyn has announced the release of a beta for its 3DXplorer technology, a real-time visualization tool for 3D environments. The company says it can be used to develop, social networking and virtual worlds, configurators, home equipment showrooms, walk-through tours for real estate offerings, PLM collaborative tools, online meetings, virtual tradeshows, games, and other rich web apps.

The idea is to enable web developers to build 3D websites that are also easy to navigate, without the need for plug-ins. The authoring environment is also free, with charges applied only to high-traffic sites based on a sliding scale. It lets users import 3D models from SketchUp or 3Ds Max, and also offers a library of ready-made 3D objects. Users can also incorporate certain formats of uploaded images or audio files into their 3D scene. The final project is embeddable on a website.

3DXplorer's technology is Java-based, and its 3D web scenes are viewable on Linux, Windows and Mac platforms, and in browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. The company has currently built a demo site offering examples of the tech in use.

U.S. employment attorney and HR consultant Dave Elchoness has launched a "virtual reality workplace" company called VRWorkplace. The company has a Boulder, CO facility, but operates out of Second Life, leasing, designing and constructing spaces for business use on the Second Life grid. VRWorkplace is also offering consulting services for businesses on virtual worlds strategies.

The company's Second Life facility currently includes office and meeting space, an amphitheater, coffee house, and, of all things, an amusement park -- everyone needs break time, one supposes.

Elchoness says he founded the company after running global IT outsourcing and noticing the challenges. He commented, "Geographically separated teams and client bases are increasingly the norm. Until now, we've used air travel, telephone, and other technologies to help us with distance. But there's nothing like virtual worlds technology to bring people together. Having a virtual workplace reduces air travel and improves workplace collaboration because virtual worlds offer one-of-a-kind shared experiences. With VRWorkplace, coworkers 10,000 physical miles apart can meet in a virtual 'hallway,' conference room or coffee shop, any time they like. It's what we call 'remote togetherness.'"

IBM Research has announced it's set to unveil its Bluegrass project, with which it hopes to marry software development with virtual worlds, adding 3D functionality modeled after Second Life. The aim is to help developers work together as avatars in virtual environments, sharing representations of data and discussing ideas.

It's currently a research effort, theorized to be useful to younger workers more accustomed to virtualization and Web 2.0-style communications. According to InfoWorld, IBM will offer the first peek at the technology at Orlando's upcoming Lotusphere conference, while Second Life residents can check it out at the IBM Codestation kiosk in world.

[Via InfoWorld]

Talking to the Boston Globe about how gaming can be made more educational, Michael Levine, executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center of Sesame Workshop, talked about the opportunity in virtual worlds for kids, and pointed out Sesame Workshop's own efforts to reach the young ones in an educational way.

Along with Merrill Lynch, Sesame Workshop recently launched a kids' virtual world product called Panwapa, which is geared at teaching kids about multiculturalism and what other kids' experiences, languages and lives are like in different countries. It's available in several languages -- Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and English. Levine told the Globe, "Kids need to know other kids and their needs to be good global citizens."

[Via the Boston Globe]

As the January 16th deadline for early registration fast approaches, we're pleased to announce more of the speakers who'll be participating in the upcoming Worlds In Motion Summit! This two-day event continues to gain momentum, and this time, we complete the speaker lineup with the addition of three especially timely panels.

Is Asia The New Hollywood?

Many of the biggest and most permanent trends in online worlds have come out of the explosive Asian market, and now developers, investors and publishers alike are wisely looking East for the next wave of evolution. Asia just may be “the new Hollywood” of online gaming, and Outspark's Susan Choe, Tencent's David Wallerstein, Three Rings' Daniel James and VinaGame's Bryan Pelz are all experienced in this arena, and in this exciting panel, they'll discuss the appeal, the issues, and the future out of Asia's innovation hotbed.

Beyond Ads: Building A Brand In A Virtual World

In community-driven online spaces, advertising is more than an image in the background. There.com parent Makena Technologies’ partnership with Metaversatility and Trilogy Studios to build, from the ground up, a thriving and persistent, fully interactive campaign for Toyota’s Scion vehicles is one of the most visible and widely-known 3D virtual world campaigns, leading the charge to create in-game advertising that actually adds entertainment and social value for users and encourages their participation. Makena strategic partnership leader Ben Richardson, Scion's Adrian Si, Trilogy CEO Michael Pole and Metaversatility Co-Founder Matt Daly will discuss the process, goals and considerations in building a brand experience in the virtual space – and how to measure its success.

Learning To Love Virtual Item Sales

Virtual goods that have real value to online users are here to stay. In fact, these items are so valuable that they’re often bought and sold on the black market, upsetting in-game economies and endangering players. Live Gamer recently launched its publisher-sponsored transaction network, along with major partners Funcom GMBH, Sony Online Entertainment, 10Tacle Studios, Acclaim, GoPets and Ping0 Interactive. Player-to-player item sales are bound to remain a controversial issue, but Sony Pictures Digital veteran Andy Schneider, president and co-founder of Live Gamer, will discuss some possible solutions, and explain why legitimizing such transactions and gaining the support of publishers might help. He's joined by Steve Goldstein, co-founder and President of Ping0, distributor of Flagship Studios titles like Hellgate: London, and one of Live Gamer's first publisher partners.

The Worlds in Motion Summit has previously announced participation from Club Penguin CEO Lane Merrifield, Disney Online senior vice president of premium content Steve Parkis, Nick.com senior vice president Jason Root, and Neopets senior vice president Kyra Reppen, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, Ph.D, in-world economist for EVE Online, Gaia Online CEO Craig Sherman, John Bates, director of business development for Entropia Universe, Multiverse's Corey Bridges and Rafhael Cedeno, MindCandy's Michael Acton Smith, Turbine's Jeffrey Steefel, Areae's Raph Koster, Relic Labs studio head Adrian Crook, Nexon's Min Kim, Millions of Us' Reuben Steiger, among others.

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."

The Summit is available to attend via several different Game Developers Conference 2008 passes, and more information on the event plus the speakers announced so far is available on the Worlds In Motion Summit webpage. The deadline for early registration is January 16th, so register today!

Gaia Online has unveiled a new app it says connects Gaia users across social networking platform. It's created a miniature version of its virtual worlds for teens specifically for the Facebook platform, and says that with the embeddable app, Gaia users can interact with each other through chat, guestbooks and the Gaia environment, including earning virtual currency.

Gaia's Bebo widget, OMG, launched in December 2007, and Gaia says it's the top-rated app among Bebo users. The company's focusing on letting Gaia users interact with the world and with one another directly from their social networking pages, and says similar tools are in the works for other social networks.

Gaia Online CEO Craig Sherman says, "We are extending the Gaia experience to other places where teens spend their time online. Gaia and social networks are similar in that they are places that empower users to self express and connect with friends, so bridging the two is a logical next step in the evolution of the Internet. We're not stopping here either -- there are several other popular social networks out there and we're building new features that will enable Gaia to be everywhere teens are online."

At the Education Business blog, there's a thorough argument on why education marketers ought to get up to speed on Web 2.0 marketing tools and virtual worlds. Lee Wilson points out that the first thing many users do when shopping on Amazon is to check out user-generated comments to help them make purchasing decisions, as an example of "the power of Web 2.0 at work."

Wilson's reasons why education marketers should employ these concepts:

"1. The education industry is going through huge change driven in large part by technology substituting for older ways of doing things. In this time of transition staying close to your customers and their shifting priorities is going to be a requirement. Web 2.0 tools are some of the most effective ways to create a real two-way dialog with customers - what I have elsewhere called Socratic Marketing.

2. Our customers are becoming accustomed to using these tools everywhere else in their lives. If we don't keep pace we run the risk of becoming irrelevant."

Wilson is about to kick off a series of articles aimed at education marketers wherein he'll present his "five core concepts for marketers working in a virtual world," so let's stay tuned!

[Web 2.0 Education Marketing Part 1 - The Education Business Blog]

Conduit Labs' Nabeel Hyatt, who will be presenting a lecture on Facebook games at the upcoming Worlds in Motion Summit, has an analysis of the same topic currently up at his Brinking blog. Hyatt was surprised to learn, by checking out Facebook's statistics, that at a glance, Facebook games do not appear to do any better, among the top 100 most active Facebook applications, than any other non-gaming app. Their user percentage, according to Hyatt, is only marginally higher, even when you include game-like apps that aren't necessarily games.

Being that games are as popular online as they are, it seems odd that things should play out this way on Facebook -- but Hyatt took a closer look and found that by only counting the multiplayer games, which are better suited to Facebook's social nature, the picture's much different, as Hyatt explains:

"Ahh, that's more like it. Multiplayer social games such as Warbook and Scrabulous average 11.4% active daily users, a good 30% higher than the average top Facebook app (8.01%). I'm sure if we could actually get engagement, attention, and retention metrics we'd see the same trend. This combined with the relatively high percentage of games represented in the top 25 applications (7 games) would suggest that there is simply a lack of quality, socially-focused games on Facebook.

With an average install base of 2.7m users for top Facebook games, this is a massive new distribution channel that makes the curated Xbox Live Arcade look like a backwater."

Early registration for the Summit ends on the 16th, by the way, so if you're interested in seeing Hyatt's talk and the other exciting sessions we've got going on, now's a good time to register for the early rate!

Virtually Blind, which covers legal issues in online worlds, is hosting a fascinating new paper by Kevin Deenihan titled "Leave Those Orcs Alone: Property Rights In Virtual Worlds." What's most interesting about the paper is that it takes a tack somewhat different from the legal cautions and predictions we've been hearing around the issue of virtual items -- it effectively recommends against real-world legal intervention in online environments.

Virtually Blind provides a summary of the paper as follows:

"Players and their characters earn virtual property to socialize, for fun, or for status, not for protection or investment. Shoehorning in a legal system that protects investment and ignores the value of fun and communality would do terrible violence to these societies. Far better utility results from allowing users and developers to continue elaborating on their quasi-legal systems in peace.

The litigants with the most incentive to sue, and thus to have their interest recognized, are typically those whose role in Virtual Worlds is considered negative by wide swathes of the playerbase: gold farmers, account sellers, and exploiters."

[Via Virtually Blind]

Online game company Alchemic Dream has announced it's partnered with Kwari, publisher and developer of the anti-social "cash for kills" shooter of the same name. Alchemic Dream will provide customer support and other consultations for the game, in which players earn money through kills they make in first-person shooting gameplay.

Kwari's free to download, but players have to purchase the ammunition for their weapons. It narrowly escaped censure under gambling regulations because of the "gaming skill" it says is involved in succeeding against other players competing for the same goal. The last player standing after a multiplayer shooting competition wins a cash prize.

Kwari previously announced that it had licensed BigWorld's technology suite middleware platform to develop the game.

A recent ECT Tech News piece talks with Louis Vong, VP of strategy for recruitment firm TMP Worldwide, about the efforts of enterprise in and outside the tech sector to enter virtual worlds for their recruitment activities.

Several recruitment agencies have held recruitment events in Second Life, or opened offices there, and TMP also consults with such agencies to help employers get up to speed on networking with potential new hires in virtual spaces. This is important, says Vong, because of future generations' steadily-increasing engagement with these kids of worlds.

At the same time, it's not necessarily entirely new ground, as the article explains:

Despite the press these high-profile recruiting events receive, though, the move to virtual worlds for workforce activities is part of an evolution, not necessarily a revolution. Employers have used social networking sites like MySpace Latest News about MySpace and Facebook Latest News about Facebook to meet and learn about prospective employees for years, Vong explained. "Some enterprise recruiters are looking at social networking sites as part of their research on potential job candidates," he said. Then, he added the admonition almost everyone will make about those sites: "Job candidates have to be very cognizant of what they post online, as a potential employer could be reviewing it."

What is making a difference today, Vong noted, is the fact that several major social networking sites have opened their APIs (application programming interfaces). This allows third-party developers -- such as those working for recruiting firms or large employers -- to create applications built to be used on a specific sites. "Within Facebook," Vong noted, "there are quite a few applications created specifically for employment-related content. TMP recently launched an application for Facebook called 'Work with Me,' which is an employee referral program tool that employees can attach to their profile."

The article's overall message is that development in this direction, as regards staffing, will be more "evolution" than "revolution," and other experts note that how quickly enterprise focus will shift from using virtual worlds for consumers to using virtual worlds for employees remains to be seen.

[ECT Technology News: Virtual World Workforce, Part 1]

A recently-published European Commission report analyzing regulation and competition in the telecom sector deduced that Europe's regulatory framework and open framework for industry competition, far from impeding innovation, accounts for why Europe is apparently ahead of the U.S. in usage of web services, social networking sites and virtual worlds.

Notes the report, "The regulation of access networks keeps open the potential bottleneck to competition in broadband markets. European rules have provided a real choice for consumers."

The rest of the report deals with policy pertinent to the telecom industry in Europe, but observing the evidence does seem to indicate the region's ahead of the U.S. in terms of widespread adoption of so-called "next generation" web services, and it's interesting to hear what role the bandwidth biz plays in that lead.

Silicon Valley-based PlaySpan has announced a closed U.S. beta for its in-game commerce platform, after it says it received a positive response from gamers in the Asia-Pacific region. K2 Network's Global Mu Online MMO and its microtransactions-based biz model will be the beta's guinea pig.

PlaySpan works via an in-game widget designed to accommodate trade and sale of virtual goods and gold from within the game itself, and PlaySpan works as a partner with the games' publishers. The company raised $6.5 million in venture capital late in 2007 from Easton Capital, and shortly thereafter PlaySpan announced it had partnered with 'tween-focused online social community Urbaniacs.

Said PlaySpan CEO Karl Mehta, “We have received great response from the gamer and publisher community to use PlaySpan as a secure marketplace and help real gamers reach others. Based on field data, we are seeing players spending more time in-game and doing more secure micro-transactions with our platform. We have over 20 titles that have licensed our platform and we expect to continue leading the in-game commerce market and provide a very compelling user experience for our game publisher partners and gamers.”

CMP, owners of Worlds in Motion and its sister sites including Gamasutra, has announced and reminded that today is the final day for early bird registration to its February 18-22 2008 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, with an 11:59pm PST deadline for a conference pass discount of up to 30 percent. This includes the Worlds in Motion Summit, organized by the editors of this site.

The Worlds in Motion Summit has previously announced participation from Club Penguin CEO Lane Merrifield, Disney Online executive VP and managing director Paul Yanover, Nick.com senior vice president Jason Root, and Neopets senior vice president Kyra Reppen, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, Ph.D, in-world economist for EVE Online, Gaia Online CEO Craig Sherman, John Bates, director of business development for Entropia Universe, Multiverse's Corey Bridges and Rafhael Cedeno, MindCandy's Michael Acton Smith, Turbine's Jeffrey Steefel, Areae's Raph Koster, Relic Labs studio head Adrian Crook, Nexon's Min Kim, Millions of Us' Reuben Steiger, Outspark's Susan Choe, Tencent's David Wallerstein, Three Rings' Daniel James, VinaGame's Bryan Pelz, Makena's Ben Richardson, Trilogy CEO Michael Pole and Metaversatility co-founder Matt Daly, among others.

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."

The Summit is available to attend via several different Game Developers Conference 2008 passes, and more information on the event plus the speakers announced so far is available on the Worlds In Motion Summit webpage. Register today so as not to miss out on this significant discount!

The conference is also simplifying the pass structure to provide more intuitive access to the diverse experiences at the GDC. Complete details and registration for the conference is now available at the official website.

Nexon America has announced the launch of its new free-to-play MMO Mabinogi, with a closed beta service beginning January 30th. The game features 3D, cel-shaded, anime-style graphics and a fantasy world based in Celtic and Welsh mythology. In addition to traditional MMO features -- quests, battles and monsters -- Nexon says Mabinogi is differentiated by offering players a "life" experience, featuring jobs like cooking and farming. Players can also marry and share the daily duties.

There's also a UGC element here -- Mabinogi's music program allows users to write and share music in MIDI formatted files. The 3D visuals are a departure from Nexon's 2D MapleStory, and also unlike MapleStory, the fighting system's more traditional, based on a stats and abilities system, rather than MapleStory's sidescrolling action play.

Mabinogi’s time is standardized, and users get time-based bonus incentives the longer they play. Avatars also age on a weekly basis, growing taller as they grow to the age of 21, and gain in abilities up to the age of 25. Avatars' diets also affect their appearance.

President and CEO John H. Chi commented, "Playing Mabinogi is about more than just fighting and normal MMO fare. This is a chance for gamers to live a fantasy life in a place where communities build mutual beliefs of family, friendship and hard work.”

[In this opinion piece from Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra, industry veteran Kim Pallister looks to a surprising source - the Build A Bear Workshop - to suggest that personalization and customization of games before their delivery may be the key to developing a relationship with the gamer, incenting them, and helping stem game piracy.]

While traveling with my family recently, my wife and I decided to treat our four-year old twins with a visit to the Build A Bear Workshop. For those unfamiliar with this great little enterprise, here's how it works: You bring the kids in, they pick a type of bear, various accoutrements, and go through a ritual where the bear is 'brought to life' by filling him with stuffing, inserting a heart, stitching him shut, etc.

Before inserting the heart, the kids rub it on their heads to make it smart, on their muscles to make it strong, etc. For those interested in the full ritual details, they are laid out in syrupy-sweet level of detail here.

The whole thing struck me as kind of a sugar-coated version of Frankenstein, but that’s beside the point. The result is that they get a bear that is 'unique', and are given a birth certificate for the bear with the name they give him.

Building Relationships With Purchases

It occurred to me that this kind of visceral experience - which develops quite an bond between child and bear - would be ideal to partner with a kids virtual-world company to go compete with Webkinz and other kids’ virtual worlds which have been talked about in our industry quite a bit as of late (I blogged about a few of them a while back.)

My thinking was that if Webkinz is more compelling than Club Penguin because of the plush toy that acts as a physical connection to the experience (not to mention moving the financial transaction back to a parentally-comfortable retail channel); then Build-A-Bear is more compelling because the plush toy is now personalized.

Of course the thing with good ideas is that other people have the same ones – usually before I do! So it is in this case, as lo and behold, there already exists a BuildABearVille.

Now the key point is this: With Webkinz, you enter your product code, and the online animal matches the physical product you bought at the store - which for kids, is COOL. With BuildABear, you enter a unique ID number off the birth certificate, and you get an online version that is identical to your one-of-a-kind, custom bear that you built. Of course the "one of a kind" bear is only one of given number of permutations of options, but still, to a kid, this is MAGIC!

So anyhow, it's cool, and I suggest you check it out. Take your kid, or a friend’s kid, or a kid-at-heart, to your local Build-a-Bear Workshop and give it a whirl.

So what does this have to do with software piracy? Bear with me (and my puns) while I first talk a little about music.

The Fan Relationship In The Music Biz

2007 was a pretty incredible year for the music business. Not because any record amount of money made, but because of some pretty amazing occurrences in the business. Radiohead’s “Pay what you want” release of their latest album, artists breaking with their labels in favor of self-publishing or leaning more heavily on touring as their revenue source. Most significantly of all, as of last week, Warner was the third of the four major labels to sign with Amazon for DRM-free MP3 music distribution (Sony BMG is the last hold-out).

The significance of this last point cannot be over-stated. There may be some Amazon-vs-iTunes gamesmanship afoot, but at the end of the day this is at heart a response to customer demand. Customers are saying (with their wallets as well as their mouths), that they prefer not to buy from companies that treat them like criminals, and that they are willing to pay for music but not when its usability is hampered by DRM.

The direction here is clear: DRM-burdened products will lose in the music world. And then the consumer is going to look at how they consume video and begin to ask the same questions. And after that, they are going to have the same questions about their games.

Wired recently ran a great piece in which David Byrne interviews Radiohead's Thom Yorke to discuss these recent shifts in the music business, discussing how music went from being about performance and artist relationship to being about manufactured product and now it's being shifted back the other way, where the manufactured product is no longer monetizable as it once was, and so the value will come from performance and from the relationship that artists can have with fans.

Others have been talking about this too, how the value is in the artist/fan relationship, not in the product per se; and how if the relationship is there, people will gladly pay for it (and for the product in turn).

Traditionally in games, the discussion around 'relationship' has been around that of service provision. e.g. You provide a service and the pays for that service on an ongoing basis, whether it's on a per-month basis, per-game basis, per-item basis or whatever. MMO's, Xbox Live, Kart Rider, GameTap, are all examples of this.

But perhaps another path exists, other than "service provision as proof of relationship". What if we think about "Personalized product as expression of relationship"?

On Building Personalized Objects

So what do I mean by this? Consider things like architecture plans. These are copyrighted; architects that do plans for 'cookie cutter' houses, and the like have to worry about their designs being used without their permission.

However, an architect hired to do a custom design for a client very likely has to worry less. Why? Because the plans were done for that client, and that client very likely doesn't want his design copied and takes pride in its uniqueness and that it was done for him. "You like my kitchen? It was personally designed for me by Hans Arkitekt."

To take this to games, if we could find a way to build a game for a specific customer, tailored to them, then this should mean that they could share it with a friend, but that friend wouldn't want it, they'd want their own. In the same way that I may covet my friend's tailored suit, but that doesn't mean I want his suit, but rather that I want one of my own. Meanwhile, off-the-rack designer label suits do have to worry about counterfeit copies of their designs.

So what would it mean to build a game *for a specific customer*? I'm not sure. But I'm not talking about binding it to the user's machine with DRM. No, people will find a way to strip it out anyway. No, the personalization has to add value in some way. DRM doesn’t add value for the customer, it adds inconvenience at best and outrage and resentment at worst (one need only to look as far as the numerous postings about the PC release of the otherwise-wonderful BioShock for an example).

I’m not advocating for the removal of DRM from games. I understand why games are distributed today with DRM today. I just believe that it’s a losing game, and that we need to start thinking about ways in which we make it irrelevant. Moving from ‘games as product’ to ‘games as service’ is one path. There may be room for another, and that may be ‘this product was built just for me’.

The Future - The Personalized Game?

The personalization has to add value, make the game *better* for that individual customer. It could be an object of social status ("Look, Cliffy B personally autographed my copy of Gears and thanked me for my business"), an element of personal integration ("It came pre-built with my character stats already set up, and the villagers were singing songs about the time I single handedly held off that Orc assault!"), or custom fitting ("all the graphics assets and settings came perfectly tuned for set up for my personal machine").... who knows.

Actually, it's very likely none of the above. Minds more creative than mine will come up with far better ideas. The best example I can think of is that of The Behemoth and the custom trophies they built for leaderboard winners; not personalization of the game but certainly a commitment to personal relationship with customers.

I do think the idea of the ‘personalized game’ is a path to be explored. The first requirement to finding the pot of gold at the end of that path is a change in mindset.

To change from viewing the game as mass-produced product to viewing the finished game as an asset; 95% completed, and now ready for customization and personal delivery to each and every one of your fans. The extent you *value* each one of those relationships, is the extent to which they'll provide value in return.

I guess like any relationship, you have to decide if you are ready to put some work into it and hold up your end of the bargain...

[Kim Pallister is Content Director for Intel’s Visual Computing Group. He recently re-joined Intel after a few years at Microsoft working on casual games for MSN and Xbox Live Arcade. He’s been around the game industry for 15 years. When not migrating between large technology companies in the Pacific Northwest, he finds time to blog at www.kimpallister.com - from which this article was adapted and expanded - and at www.vgvc.net. His views on those blogs and in this article and others are entirely his own and not those of his employers past nor present.]

You may have heard already that Hasbro and Mattel aren't too pleased about the hugely popular embeddable Facebook Scrabble game, Scrabulous. They want Facebook to pull Scrabulous from its app directory for infringing on a patent, and CNet currently has one of the handiest roundups out there of the debate and the issues at hand.

Scrabulous is identical to the board game, and the app's creators, Indian devs Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, are capitalizing on it through ads, giving Hasbro and Mattel fair ground on which to be peevish. But fans won't let go easily. CNet noticed that a "Save Scrabulous!" Facebook community is just one of the ways FB users are mobilizing to defend their pastime. According to CNET, more than 2 million users currently have Scrabulous embedded (disclosure: this editor is one of them).

From the article:

"'It wouldn't be an issue if Scrabulous weren't so popular, right?' observed Darren Herman, director of digital media for marketing firm The Media Kitchen. It's the sheer mass of Facebook Scrabulous users that have made it a high-profile case as well as an inevitably ugly situation, if the game is indeed taken down. 'We're seeing the power of social media in its early days. Since we're still trying to figure out the rules of the game, no pun intended, these types of issues are bound to arise.'

In other words, according to Herman, the debate over Scrabulous is indicative of the fact that the world--or at least certain mainstays of the game industry--still hasn't quite figured out that a traditional course of action just doesn't always work on the Web.

'I don't think they are crazy to think this way,' Darren Herman said when asked if Hasbro and Mattel are totally off base. 'Scrabble came out in a time when everyone guarded their (intellectual property) tightly.'"

[CNet - 'Scrabulous' debate may rewrite the rules of the game]

K2 Network publishing and operations execs Jeff Lujan and Bob Drobish have announced they have left the MMO service provider to form a new global online games publishing company, True Games Interactive.

Lujan will serve as True Games' Chief Publishing Officer, responsible for publishing, marketing, business development and product development. Drobish will take on the role of COO at True Games, handling business operation, live game operations, customer service and technology. True Games will focus on the free-to-play, microtransactions-driven business model for independent developers and publishers.

The company also says it will use its proprietary game platform for existing Asian content, in addition to working closely with Western developers to produce and publish new content globally. The Orange County, CA-based company adds is currently negotiating several product deals and seeking Series A funding. True Games plans to release its first title in the summer of 2008.

At K2, Lujan was senior VP of global publishing, product development, marketing and international business development, while Drobish, as senior VP of operations, was responsible for overall company revenue, live game operations, technology and infrastructure, customer support, and India operations.

Says Drobish, “With the continued growth of the online game industry, True Games will be at the forefront with a new approach, a unique business model and a proprietary game platform. We have been overwhelmed with the interest shown by potential development and publishing partners across the globe. We are thrilled with the speed of our progress and encouraged by the support, trust and interest in our new model.”

The UK-based Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour is holding a virtual pets symposium as part of its AISB 2008 convention on communication, interaction and social intelligence. This is actually the second year that the "Reign of Catz and Dogz" symposium is being held, after the first year's event at Newcastle's Culture Lab.

AISB explains:

"This second symposium, to run as part of AISB08 (mirror) at the University of Aberdeen in April 2008, will consider the future role that interactive artificial creatures will play in a society populated with pervasive computers, personal robots and ambient intelligence. In particular, in 2008, we wish to explore emerging use of artifacts like the Nabaztag as intelligent interfaces and agents for supporting social networks; the use of anthropomorphised devices and systems like T-J Bearytales and virtual pets as educational aids for children; as well as the differing cultural perspectives on all anthropomorphized artificial systems. The Reign of Catz & Dogs aims to gather key researchers from all disciplines interested in the fields of virtual creatures, personal embodied robotics and believable and affective agents to table and discuss their views on the relevant contemporary issues prevailing, and to crystallize the challenges facing us in the near future."

[Via Grand Text Auto]

Hidden City Games has named Microsoft veteran Joshua Howard senior vice president of Bella Sara Online, its young girl-focused, horse-themed world based on the horse-themed trading cards and other toy products. Howard will oversee the site's ongoing development and growth -- the company claims 1.6 million registered users so far.

Howard brings spent 15 years with Microsoft, where he was most recently the founder and group manager for the Carbonated Games casual games studio. Prior to that ,he was lead program manager for MSN Games/Zone.com, where he was responsible for overseeing all efforts related to distributing, publishing and internally developing games for MSN Games, Live Messenger and Xbox Live Arcade.

Hidden City CEO Peter D. Adkison said, "Joshua Howard, with his experience running a casual games studio and perspective as a father of two girls, is a clear choice to lead the evolution of BellaSara.com. BellaSara.com captures the magic of the brand in a safe and engaging experience, and Howard will expand it into a robust online destination rich in features and fun."

NASA Learning Technologies' Project Office has announced it is evaluating the development of an educational MMO game to deliver NASA-relevant content in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Citing growing interest in "persistent immersive synthetic environments" such as MMOs and social virtual worlds as education and training tools, NASA believes virtual worlds with scientifically accurate simulations could enable learners to work with chemical reactions in living cells, practice operating and repairing expensive equipment, and experience microgravity, gaining understanding they can then transfer to practical problems.

NASA says the project it's developing will function as a laboratory-like online environment to support education as a visualization tool and collaborative workplace. At the same time, it says it aims to draw users into a challenging gameplay experience.

Says NASA in its formal RFP, "MMOs help players develop and exercise a skill set closely matching the thinking, planning, learning, and technical skills increasingly in demand by employers today. These skills include strategic thinking, interpretative analysis, problem solving, plan formulation and execution, team-building and collaboration, and adaptation to rapid change."

IDC has revealed results of a survey evaluating Web 2.0 trends, finding that 50 percent of companies see these kinds of Internet apps as a significant business opportunity. In that vein, the company plans to conduct further surveys specifically aimed at Asian enterprise and consumers -- 8 percent of whom say these apps are a threat .

20 percent of the survey's respondents said they use video, music and file sharing services like YouTube, or peer-to-peer content delivery like BitTorrent while at work.

Said IDC Asia Pacific emerging technologies research principal Claus Mortensen, "There has been a lot of buzz surrounding Web 2.0 in the last couple of years, even to the extent that some have predicted it as the next big bubble. Whatever happens, some areas of Web 2.0 will strongly affect how companies conduct business, the way they view and treat their employees and the way the reach their customers. Our survey shows both Asian enterprises and consumers see great potential in Web 2.0 in all of those areas.”

[Via TMC.net]

Chinese online game operator The9 Limited has announced that its senior vice president and CFO, Hannah Lee, is resigning her position effective February 2008 to pursue other interests. The company says it is searching for a new CFO, and expects to announce that person's appointment prior to Lee's departure.

The9 both operates and develops games in the Chinese market, either directly or through affiliates. Most notably, it operates Blizzard's World of Warcraft in the region, in addition to Granado Espada and its first proprietary title, Joyful Journey West in mainland China.

The company has also recently obtained licenses to operate Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Ragnarok Online 2, Emil Chronicle Online, Huxley, FIFA Online 2, Audition 2, Field of Honor and the original Audition. It currently has two additional proprietary titles, Fantastic Melody Online and Warriors of Fate Online, in development.

Said Lee, "It has been my pleasure to serve as the Chief Financial Officer of The9 for over four years. I believe the company remains well- positioned in the growing online game industry. With its rich and diversified game portfolio, I believe The9 will continue to enjoy long-term growth and deliver sustained growth for its employees and shareholders."

Flagship Studios has announced that Hellgate: London will receive its first content update on January 21st, 2008, expanding the game's world beyond London to the areas surrounding Stonehenge.

The Stonehenge Chronicles update adds open, outdoor wilderness areas intended to stand in contrast to the main game's setting in the streets and sewers of London.

The update is comprised of three different sections: The Caste Caves, Moloch's Lair and The Wild. The Caste Caves unlocks four dungeons for each enemy caste, and each tasks players with defeating a spectral overlord.

Completing the Caste Caves will allow players to access Moloch's Lair, wherein they confront the demon Moloch for unique items. The Wild contains three mini-raid areas that progress in difficulty, requiring full-sized parties.

Additionally, the update adds improvements to game UI, a "large number" of skill balance changes, and a PvP dueling arena. Hellgate: London subscribers will now have the option to pay for their subscriptions via PayPal and PayByCash.