UK-based developer-publisher Jagex is best known for its sleeper hit MMO, the Java-based RuneScape. Though it lacks the hefty graphics and complex mechanics of other comparable products, RuneScape claims some 6 million users, due in part to the fact the game employed the free-to-play business model before many others got on board the emerging trend.

Now, the company's planning a new online gaming service through which they hope to continue that winning streak, and Gamasutra gets the full details from Jagex development head Mark Faulkner, with help from corporate communications head Niall O'Malley.

Courting The 'Hard Casual'

The new service, FunOrb, will be an online portal that Jagex hopes will build on RuneScape’s success with both the “hard casual” gamer and with non-traditional business models. Faulkner explains, “The terminology I like is ‘time-pressured gamer.’ It’s not really the casual marketplace.”

The Jagex team still considers their accessible, browser-based MMO somewhat of a “casual” product, despite its swords and sorcery. And, according to O’Malley, the accessibility trend is broad-reaching. “There’s been a sea change in the industry in the way everyone’s regarding different genres of gamers and the way in which people spend spare time,” he noted.

O’Malley refers to RuneScape’s audience as precisely that “hard casual” crowd – combining the desire for accessibility and low barrier to entry with enjoyment of complex, more traditional gameplay mechanics, the very demographic Jagex is targeting with the launch of FunOrb in February 2008.

Introducing FunOrb

Like RuneScape, all of the FunOrb games will be browser-based, using the same type of Java compression that Jagex uses to make RuneScape a fast download. Faulkner explains that endowing more complex games with that same kind of instant accessibility is a priority for FunOrb. “It’s not like services on the internet, who offer a large volume of content but not much depth,” He says. “We’re really trying to focus on depth we provide the end user.”

Continues Faulkner, “Each game, you can really spend time playing, if that’s what you want to do. We want to give players the ability to just dip in on a five minute lunch break. But if they have two or three hours, they’ll also find plenty of things to do that will be great fun. We’re looking at the sort of game that five, six or seven years ago, they would have been putting in a box and selling on retail shelves. With the new technology, we can deliver this through the browser. Easily, there are 10 to 15 hours worth of solid gameplay really aimed more at the hardcore gaming market. We also like to think there’s something for everybody.”

Jagex also plans to continue with the free-to-play business model for FunOrb. Users can log on for free, Faulkner says, and have access to about 40 percent of the site’s content. Initial levels, for example, are available to all players, who then have the option of paying a monthly fee -- $3.00 per month – to access the full content. And consistent with the focus on emerging trends and increased accessibility, Jagex is also planning a community focus on the site, adding forums and social networking, in-game chat, and leaderboards.

This low-priced subscription model is one O'Malley says has brought success for RuneScape -- some 1 million of RuneScape’s users are paying subscribers, while the free userbase is monetized via ad revenue.

Focus On Community

“There’s a huge element of community focus,” O’Malley says. “It’s something that’s becoming more and more expected and important with the likes of Facebook and MySpace.” The increased community focus means more multiplayer-focused games, too, although there will also be single-player experiences available.

“Our technology is designed around enabling multiplayer,” Faulkner adds. “But there will be a number of single-player games. “It’s all about generating the gaming community and enabling gamers to go to FunOrb to find their friends, be able to interact and talk, and play games. We’ll be populating the service more and more with new features as time goes on.”

Hearkening back to the team’s background in developing Java minigames – the company name, “Jagex,” means “Java gaming experts,” Faulkner says the team will be working on “High-spec games with short loading times, using our tested java compression technology. Which means any PC, whether at the library or office or home, can log on and be part of the community. We’re expecting tens of thousands in the first few months, we’ve a dedicated team improving multiplayer features, and we’ll be adding a few games every month.”

High Hopes

A few games every month? Among all of these emergent player trends that Jagex is addressing – accessibility, social focus, and the free-to-play business model – there’s yet another on which FunOrb is hinging its success. Perhaps somewhat ambitiously, Jagex plans to keep the site’s content fresh on an episodically regular basis, aiming to add one new game every two weeks, to be precise, building on the 18 titles with which FunOrb plans to launch.

“We reckon they represent about 50 hours of solid gameplay if you know exactly what you’re doing,” says Faulkner. “We design all our games for multiple repeat playability.” The Jagex team hopes that the achievement-based community focus will also help engage users. By meeting certain criteria, players can earn a special designating prestige icon, “orb points” or “orb coins.” The points help build a player’s global high score and standing on the leaderboard.

As for the Orb Coins, they can be used to purchase customizable items, different avatars, color schemes and wallpapers. Though these types of small vanity items suggest a microtransactions-based business model, O’Malley says there are no plans at this time to implement such a feature for FunOrb, meaning the Orb Coins can only be earned through play. To help monetize the site, Jagex says all players will be exposed to some advertising – paying subscribers will see less ads on the site and none at all during gameplay itself.

Can Jagex find the same surprise success with the FunOrb portal using the take-aways from RuneScape’s proliferation? Jagex is planning for a high user volume. And just as the team’s veteran Java developers are heading back to their roots, they hope that, by offering accessibility, a social experience and modern business models, former hardcore casual gamers with less time for gameplay these days will return to theirs by getting engaged with FunOrb.

Lately IBM has begun to talk more about its Bluegrass project, some research going on that aims to join 3D virtual worlds with collaborative software development. Intrigued, Worlds in Motion contacted IBM's Grady Booch, Rational chief scientist and self-described "Free Radical," about the project and about IBM's larger virtual worlds strategy.

It's clear that IBM has a prolific virtual worlds presence, but we asked Booch to detail for us just how prolific the company's use of Second Life and other areas is. Began Booch, "IBM is doing a heap of stuff, not just in Second Life, but in ActiveWorlds and elsewhere." To illustrate, he recalled the company's first public disclosure of their efforts, which began with Sam Palmisano's appearance in the virtual Imperial Palace of Second Life, while physically in Beijing.

The full detail on the company's virtual worlds efforts, the Bluegrass research, and a glance down the road follows the jump.

North Carolina-based interactive learning solutions company and online world developer Virtual Heroes has developed an interactive training game for use by Hilton Garden Inn. The company developed a virtual Hilton Garden Inn hotel that features various scenarios for employees to practice interactions with guests.

Called "Ultimate Team Play," the actions that the staff takes in the simulation affects the mood of the virtual guests, implementing the Hilton Garden Inn brand's SALT (Satisfaction and Loyalty Tracking) scoring system to evaluate the employees' work and assign them a 1-10 ranking.

Ultimate Team Play uses a branching dialogue system, allowing team members to select a response based on their perception of a guest's attitude. Guests are given value sets with varying degrees of anger, patience and flexibility, At the same time, team members must also manage their regular hotel duties, like telephone and check-in management.

Virtual Heroes uses Epic's Unreal Engine 3 to create collaborative interactive learning solutions and virtual worlds for healthcare, commercial and government applications. Its clients include Intel, Hilton Hotels, Discovery Channel Canada, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, George Washington University Medical Center, Duke Medical Center, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Army Special Operations Command and the America's Army game project.

Virtual Heroes founder and CEO Jerry Henghan said, "We are excited to use our advanced learning expertise, technology and artistic talent to help Hilton Garden Inn create the first interactive training game to be used in the hospitality industry. Ultimate Team Play leverages cutting-edge games-based technology in a realistic and immersive virtual Hilton Garden Inn environment where real-world hotel staff can further enhance their training and guest interaction."

IBM has expanded its Second Life Business Center for India, increasing staff not only in that region, but in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. It's also added dedicated pavilions for China and Japan in Second Life. According to IT News Online, IBM says it's aiming to offer more multi-language support across the world.

The new staff will begin working with the existing Second Life staff from North America, Latin America, Europe, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, who, according to IT News Online, have been working there since earlier this year. When we recently spoke to IBM's Grady Booch about the Bluegrass project and the company's virtual worlds activities, he highlighted how uniting global teams was a primary goal of IBM's Second Life presence.

India and South Asia VP Sanhjiv R. Pande commented on the expansion, "IBM India's presence in the Business Center in Second Life is part of bringing us closer to our customers. Clients are increasingly looking for convenient ways of interacting with their suppliers. We have always been accessible through our traditional Web engines with solutions that allow customers to interact and transact with IBM over the Web. We are now taking this accessibility to the next level."

[Via IT News Online]

SceneCaster, which develops 3D web apps for social networks like Facebook, has announced its SceneWeaver technology, which now aims to let consumers bring user-generated 3D content across any computing platform or communications device, like the iPhone, and also lets users link their content to various media types or Web services.

Through SceneWeaver, users can embed the 3D scenes they build in any web page or blog, so that they can be interacted with on any XHTML-capable device, including smartphones, PCs and Macs. Users can change views, interact with objects in the scenes, or link among various scenes and related web pages. technology allows users to embed 3D scenes in any Web page or blog, letting any Web user view and interact with 3D published scenes on any XHTML capable device, including handheld devices.

The company says SceneWeaver can detect the individual capabilities of the device being used, and adapt automatically to those capabilities. It also features a built-in e-commerce engine, so that users can even launch transactions through the 3D scenes.

SceneCaster users can also access a broad web catalog of 3D objects, including Google 3D Warehouse, from which they can select and customize the content for their 3D scenes.

Says SceneCaster CTO Alain Chesnais, "SceneWeaver works to dramatically lower the barrier to adoption by helping users to quickly assemble files and media with 3D Web content from other sources using well established workflows of traditional Web applications. As a result, 3D scenes created with SceneCaster are completely interoperable and capable of interacting with any of the open Web standards and content on the Web."

Online consumer game magazine The Escapist has a new interview with Areae's Raph Koster, in which he discusses the upcoming Metaplace, and the principles of user-generated content he stands so firmly behind.

Among the interesting perspectives on Web 2.0 gaming from the veteran designer's perspective, some technical info, as in this excerpt:

TE: Explain the relationship between Metaplace and the web.

RK: Basically, we always say we work the way the web does and people tend to think that's a metaphor when actually we mean it very literally. When you think of the pieces of the web: You have HTML, you have a browser, you have Apache (and Apache is running CGI scripts), and you have CSS, and you have DNS so you know what webpage to connect to, and you have essentially Google so you can find stuff on top. Metaplace has all of those pieces in and of itself. It has a markup language that can describe to a client anything from Tetris to World of Warcraft. And that is the markup language that anyone can write a client for. Our first client happens to be a Flash embeddable widget, but it could be a stand-alone client, it could be a mobile client, it doesn't really matter.

We actually have written like three clients ourselves. We have a server that doesn't make assumptions about what kind of game you're running on it. And instead, the equivalent of CGI, which is our Lua-based scripting language. So that means the same server can be hosting Tetris or World of Warcraft, and it's all about what modules or scripts you plug into it.

Not a lot has been very publicly revealed about Metaplace yet, so check out the full interview for some cool details. We're also looking forward to having Raph at the upcoming Worlds in Motion Summit, so make sure and register so you can catch him there!

Habbo has announced a licensing agreement with Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment to create a series of virtual items based on the movie titles The Spiderwick Chronicles, Beowulf and Mean Girls. Through the agreement, Habbo gets merchandising rights for all three properties throughout the U.S. and Canada.

The first of the goods created through the partnership will be based on The Spiderwick Chronicles, and will introduce themed outfits for avatar, virtual furniture and accessories, along with other items. The Beowulf and Mean Girls items will start popping up in the months to come, Habbo says.

Along with the announcement, Habbo also touted some Google Analytics data that tallied Habbo communities in 31 countries on five continents, and found 86 million Habbo characters created to date by more than 8 million unique site visitors monthly.

Teemu Huuhtanen, Habbo EVP of business and president, North America, said, "The Habbo audience demands that their community reflect today's real world pop culture entertainment landscape. By establishing a licensing deal with a leading studio like Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment, we are able to produce themed virtual goods relevant to the movies our teen audience is watching, while simultaneously implementing impactful promotional campaigns for the studio."

Online game publisher Outspark (Fiesta) has added a new free-to-play game to its self-styled "digital playground" with the commercial release of Bread 'n Butter, which it says targets a broad range of casual gamers with mini-games and customization.

Bread 'n Butter challenges players to build a successful bakery, gathering ingredients, cooking pastries and upgrading the facilities. It's a somewhat similar idea to what PlayFirst did with the restaurant-entrepreneurial casual title Diner Dash by incorporating microtransactions and building further customization options onto a casual title. Using "Outspark cash," players can pick up upgrades that will help their bakery do better.

The art style is vaguely Asian, featuring adorable pastel cupcakes, baked rolls and donuts with cute little faces. It's a safe bet Bread 'n Butter is one of the Korean exports Outspark's Susan Choe told us she passionately wants to bring to the American audience, when we recently spoke to her in time for the company's latest funding announcement.

Zyon Games, a new indie publisher of free-to-play MMORPGs, is planning to bring release its first two titles in the U.S. and Europe early in 2008: Secret Online, and then Childhood, the latter of which it describes as a "casual" MMORPG. While Secret Online is a more traditional 3D quest-based game, Childhood is "cute"-styled and aimed at a broader age range of gamers.

The company was recently established in 2007 by Steven Wade, formerly of Aeria Games and New Game World. He describes the Zyon's strategy as "a couple of guys who are passionate about games just fulfilling their dream by doing what they love.”

Says Wade, “It is really exciting for me to be in this industry at this time. Since it is still early for the free to play space, no one really has a set formula for success; so you see a bunch of companies popping up every month or so all trying to figure it out.”

True enough; it remains to be seen, specifically, what Zyon's formula will be.

There.com creator Makena Technologies has continued its long-running partnership with MTV Networks, recently unveiling a new virtual skate park inside of MTV's virtual worlds based on its shows Rob and Big and Life of Ryan. As with MTV's virtual The Hills and Laguna Beach, Makena provides the platform for all of the network's franchise-related virtual activities.

Users can skateboard virtually in the new hub, and events and team competitions will take place around the skate park. Cast members will also make appearances, given the overall aim of the skate park seems to be to "bring users in direct contact with the skateboarding lifestyle featured on the two hit shows."

Makena CEO Michael Wilson says, "We are very excited that our partnership with MTV Networks continues to expand and flourish. Coupling our technology with the exclusive content that MTV provides allows their fan base to experience their favorite shows in an engaging way that has proven to be very successful.”

VideoEgg, which runs an ad network for social networking applications, says that it's pulled in $1.5 million in ad revenue from some 150 apps, which includes top Facebook embeddables like Scrabulous, Warbook and Flixster since August 2007.

VideoEgg founder and CEO Matt Sanchez says, "Aggregating more than a hundred application owners in our network gives advertisers the reach they need to go deep into any demographic. Reaching the $1.5 million mark is a testament to VideoEgg’s ability to enable developers to monetize their content."

But as Mashable points out, "The bottom line is that $1.5 million in revenue over 5 months for some of Facebook’s top applications simply does not seem like much, especially when you consider that MySpace is estimated to pull in $800 million of revenue this year."

Mashable also notes that there are no specified CPMs to go with the data, but a loose guess about install bases might lower the value of user downloads quite a bit.

[Mashable | How Much Money Are Facebook Apps Making? Not Much, Apparently]

Evergreen Events, organizer of the 2008 ION Game Conference, has announced that Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley will deliver the Wednesday, May 13th keynote address at the conference in Seattle.

Smedley will discuss the past, present and future accomplishments of SOE and the MMO market in general, the organizers say.

Smedley is responsible for SOE's overall vision and growth, and management of its employees. He has previously held positions with ATG, Knight Technologies, 989 Studios, as well as Verant Technologies, where he was co-founder before it became SOE in 2000.

ION Conference director Peter Freese said, “John Smedley and SOE have had an indelible impact in the online game industry. His insight of the past and vision for the future is a message we are excited to share with our attendees.”

Interested parties may find registration and other information at the official event website, http://www.ionconference.com.

Online Marketing and Public Relations and IBM have organized a pavilion at the upcoming Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, featuring companies including CDC Games, Icarus Studios/Fallen Earth, Terremark Worldwide, PlayXpert, GameTank, and XXtreme Support Services.

CDC Games claims 120 million registered users globally, and this showing at the IBM pavilion will mark the company's U.S. debut, ahead of its North American launch of the Lunia Online (shown). The company also says it wants to create more IP and find more developer partners in the North American market.

3D virtual worlds creator Icarus Studios will demo its Fallen Earth MMO, developed on its proprietary platform, showing three new environments that are part of the gameplay. IT infrastructure company Terremark provides managed hosting, co-location and network solutions for online games, social networking and virtual worlds, and will also be attending its first GDC. PlayXpert is a community management tool developer aimed at the MMO and virtual worlds space, developing a community platform on an extensible architecture that it says can work across all games.

IBM interactive strategy east cost executive Daniel Witteveen says, "We’re pleased to support the GDC Pavilion in Booth 6241 as a joint effort with OMPR which has done the launch PR for nearly 300 titles from 100 game developers. The Pavilion concept is a great way for visitors to experience new products, and talk one-on-one with CEOs and developers while enjoying the in-booth IBM Lounge."

Spiegel Online recently talked to Philip Rosedale, and asked him a few tougher questions than the Linden Lab founder seems usually to field from the media. Rosedale was asked, essentially, if the "party is over," following what can be perceived as a bit of a bubble popping for Second Life in the media. He says that's the natural cycle of new media, but admits it's a "rollercoaster."

Rosedale highlights Second Life's uses for business and academic collaboration, but stops short of admitting, when prompted, that marketing in second life is "a flop."

One highlight, pertaining to business models:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: One thing you haven't managed yet is to make people pay to use Second Life on a large scale. Online games like "World of Warcraft" that offer mission and reward schemes make huge amounts of money through subscription fees. Do you need to reconsider your model?

Rosedale: Our strategy is that other people need to build that on top of us, and they are doing that. We have to make sure the platform offers the right kind of features to make that stuff easy -- and that is a challenge for us. It is similar to Facebook, where they've created an API to allow people to build little social applications. But we are not going to make Second Life into a game to improve its retention.

Finally, Rosedale says that issues of performance and accessibility are currently the main focus: "Making it crash less on everybody's computers is our number one mission right now."

[Spiegel Online | Interview With Rosedale]

Game | Life diligently peeled the lid off of the surprisingly sordid circumstances surrounding controversial gold farming firm IGE, looking into a recently-revealed legal complaint against IGE founder Brock Pierce and finding details at Virtually Blind.

The plaintiff in the case is Pierce's co-founder, Alan Debonneville, who's suing his former business partner for "numerous breaches of fiduciary duty, breaches of contract and fraud." Pierce also has a bit of a rap, charged with involvement in illegal drugs, child molestation and transporting minors across state lines, among other things. Game | Life also points out that Pierce was the actor who played a young Emilio Estevez in the Disney film The Mighty Ducks, oddly enough.

IGE already has a tough hill to climb in terms of gaining credibility in the MMO industry, and this surprising drama is unlikely to assist.

[Game | Life Via Virtually Blind]

When sister site Gamasutra recently spoke to Justin Townsend, CEO of in-game advertising network IGA worldwide, we also asked him if he sees further opportunities in the casual online game and social virtual world space. "It's something we've been exploring for quite some time now," he said. "It’s not for our lack of trying, but the issue we have is in something like Second Life, most Second Life consumers are actually in there for sort of sexual things, or personal things like that."

Townsend also feels there's not enough reach for Second Life or any other online world at present. "One single AAA game, even if it sells more than 5 million units, doesn’t have enough reach or a big enough addressable audience in its own right. When we bring games into our network, we aggregate them. A sports advertiser like Nike comes to us and says, 'This is my budget, and I want to reach 18-34 year old males in all of your soccer or sports titles.'"

Thus, he says, "The problem you have with virtual worlds is you don’t have a high enough addressable audience, a big enough audience within one game in its own right. So you'd have to aggregate them, which brings up the second problem: Virtual worlds are all designed differently, and therefore there are no standards around ad formats. If you look back to what we do – EA, or Activision or whomever have all adopted our standards for different ad formats."

He adds, "When it comes to virtual worlds, these are mainly creatively-driven environments and frankly not open to advertising. And if they are, it's hard to get one set of advertising standards defined through all the different virtual world companies. If you wanted to provide ads into virtual worlds, it would be one-off bespoke, as opposed to aggregating ten virtual worlds together and providing a decent amount of reach to consumers."