San Jose-based Gaia Interactive, the company behind teen-targeted social network and MMO Gaia Online, has picked up an $11 million Series C round of venture funding from VC firm Institutional Venture Partners.

According to Gaia Interactive, over five million users participate in the community every month, with 350,000 logging into Gaia Online each day. Research group Hitwise also claimed in an April 2008 report that the service had the highest average visit time among social networking websites.

Previously, the company raised $12 million in Series B in March 2007 to finance the free-to-play MMO. According to CEO Craig Sherman, Gaia Interactive intends to use its new capital to grow and develop new site elements for Gaia Online.

Said Institutional Venture Partners General Partner Norm Fogelsong: "Gaia Online is one of the most exciting companies that we have seen in the online social community space. The breadth of activity available on the site and the level of engagement of the users are truly extraordinary.  It is a privilege to be involved with such a strong management team, one that is leading the way in virtual goods transactions.  We feel that Gaia Online is poised for explosive growth."

Free-to-play online game publisher K2 Network and Singapore studio Boomzap have entered a co-development partnership for an unannounced social game.

Scheduled to debut in early 2009, the social gaming title will be K2's first original, co-developed release. The game will be available on K2's GamersFirst.com portal for casual and free-to-play multiplayer online games, such as Knight Online and New World: Granado Espada.

Developer Boomzap's founders, Allan Simonsen and Christopher Natsuume, have over 15 years of experience working on casual titles for PC, PS2, Xbox, and NGage. The company employs developers from locations such as Malaysia, Germany, and the USA in addition to local Singaporean talent.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Following our previous decision to look at the most interesting "non-traditional" MMOs (starting with Kingdom of Loathing) we're looking at ForumWarz, a polished and popular browser-based RPG that satirizes internet culture while including community features such as leaderboards, clans, forums and player vs. player challenges.

Name: ForumWarz

Company: Crotch Zombie Productions

Established: February 2008

How it Works: ForumWarz is experienced on the web through html and was written using tools including Ruby on Rails, MySQL, Haml, memcached, script.aculo.us, Prototype, Mongrel and NGINX. It requires no installation and navigation and gameplay are accomplished via mouse and keyboard input.

Overview: In ForumWarz, players choose one of three classes and begin a largely single player adventure to gain levels, earn Flezz (the world's currency) and "pwn forums". Each player is allowed a limited number of forum visits per day. Players who choose to can take part in multiplayer aspects, including clans, "Forumwarz Domination" (a player vs. player challenge), building new forums or Incit, a mini game about creating amusing text to accompany images.

Payment Method: Forumwarz is free to play, and earns revenue through donations, which grant players special in-game items.

Key Features:
- A very polished and technically accomplished browser RPG
- Multiplayer features for players who wish to compete and also co-operate
- Live chat, forums and clans

Useful Links:
About
Official Blog
Official Wiki
Official Forums

Meteor Games, the new studio recently founded by the original creators of NeoPets, have finally pulled the curtain on its youth-targeted virtual world project, Twin Skies.

According to the recently posted site, Twin Skies will feature 3D graphics ("fully 3D DirectX 9") and a professional soundtrack. The game mixes fantasy MMORPG elements - such as creating characters from a selection of races and classes to battle against monsters - with trade skills, social interaction, mini-games, and "lots of hair styles."

Meteor will also release separate casual flash games which will not only include high-score tables and achievement trophies, but will eventually communicate with the MMO, potentially changing weather in a certain zone, spawning a monster, or unlocking a chest full of treasure.

Though Twin Skies isn't available even in Alpha form yet, Meteor Games will be showing the title at the Penny Arcade Expo in August of this year. The company plans to announce an updated schedule, hand out plush toys, and give away limited spots for its upcoming Beta test at the event. The site's forums are also scheduled to be available on the site late July or early August.

As for Twin Skies' business model, the company feels that ads would be distracting and is looking into a charging for subscriptions instead. Meteor Games admits, however, that nothing nothing has been finalized yet.

Social game distribution platform Social Gaming Network has announced that Bezos Expeditions, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' personal investment fund, has invested in the company for an undisclosed amount.

SGN announced in May 2008 that it had secured $15 Million in Series A funding, reportedly the largest first round for any social gaming or application company. The round was led by Greylock Partners, Founders Fund, Columbia Capital, and Novak Biddle Venture Partners.

Previously Bezos Expeditions revealed a similar investment for social Flash game portal Kongregate, offering up $3 million dollars. Kongregate announced that it would use the funds to continue to scale its site. The Bezos portfolio includes investments in Pelago, Twitter, TeachStreet, Powerset (acquired by Microsoft), ChaCha, and 37signals, with a total fund value of nearly $70M.

The Social Gaming Network specializes in publishing and providing a development platform for social games, such as Warbook and Jetman. Since the company's inception, its games have attracted over 1 billion page views, 54 million installs, and nearly 1.1 milion daily active users across social networks Facebook, Bebo, hi5, and MySpace.

Said SGN CEO Shervin Pishevar: "We are proud to be announcing the Bezos Expeditions investment. Mr. Bezos' knowledge and experience lends itself to the growth and expansion of the social gaming ecosystem. His participation in our funding will allow us to continue capturing new demographics in gaming by distributing the highest quality games available on the social web."

Disney Interactive Studios has announced that it is developing Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force, a Nintendo DS spin-off of Disney's popular kid-targeted Club Penguin virtual world.

Developed by 1st Playable Productions (GoPets: Vacation Island, Disney Princess: Magical Jewels), the handheld game will introduce kids to new adventures in the Club Penguin world, enabling them to complete secret agent missions and solve mysteries as a covert agent in the Elite Penguin Force. Players will have access to gadgets, accessories, and vehicles while investigating strange events.

As with The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, also a Nintendo DS release, Elite Penguin Force will include Disney’s DGamer service, which kids can use to jump into a secure online community, dressing up their avatars and chatting with friends.

In addition, players can connect the Nintendo DS game to the virtual Club Penguin world to unlock special features and upload coins to their online penguin account.

Said Disney Interactive Studios SVP of global marketing Craig Relyea: “Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force on Nintendo DS will perfectly complement the truly dynamic and robust online environment, making it more accessible for kids who love the game and want to constantly stay in contact with aspects of the Club Penguin world. We strive to bring innovative and compelling gameplay experiences for our entertainment franchises to kids on the platforms they play.

Webcasting and virtual events solutions provider ON24 has announced that it has secured over $8 million in an equity round led by U.S. Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, and Rho Ventures, and an expansion capital financing round led by Gold Hill Capital.

This new financing brings ON24's total capital raised to over $46 million. The company intends to use the funds for "global expansion of the sales, marketing and client services organizations," as well as product development initiatives, such as ON24 Virtual Show, its platform allowing companies and organizations to host trade shows, job fairs, conferences, and training summits in virtual venues

Announced earlier this month, ON24 Virtual Show features customizable user interfaces, integrated webcasting and show reporting, profiles and message board discussions for professional and social networking, "smart booths" offering personalized content based on attendee's profile, and multilingual support.

Said ON24 CEO and president Sharat Sharan: “Our customers are experiencing increased ROI as a result of using ON24 solutions for demand generation and corporate communications. With rising fuel costs and the economic downturn, we have seen increased demand by organizations to leverage our solutions to hold online events as a cost-effective alternative to in-person events. We’ve raised this funding to accelerate our growth while being well capitalized during the economic downturn."

Officials for R.O.S.E. Online have announced that the Korean-developed MMORPG will be doing away with its subscriptions, switching all of its servers to a free-to-play business model, effective July 29th.

Brought online in the U.S. in December 2005 by publisher Gravity Interactive, R.O.S.E. Online has been running on monthly subscription plans, with a single month's non-recurring subscription priced at $12.99.

Existing subscriptions will be canceled, and users with subscriptions will be compensated with in-game currency. R.O.S.E. Online features an Item Mall in which players can buy in-game items.

According to R.O.S.E. Online's officials, the MMORPG is switching to the subscription model to "attract more users than ever before."

San Francisco-based developer Vivaty has announced its virtual spaces platform, Vivaty Scenes, has entered public beta.

An application for delivering 3D virtual spaces through web browsers, Vivaty Scenes is embedabble in Facebook and also available as an application module for AOL's instant messenger.

Worlds In Motion talked with former Electronic Arts vice president and Vivaty's CEO, co-founder, and president Keith McCurdy, about the company's virtual spaces platform and what makes it special; benefits over the "2D" Facebook experience; future developments and what he thinks of Google's entrance into the space.

Introduce Vivaty.

Keith McCurdy: We're a young company, founded last year and based in the bay area and we're basically focusing on doing two things: what we've recently launched, our Vivaty Scenes application, and the platform on which it is based. The Vivaty platform is a client/server tool that allows the creation and deployment of a wide variety of 3D virtual worlds in a web browser.

We can build all sorts of applications on top of this platform, but the first one we're launching is Vivaty Scenes, and you can think of Vivaty scenes as a personal profile page -- a scene that you get to control who accesses and what is in the scene, the objects in it, videos in it.

There will be more applications coming down the line later.

Publisher-sponsored in-game commerce platform PlaySpan has acquired PayByCash, an alternative payment system for online games, virtual worlds, and social networks.

Established in 1998 and supported in over 200 gateways, PayByCash provides a network of 70 different payment methods. The service handles all payment-related customer support, foreign exchange complexity and risk, fraud protection, and maintenance of payment system integrations, while providing reporting and accounting to its merchant clients.

PayByCash will continue to operate independently with offices in Charlottesville, Virginia and Cincinnati, Ohio. The company intents to release PaxGuard, a new offering for fraud protection, in August 2008.

Based in Silicon Valley and backed by a $6.5 million investment from Easton Capital, Menlo Ventures, STIC, and Novel TMT Ventures, PlaySpan delivers in-game search, commerce, and micropayment technologies to game publishers and developers. Gaming platforms, such as K2 Networks and Gala Net, have selected PlaySpan as their official marketplace for virtual goods commerce.

Said PlaySpan CEO and founder Karl Mehta: “PayByCash’s 10 year reputation in the global game industry, operational experience of millions of transactions each year and the trust of millions of gamers make the service a great addition to our in-game marketplace platform. We are excited about the synergies of our businesses and will continue to promote PayByCash’s global payment platform to our publisher partners worldwide.”

MMO game publisher OGPlanet has announced that it has received funding from venture capital firm DFJ Athena. The company, which is expected to reach profitability shortly, intends to use the funding to support its growth and bring additional games to the US market.

Founded in 2005, OGPlanet licenses titles from Korea and markets them in the US. Its MMOG portfolio includes Cabal Online, Rumble Fighter, Albatross18 and La Tale (due Q3 2008), all of which are operated under a free-to-play model with in-game item purchases available through a microtransaction system.

Said DFJ Athena managing director Perry Ha: "OGPlanet has proven itself as a leading publisher of online games and has distinguished itself from others with its operational excellence. We are impressed by their strong growth and we are pleased to support their further growth."

Publisher Codemasters will include a "one of a kind horse card," which can be activated on Bella Sara's web site and virtual world, with each copy of its upcoming Bella Sara Nintendo DS and PC games, according to a report from video game website GameSpot.

The bundled cards will be similar to other cards available through Hidden City's Bella Sara trading card series - children purchase packs and use the redeemable codes printed on the cards to activate new horses in the Bella Sara virtual world. Card packs contains 7 different cards each and can be bought at retailers such as Blockbuster, Target, Toys ‘R’ Us and Wal-Mart.

The DS and PC titles will have players taking part in a variety of mini-games to complete quests in Bella Sara's North of the North setting. They'll also collect in-game cards to unlock new horses in the game.

Animation software developer NaturalMotion has announced that 38 Studios, a new developer and publisher founded by baseball pitcher Curt Schilling, has licensed the company’s morpheme animation engine for its upcoming PC MMO game.

NaturalMotion says the morpheme middleware is "designed to give developers and animators unprecedented creative control over the look of their final in-game animation by allowing them to author and preview blends, blend trees and state machines in real time."

The package is available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC, and, with version 1.3, was integrated with Epic's Unreal Engine 3.

38 Studios also recently announced an agreement to license BigWorld’s Technology Suite for the MMO.

Said 38 Studios chief technology officer Jon Laff: "When selecting middleware we are very careful to find solutions that enable us to focus our attention on our game. morpheme allows us to create very high-quality character animations quickly, cutting down on a lot of intensive animation design and implementation time.”

As part of today's Sony roundtable Q&A at E3, SCEA president Jack Tretton has been discussing the state of the Home online world for PlayStation 3, suggesting there was "a lot of learning... and a little naivete" in its construction, but that the "worst thing" Sony could do was look at Microsoft's new Xbox 360 avatars and try to react based on them.

According to Tretton's comments at the roundtable, the apparent delays to its Home PS3 application are down to complexities that perhaps the company did not fully understand up front.

The online world application has been delayed multiple times, most notably from late 2007 to Spring 2008, and still doesn't have a formal release date. Tretton explained:

"Home is not [just] a software title. It needed a lot of hardware engineering support. It didn't get built up beyond what you'd expect from a software title until very recently... there was a lot of learning recently and a little naivete about how we'd build it.

It took us a while to figure out what it was and how you'd build it. I'd rather ship it two years from now and have it be filled with a lot of great stuff than open it up as a ghost town - so I think we've got to do a good job of populating it. The shell is there, but we have to get all the good destinations."

Virtual world advertising firm the Electric Sheep Company has announced WebFlock, a "private-label," Flash-based virtual world application for online social interaction, media consumption, and multiplayer casual gameplay.

WebFlock has been designed so that each implementation is separate and customizable, so that companies can control factors such as user registration, quality and safety of art content, monetization options (e.g. advertising, micro-transactions), web content integration, and other settings.

The application allows for users to create unique avatars, chat, interact with scripted objects, and play casual games. WebFlock's implementations can reside on a web page or be syndicated on social networks like MySpace and FaceBook.

The Electric Sheep Company intends to charge a monthly application services fee, which is based on concurrent users, to cover access to the software, hosting, technical support, and maintenance. Customization services, such as art creation, game design, or systems integration, are priced separately. A basic implementation with 12 months of application services fees goes for "under $100,000."

The firm has already announced Showtime television drama The L Word as its first customer. The Electric Sheep Company previously worked with the show to create am Emmy Award-winning "L Word in Second Life" online community in 2007.

Said The Electric Sheep Company CEO Sibley Verbeck: "We have spent years creating virtual experiences for media companies and brands, and have struggled to match available technology with the needs of our clients. That struggle led us to create WebFlock, and we are thrilled to work with SHOWTIME again as one of our first customers for the product."

Australian-based MMO distributor and middleware developer BigWorld has announced that in addition to expanding its presence in both the Japanese and South Korean markets, it has appointed former Online Game Services Inc. (OGSi) founder and CEO James Hursthouse as its director of business development. The company has also brought in Yoshikazu Furuhata as its new account executive.

With the establishment of a direct presence in Japan and Korea, BigWorld hope to emphasize the importance it places on working directly with local developers, publishers, and agents to understand and support those markets.

The company recently upgraded its MMO technology suite, which includes BigWorld Server Software, Content Creation Pipeline, 3D Client Engine Package, and Live Management Tools & Instrumentation, to version 1.9. The update included various optimizations, improvements, and new features, such as an advanced terrain engine.

Previous to BigWorld, Hursthouse set up OGSi in 2004, which served as an infrastructure provider to the online game industry, offering solutions for hosting, billing, customer support, and market development consultancy. In January 2007 he sold OGSi to hosting services provider GNi and worked there as global director for games and entertainment services at GNi. James is currently the advisory board chairman for the ION Game Conference and was previously chairman of the IGDA’s Online Games SIG.

Yoshikazu Furuhata has experience in both the online game business and dedicated server hosting business in Japan, having developed an extensive network of contacts among online game related companies, both in Japan and Korea.

Said CEO Gavin Longhurst: "2008 has been a fantastic year for BigWorld. Working with an ever increasing number of licensees around the world has helped cement our position as the middleware engine of choice for the development and operation of MMOGs. One of our major titles, NetEase’s (NTES) Tian Xia 2, recently launched in China, fully supported by our local office.”

San Jose-based Gaia Interactive has announced that it will host the "Rejected Olympics," a humorous interpretation of this year's Olympic Games, as a free event in social network and MMO Gaia Online from July 21-27.

In its Rejected Olympics event, users will be able to take part in 100 offbeat games, such as watermelon chopping and connect the dots, all while socializing with other Gaian Olympians. Participants will also earn in-game gold and a chance to win daily virtual prizes. Virtual gold, silver, and bronze medals will be rewarded to the three top scoring teams at the end of the week-long event.

Earlier this week, the company announced that it had picked up an $11 million Series C round of venture funding from VC firm Institutional Venture Partners. Gaia Interactive intends to use its new capital to grow and develop new site elements for Gaia Online.

Said Gaia Interactive vice president of creative and user experience Scott Kinzie: “The Olympics are an aspiration for millions of our users, and we think the Rejected Olympics is a fun, irreverent way to bring the energy and enthusiasm around Olympic competition to our community. We’re continually looking for ways to provide our users with online experiences that take their real-world interests to a whole new level.”

The organizers of the Worlds In Motion Summit at Austin GDC have announced the full schedule outline for the market-leading conference on virtual worlds and social gaming, to be held on September 16th and 17th following its successful debut at Game Developers Conference in February.

The Summit will take place at the Austin Game Developers Conference in the Austin Convention Center, and will map the broadening of the worldwide business market through the expansive and growing social game networking space.

The Worlds in Motion Summit, presented by Think Services’ leading media outlet in the space, WorldsInMotion.biz, is of particular value to those looking to successfully leverage their content and brands into interactive online worlds.

The schedule for the two-day Summit is as follows:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16th

First Day Keynote
The Worlds In Motion Summit’s first day will be kicked off by a signature, yet to be revealed keynote from a major, high profile online world provider – watch for an announcement soon.

In-World Advertising Case Study
Speakers: Teemu Huuhtanen (President, North America, Sulake Inc), Jonathan Epstein (CEO, Double Fusion)
Advertising in online worlds is an increasingly important part of monetizing games – with possibilities including in-game billboards, contests, and more. In this case study, we’ll hear from the creators of Habbo and their advertising partners at Double Fusion, uncovering how in-game advertising works for them, how to reach your audience without turning them off, and all the advantages and pitfalls of advertising in this new medium.

Panel: The State of Facebook/Social Network Gaming
Speakers: Frank Lantz (Creative Director, Co-founder, Area/Code), Charles Wetmore (Development Manager, Zwinky), Shervin Pishevar (CEO, Social Gaming Network)
Facebook and social network-based gaming are a rapidly burgeoning market segment. But what’s the reality of making games that fit into the infrastructure of existing social websites? What are the benefits and difficulties with creating social games on Facebook and other sites? The creators of standout Facebook title Parking Wars and other notable market experts weigh in.

IBM Metaverse Evangelist Roo Reynolds has announced via his weblog that he is moving on from his position as metaverse evangelist at the multinational information technology company, which he has worked at for ten years, to work as a portfolio executive of social media at BBC Vision. According to Reynolds, he will be developing and executing "BBC Vision’s strategy in relation to social media."

BBC Vision, BBC's in-house multimedia broadcast and production group, seeks to continue its multiplatform strategy and utilize “the two-way nature of new media platforms to transform [BBC's] relationship with license fee payers,” encouraging audiences to create content and “participative experiences.”

As Metaverse evangelist at IBM, Reynolds helped "facilitate the use of virtual worlds both within IBM as well as for consumer-facing events. Prior to that position, he worked at the company as an emerging technologies specialist and as a software engineer.

South Korean social networking and virtual spaces site Cyworld has announced a partnership with "automatic video editing" software developer muvee Technologies to deliver a new video editing service to Cyworld members.

Based in Singapore, muvee offers software and services allowing users to create and share home movies out of unedited video, digital pictures, and music. With the new agreement, Cyworld's reported 20 million users can add music and editing styles to their videos and photos, creating movies which can be displayed on their profile pages.

Said muvee CEO Terence Swee "Years before the term 'Web 2.0' was coined in the West, Korea had already been at the forefront of what we now call social media and virtual worlds. muvee is proud to be Cyworld's chosen platform provider for a service that can both satisfy the ease of use and interactivity demands of discerning Korean internet consumers, and match the scale of Cyworld's service level requirements. This partnership is a strategic addition to our internet business, which complements global partners we have in the PC and mobile space."

Online youth entertainment and media network GoFish Corporation has added financial virtual community MinyanLand to its advertising network of sites, expanding GoFish's reach to over 23 million unique visitors domestically and 71 million unique visitors globally per month.

Launched in February and claiming over 100,000 registered kids, MinyanLand is a free virtual world for kids put together by media company Minyanville Publishing and Multimedia. The community seeks to "engender financial literacy in young people, so a new generation better understands the concepts of basic economics and finance on a real-world level."

GoFish is the exclusive brand advertising partner for its network of youth-focused sites, including WeeWorld, Magi-Nation: Battle for the Moonlands, Whyville, and other properties targeting the six- to seventeen-year-old demographic and their co-viewing parents. The company launched its youth-targeted online media network in February and signed several new publishers in Q1 2008, growing its audience reach from approximately 10 million unique users to over 20 million unique users as of April 30, 2008.

Through its new partnership, GoFish will aggregate and distribute age-appropriate, blue chip advertising across MinyanLand. The firm believes that this agreement will enable finance and consumer brand advertisers to build awareness and influence brand preference among the virtual worlld's youth demographic.

Said GoFish vice president of publisher development David Fisch: “MinyanLand is an ideal addition to our network, which is currently comprised of other virtual worlds including Whyville, Cartoon Doll Emporium, and WeeWorld. The time spent per visit on MinyanLand is characteristic of the sites in our network. The immersive experiences available through our publishers enable advertisers to reach youth and their co-viewing parents in a uniquely engaged mindset.”

Berlin-based publisher Frogster Interactive has announced five MMOG titles for its autumn and winter beta and release schedule, including Runes of Magic, The Chronicles of Spellborn, StoneAge 2, Kickster, and an add-on for Bounty Bay Online.

Of those titles, Runes of Magic, StoneAge 2, and Kickster will all be free to play, presumably utilizing a microstransaction model. A localized version of fantasy MMORPG Runes of Magic will begin its closed beta in September, its open beta expected to start two months afterwards. The launch phase for an English and German version is scheduled to follow at the end of the year. Interested gamers can pre-register for the beta tests at the official site.

The European version of StoneAge 2 (pictured), a "relaxed MMORPG" targeted at kids, is expected to begin its closed beta phase in August and will launch in autumn. Kickster, an online soccer community, is also planned to launch in autumn.

Though The Chronicles of Spellborn will not be free to play, Frogster has yet to announce any specifics about its planned business model. The publisher is, however, considering retail fees, monthly subscriptions and other alternative payment plans. The MMORPG is planned for a release before the end of the year.