The former Flagship Studios team behind massively multiplayer online role-playing game Mythos has reformed as Runic Games, and the new studio says it'll work on adding new, unrelated MMORPGs to its development slate.

Formerly Flagship Studios Seattle, the team was caught up in the layoffs resulting from the collapse of the parent company last month. The Mythos beta servers were closed down, and the rights for both it and Hellgate: London passed to Asian publisher T3 Entertainment.

Runic Games will be headed by former project director Travis Baldree and executive producer Max Schaefer. Baldree was also responsible for action role-playing game FATE, and in addition to being one of Flagship's original founders, also was one of the original Blizzard North founders.

Although Runic Games has not yet announced details of its new game, a statement on the studio’s website indicates that it will be in the action role-playing/massively multiplayer online genre. Further announcements are expected in the "coming days".

[The preceding article by David Jenkins originally appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Developer and publisher Game Power 7 plans to publish what it says is the first 3D MMORPG localized for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Though the company hasn't yet disclosed the title, it intends to reveal the forthcoming game in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Based in Dubai, UAE, Game Power 7 is a subsidiary of Weiss Investment, a media business focusing on tailoring media contents for the MENA and Southeast Asia regions. The game development and publishing startup intends to release games appealing to "all ages and interests," in addition to publishing gaming-related digital content.

Game Power 7 also says it is actively pursuing other MMO games to localize for the MENA region. The studio hopes to position itself as a partner in the area to help online game developers publish their games in Arabic and Farsi languages.

The company's announcement follows THQ's June release of Wall-E -- a video game adaptation of the Disney-Pixar film for the Playstation 3, PSP, and Xbox 360 -- in Arabic. The game was said to be the first "next generation video game" localized for the Middle East market.

Educational software developer Knowledge Adventure announced that it received $5 million in a Series B round of funding led by venture capitalist firms Azure Capital and Telesoft partners.

The funding will go towards the company's shift of focus from educational software to adventure-based 3D virtual worlds for kids. Knowledge Adventure intends to create and support a new team to develop and produce its 3D virtual world online environments.

Knowledge Adventure recently released JumpStart Advanced Preschool World, software for teaching 3-to-5 year olds pre-reading, early math, social studies, art, music, computer skills, and critical thinking skills.

The company plans to launch an online component with subscriptions allowing users to interact with one another in JumpStart's 3D virtual world, going on adventures, completing missions, and earning rewards while learning.

Former RazorGator Interactive Group CEO and president David Lord was recently brought in as Knowledge Adventure's president and CEO with the purpose to evolve the company towards a "multi-faceted kids entertainment company with both retail and online virtual world components."

Said Lord: “JumpStart has a rich history as the leading brand in delivering learning games to kids over the last 20 years. By leveraging our trusted brand with parents to deliver a rich, safe and fun virtual world experience for kids 3 to 10, we see countless opportunity for the company to bring our unique adventure-based learning games to the explosive virtual world/online gaming market.”

Wicked Interactive, a newly formed North American MMO publishing group, announced its launch and a partnership with Korean developer Yedang Online.

Based in Toronto, Wicked Interactive is led by president and CEO Stanley Yu. Previously, Yu served as president, CEO, and co-founder of IT services company TrekLogic and Brainhunter. The company will host all of its upcoming games on a proprietary technology platform, which will be announced later this month.

With its partnership, Wicked Interactive plans to bring several Yedang Online-developed titles, including Priston Tale, Priston Tale 2, and Ace Online, to North America this year. The original Priston Tale has so far picked up over 1.5 million users. Its sequel, a free-to-play MMORPG, will be Wicked Interactive's first North American title.

Said Yu: "Through the internet, video games have evolved into a social and community-based experience With our strategic partnership with leading partner like Yedang Online, we are poised to take a pioneering role in capitalizing on this new phenomenon."

Outlining 27 emerging technologies in its latest report, "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2008," analyst firm Gartner predicted eight technology trends, including public virtual worlds, that will have a transformational business impact and that should be strongly considered for adoption by technology planners in the next 10 years.

According to the firm, virtual worlds are currently in the "Trough of Disillusionment" stage of Gartner's five-stage Hype Cycle, and are suffering from disillusionment due to inflated, unrealistic expectations during their peak of hype in 2007. Gartner forecasts that in the long term, however, virtual worlds will "represent an important media channel to support and build broader communities of interest."

Other technologies predicted to have transformational impact include cloud-computing, green IT, video telepresence, and microblogging.

Gartner also expects success for social computing platforms: "Following the phenomenal success of consumer-oriented social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, companies are examining the role that these sites, or their enterprise-grade equivalents, will play in future collaboration environments. The scope is also expanding to incorporate the notion of social "platforms," or environments for a broad range of developers to build on the basic application."

[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. You can view Part 1 of our investigation here, and Part 2 here.]

In our last entry for Virtual MTV we found the MMO remarkably similar to Makena Technologies' There, almost certainly because it's based on it! But our further investigation found other things worthy to remark on -- from the Virtual MTV's use of MTV brands to the open and talkative community. But what do we conclude? Read on after the jump.

China's online gaming market raked in $637 million among all its operators in the second quarter of 2008 -- an 11 percent increase on the quarter and a 66 percent jump over last year, says China-based consultant Analysys International.

Shanda Interactive Entertainment has the highest marketshare in the region at close to 20 percent. Shanda publishes Ragnarok Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Three Kingdoms in China, among others, and most recently began work with THQ's new China office on a microtransactions-driven Company of Heroes for the region.

In second place is Journey to the West publisher NetEase, with 12.8 percent of the market, while Zhengtu Online publisher Giant Interactive comes in third with 11.4 percent. Giant recently invested $51 million dollars into social networking service 51.com with the aim of expanding its reach.

The remaining leading online game companies Analysys listed in order of marketshare are The 9 (10.9%), Tencent (10.5%), Sohu (7.4%) Perfect World (7.4%) 9You (5.6%), NetDragon (3.8%), Kingsoft (2.8%) and China.com (1.7%)

Business consulting firm Pearl Research said earlier this year that popular Chinese games earn $7 to $12 average revenue per user per month. According to Pearl, NetEase's Journey to the West is China's most popular title in terms of users, supporting 1.66 million concurrent users at its peak. Giant's Zhengtu Online, the majority source of the company's $209 million in revenues, clocked 1.52 million peak concurrent users.

[The preceding article by Leigh Alexander originally appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Developer PlayXpert announced that it signed over 20 new partners in the past quarter, including Intel, Stratic, MMOABC, and Blue Orb, to develop in-game community management tools for PC an MMO gamers.

Based in Sandpoint, Idaho, PlayXpert's previous partners include Sony Online Entertainment and online voice services provider Vivox. The company’s customizable platform enables gamers, game developers, and the modding community to build in-game widgets.

The PlayXpert installation, which is available to download for free, includes the PlayXpert Friends Widget, Vivox Voice Widget, Wikia Widget, Web Browser Widget, PC Diagnostics Widget, and a Tunes Widget. The company also released a Widget Gallery allowing users to download ancillary widgets, including a Google Gadget Widget, Notepad Widget, Command Line Widget, TeamSpeak Widget, and an Armory Widget for WoW players.

MMO portal Stratics intends to distribute a "Signature Build" of PlayXpert with the Stratics branding for its community, delivering MMO news and other content through the PlayXpert client. MMOABC, an MMO social network from New Gen Media,

Said PlayXpert CEO Charles Manning: "Today’s announcement demonstrates the value of PlayXpert widgets and the power of an ecosystem of companies who build them to cater to the player’s in-game experiences. With twenty new partners in the past few weeks, the momentum behind our semi-transparent overlay system and our open and extensible widget engine is growing.

Sony Online Entertainment announced that president John Smedley will provide opening opening remarks at 2008 SOE Fan Faire, the company’s annual Fan Faire social gathering event, which will be held this year at the Las Vegas Hilton from August 14th to 17th.

Now in its sixth year, the event allows for players of SOE’s various MMO titles, such as EverQuest II and Star Wars Galaxies, to meet in person, as well as talk to developers and preview forthcoming games and updates.

In addition to tournaments, panel discussions, in-game item giveaways, this year’s event will include previews of “three monumental new games in development”, with the comment confirming “something that has to do with capes,” likely a reference to the company’s forthcoming DC Comics title.

Smedley's community address combines a live presentation with a streaming video broadcast online. According to SOE's announcement, Smedley will give Fan Faire attendees an inside look at the company's products "usually reserved for industry insider events."

3D virtual community Worlds and e-commerce technology solutions provider Paid signed a three-year licensing agreement to leverage each other's software platforms.

With the alliance, Worlds will integrate Paid's e-commerce technology into its own platform by the year's end, and, simultaneously, Paid will offer its celebrity clients a 3D web presence, presumably similar to World's development deal with Run D.M.C. artist Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels.

The agreement is expected to increase web site traffic, enhance the experience of Worlds users and members of PAID-managed celebrity fan clubs, and grow the revenue and profits of both companies and their clients. The two companies also hope to further develop mobile promotions strategies and the creation and sale of new, Paid-inspired virtual merchandise.

Said Worlds CEO Thom Kidrin: "Having operated over 50 online ecommerce stores within 3D worlds for artists such as David Bowie and Aerosmith beginning in 1997, Worlds appreciates the multiple challenges in large scale fulfillment and customer service. Paid's patented platform and experience in the ecommerce market affords Worlds a unique set of features to offer our users with confidence and a seamless user experience."

He added: "We are also attracted by the nature of Paid's relationship consulting services in the areas of sports and music industry marketing, and we see ourselves creating new revenue-generating strategies together as part of the natural progression of our business relationship."

With the recent launch of our new Worlds In Motion Job Board as a standalone board complete, complete with its own RSS feed and unique URL, every week, we will be highlighting the latest posted jobs relevant to our readership of professionals creating online worlds.

The listings cover a wide range of companies and open positions, so everyone seeking jobs in the MMO/online/virtual world industry should find the board useful.

- Conduit Labs (Cambridge, MA)
Senior Animator and Animator ninja with robot assassins
("Conduit Labs is a venture backed start-up out to mix MMOs with music and the web to create a new kind of social gaming network. Past successes of our team members include Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Lord of the Rings Online, H-Lounge and the Ambient Orb. We are raising the bar on the rapidly growing social gaming market and if you are looking to get in on ground floor of a whole new era in online gaming drop us a line to get yourself cherry-picked.")

- Cyworld (San Francisco, CA)
3D Software Engineer, Senior Technical Artist, and 3D Artist
("Cyworld is a global social network that helps people communicate with their friends, family and coworkers more efficiently worldwide. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information, individual expression and promotes diversity through the social graph and vivid animated and interactive use of graphics.")

Despite a small revenue increase, NCsoft's profits fell 42 percent in its second fiscal quarter due to a lack of new products in the last few months and higher advertising and outsourcing costs, the South Korean MMO publisher says.

NCsoft's net sales increased by 7 percent on the previous year to 81.2 billion won ($78.1m), although this was 8 percent less than the last quarter. The publisher netted 6.1 billion won ($5.9m), in income, down 42 percent on the previous year.

Results suffer for the absence of any new Guild Wars launches or royalties from Chinese publisher The9, NCsoft says, in addition to the cost of relocating the company’s headquarters, higher advertising costs and outsourced R&D costs were also factors.

However, cracking down on pirate Lineage servers and offering new content updates on Lineage II helped give the company its small bump in year-over-year sales.

By region, sales in South Korea accounted for 58 percent of the company’s business, with North America and Japan both with 13 percent, Europe with 6 percent and Taiwan with 4 percent. Royalties from external publishers stood at 6 percent of sales income.

"In order to maintain our ongoing development cycles and a diverse game portfolio, multiple games are in development currently across all NCsoft studios,” said NCsoft CFO Jaeho Lee.

The company’s next major release is Aion, which has just finished a third stage of closed beta testing.

[The preceding article by David Jenkins originally appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Hispanic television network channel Sorpresa, a Juniper Content company, has secured exclusive Spanish-language distribution rights and non-exclusive English rights to virtual world Club Time Machine, hoping to attract Hispanic youth online.

Developed by Netherlands-based vWorld Corporation, Club Time Machine is a 2.5D virtual world in which kids create "Hoover" avatars that can travel between time periods on rocket-powered “Hooverboards” to play games, experience adventures, collect souvenirs, earn gold to buy energy for their rockets, and chat with other Hoovers.

Club Time Machine will be available for a $5.95 monthly subscription, with options for a $29.50 six-month package and a $56.50 twelve-month package.

Said: Juniper Content chairman and Sorpresa CEO Stuart Rekant: “There are 23 million Hispanics online growing to 30 million over the next 4 years with 1 in 4 Hispanics under the age of 14. Online virtual worlds, the equivalent of social networking to kids and young teens, have received great acceptance in the general market. Virtual world participation is projected to grow 300% - to 20 million users by 2011 – and being a first mover in the Hispanic youth arena gives Sorpresa! a distinct advantage as well as an additional source of revenue beyond affiliate fees and ad sales.”

WiseHealth announced the launch of Wisenhimer, a new virtual world for children ages 5-12 that teaches them to make healthy choices about eating well, staying active, and building life skills such as integrity, generosity, and manners.

Built with the goal to combat childhood obesity and Type II diabetes, Wisenhimer allows children to create avatars, design treehouses, and play interactive games that challenge them to get up and move. They can also earn points by completing quizzes and educational challenges, which can then be spent at the virtual world's store for treehouse upgrades.

WiseHealth is a healthcare, pharmaceutical, disease management, and preventative health initiatives solutions provider. Based in the Baltimore-Washington DC corridor, the company's corporate mission is to help families and children to take responsibility for their active management of personal health.

Said CEO and president Linda Kreter: "Like it or not, our children are in a full-scale battle where their health and their lives are at stake. As parents, we need to actively arm our children with valuable life lessons so they can flourish as adults. That's why we created Wisenhimer."

Organizers for the Virtual Worlds Forum Europe 2008 announced that Jagex CEo Geoff Iddison will deliver a keynote at the event, as will Mel Guymon, Google's Lively product manager and head of 3D operations.

Scheduled to take place during October 6th to 8th, the conference will be held in London at urban venue The Bridge. In addition to featuring several dozen speakers representing the virtual worlds industry, the expo will have developer booths, technology and virtual world demos, and hands-on workshops.

Though Iddison hasn't yet revealed the topic for his keynote, it's likely he'll mention RuneScape, Jagex's Java-based MMORPG and flagship title claiming 5.4 million active users. The company recently launched a beta for RuneScape HD, a version of the game featuring higher definition graphics.

Early bird registration for Virtual Worlds Forum Europe 2008 ends tomorrow. Attendees will receive a free 3-month subscription to the Financial Times and a complimentary copy of Gartner report 'Virtual Worlds: The Grand Challenges - what to expect in 2009.'

Second Life developer Linden Lab intends to launch a beta for Second Life instant messaging (SLim) client through its First Look viewer, according to a report from Second Life news site SLNN.

Speaking at a recent presentation, Linden Lab's vice president of Platform and Technology Development Joe Miller explained SLim: "[It's] a very thin client that is designed for you to stay in both voice and text contact with your friends list. If you want to participate in a meeting but can’t actually run the SL app to do it, you’ll be able to do that with our thin voice communication client. It will be in First Look in a couple of weeks."

Users will be able to install the instant messaging client on even older machines that cannot run Second Life or on computers that cannot prohibited from accessing the virtual world due to firewalls.

Miller also revealed other upcoming features currently under development, such as the ability for avatars to receive and answer outside phone calls within Second Life: “This will work two ways: you’ll be able to sign up for an access number that will give people who are outside of SL (perhaps on a cell phone) the ability to reach you in-world."

He continued: "The other capability is the ability to associate a standard telephone number – PSTN number – with a group, and that number can be used by a number of folks to join a group conversation for the purpose of meeting from outside of SL as well.”

In addition, he added that an opt-in voice mail feature is in the works, which enables people to leave voice mail messages for users if they are not in-world. Users will be able to set it so that they can receive the voice message via e-mail, as well.

[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.]

Online worlds are usually avatar based, and if they're games, they're normally RPGs. Developer GameForge bucks the trend with Ikariam, a browser based real-time strategy title that is most usually compared to Sid Meier's Civilization series.

Name: Ikariam

Company: GameForge

Established: February 2008

How it Works: Ikariam is browser based and runs in HTML and Javascript. Navigation and gameplay are accomplished via mouse and keyboard input.

Overview: In Ikariam, users create a town on a randomly assigned island. On their island are up to 15 other players, plus a sawmill and a unique resource. The aim of the game is for the player to create the largest and most prosperous city by accumulating resources through production, trade or warfare, and developing new technologies and buildings as a result.

Payment Method: Ikariam is free to play, and earns revenue via "Ikariam Plus" a system where players can purchase "ambrosia" which can be spent to receive in-game bonuses.

Key Features:
- A massively multiplayer real-time strategy title
- "Always on" - players' cities are costantly working, even when they're not logged in
- Players can not only fight with each other, but perform diplomacy, forming alliances and trade agreements

Useful Links:
Ikariam Board - Official Forum
Wikariam - Unofficial Wiki
Ikariam Tip - Unofficial tips site

Nexon America, the North American division of Korea-based developer and publisher Nexon Group, announced the release of Crimsonwood Keep, an expansion to its 2D MMORPG MapleStory.

Crimsonwood Keep adds 31 new maps, 11 unique enemies, 12 quests, and a collection of new weapons and objects to the game. The expansion also gives pets an additional skill, updates the language filter, and includes new platforming features.

Nexon America Inc., the North American division of Korea-based developer and publisher Nexon Group, is celebrating MapleStory's third anniversary (in the U.S.) by unveiling new areas, contests, and events for the free-to-play MMO game.

Nexon recently celebrated its third anniversary (in the U.S.) by unveiling new areas, contests, and events. To date, MapleStory has amassed over 5.9 million users in North America and 87 million users worldwide.

The free-to-play MMORPG's popularity led to the recent opening of Yellonde, a new server. To celebrate the new server, Nexon is awarding the top 75 ranked players across the first month with prizes.

As MMOGs increase in size and become more like real economies, fraud, either in-world theft or simple credit card chargebacks, become a larger issue.

In fact, chargebacks are a relatively little-known but fascinating part of the MMO world. As recently explained, fraudulent chargeback "...occurs when a credit card transaction is refuted by the cardholder.", and can occur both with stolen credit cards and even when "...the actual cardholder makes the transaction and then decides to refute the transaction after the fact."

For major MMO firms, these fees can stretch into millions of dollars every month, making managing them key. Gamasutra talks to Gene Hoffman, CEO of billing and fraud management company Vindicia about the issues MMOG publishers such as Blizzard face, and what they can do to avoid fraud.

What are the types of fraud MMOGs could face via credit card payment?

GH: The first question about MMO fraud is whether there is a real currency resale market. If there is a way to create cash directly or over on eBay, there will be real fraud attempts to use stolen credit cards to create cash.

If that's less of an issue, then the main type of fraud on the front end will be card thieves using payment method-required free trials or micropayments to test their list of stolen cards. Because MMO's feel they are immune to real fraud (and it doesn't cost them much) they don't institute any protection up front and the fraudsters then do a $1 or $0 authorization or a sub $5 transaction.

NetEase, China's second-largest online game operator by marketshare, saw profits climbing in its second fiscal quarter to 438.2 yuan ($63.9 million), compared to 312.6 million yuan ($45.6 million) in the same period last year.

NetEase's total revenues were 715.9 million yuan ($104.4 million), up from 558 million yuan ($81.3 million) for the second quarter of 2007. About 80 percent of the total came from online games as opposed to other internet services the company offers, it says.

NetEase yesterday announced a deal with Blizzard to distribute upcoming RTS Starcraft II in China. The company is primarily known for its fantasy MMO Journey to the West, which NetEase says is among China's top 10 in downloads and "continued to perform quite well" in the second quarter thanks to new expansions and in-game marketing activities.

The third installment of the franchise is currently in development, and NetEase's first 3D item-based title, Tianxia II, launched its open beta in June.

The company credits its strong performance to both its online gaming and advertising businesses. "We believe that China's online gaming industry is in the midst of unprecedented growth and NetEase is very well positioned to benefit from this trend," says CEO William Ding.

"To leverage the opportunities provided by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, we have been further strengthening the content on our portal, which helped drive increased traffic to our site and achieve further growth in the number of our e-mail users during the second quarter," says Ding.

[The preceding article by Leigh Alexander originally appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

McDonald's and production company Lucasfilm announced a partnership to feature animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars with the fast food restaurant chain's Happy Meal program and in its recently launched Happy Meal Virtual World.

From August 15th to September 11th, McDonald's will include one of 18 bobble-head toys with each Happy Meal, its meals tailored for children. The toys resemble characters from Lucasfilm's Star Wars series, such as Darth Vader and Boba Fett, and are posed on familiar vehicles from the franchise, like the Millennium Falcon and Republic Gunship.

Children can also experience Star Wars: The Clone Wars at McDonald's Happy Meal Virtual World, which features a new space-station destination. Jedi Master Yoda guides visitors on a special quest featuring other characters from the film.

Kids can also find special codes on their Star Wars Happy Meal packaging that will unlock six additional quests in the virtual world. The online promotion will last until September 10th.

McDonald's quietly launched its free Happy Meal Virtual World in early July, inviting kids to create avatars, play games, interact with other children (pre-written chat), and design treehouses that serve as personal spaces.

Said McDonald's USA marketing manager Rebecca Anderson: "McDonald's continues to look for innovative and relevant ways to inspire play and fun times for kids and families -- both in our restaurants and, now at home with our new Virtual World at happymeal.com. Parents and their kids will find a safe online experience that is free every single day and that motivates kids to take on challenges that empower them and inspire their imaginations."

Portable avatar service WeeWorld signed a licensing agreement with FremantleMedia Enterprises to develop new licensing products to support the WeeWorld brand and its WeeMee avatar service.

WeeWorld’s portable and animated avatars, WeeMees, allow users to create customizable avatars, decorate their own visual space, send animated messages, play games, and interact with their online friends in many other ways. According to FreemantleMedia, over 23 million WeeMees have been created to date. The company launched a beta for World, a virtual world that incorporates the WeeMee avatars, in May.

FremantleMedia Enterprises serves as the brand extension arm of FreemantleMedia, providing licensing, distribution and home entertainment solutions. As part of its agreement with WeeMee, the company is working with the North American and United Kingdom licensing network to manage the licensing of the brand across a range of categories including collectibles, apparel, home, toys and gifts. FME's sales team is already exploring dozens of licensing partnerships for WeeWorld.

Said WeeWorld's general manager and SVP of marketing Lauren Bigelow: "Online experiences increasingly intersect with real world experiences because members of this connected generation want to express their personalities and individual styles both on and off the Web. Our partnership with FremantleMedia Enterprises, an established media and entertainment leader, significantly extends the global reach of the WeeMee avatar, as well as the awareness of the WeeWorld brand, within new and exciting product categories."

Online game publisher Wicker Interactive announced the launch of SuBa Games, a portal for free-to-play MMOs. The platform will feature unified login access and a unified monetary system for all of its games.

Based in Toronto, the North American publishing group announced its formation and a partnership with Korean developer Yedang Online earlier this week. The first product to be available on the new platform will be Yedang's ACE Online, which will start its closed beta on August 18, 2008. PristonTale and PristonTale 2, both also Yedang games, will be released in later this year.

Ace Online is an MMO 3D space shooter enabling players to pilot personalized aircrafts in air battles across interplanetary environments. Players can upgrade their crafts by acquiring skills, weapons, engines, radars, and other attributes.

Originally released in Korea in 2001 and in Europe in 2004, PristonTale is a fantasy-style MMORPG that has so far picked up over 1.5 million users. Wicked Interactive will take over the international servers for the game, providing technical updates and new customer support features for the existing PristonTale community,

PristonTale 2: The Second Enigma, which has been in development for almost four years and utilizes Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 2.5, launched its open beta in South Korea earlier this year where it picked up 40,000 concurrent online players in just three days. The MMORPG sequel will be released in the U.S. and Canada later this fall.

Said Wicked Interactive Stanley Yu: "We wanted to create a home destination for Wicked Interactive gamers. With all the exciting features and games we have planned for the future, gamers around the globe will soon have an awesome place to come together. It is going to be one big Wicked Interactive family!"

Disney.com, which is managed by Disney Interactive Media Group, announced several new additions to its site, including a games portal, a video portal, a character portal, personal profile pages, and mobile web connectivity features.

The games portal collects Disney's hundreds of online games into one place. Users can search for the games by character, type, most-played, and new releases. They can also jump into Disney's virtual worlds, such as Club Penguin, Toontown, and Pirates of the Caribbean Online, through the portal.

Disney hopes to connect its mobile site directly to its online offerings with its new mobile features, allowing guests to access enhanced features with their phones, including games and virtual worlds widgets. Registrants will also have access to a mobile content storefront.

Disney told the New York Times in June that it intends to include a mobile component with Pixie Hollow, a forthcoming virtual world based on Disney's Tinker Bell fairy character. The mobile application allows users to create and care for a butterfly pet for their Pixie Hollow avatars, a feature not available in the online release.

Said Disney Online manager and executive vice president Paul Yanover: “Our audience continues to grow significantly as kids and families increasingly turn to the Web for entertainment, and the addition of these new features brings our most popular content offerings to the forefront of the site."

He continued: "The new customization and community features put our guests firmly in the driver’s seat to access thousands of popular Disney games, videos and characters, and our new mobile-specific offerings bring our content to life in new ways on the go.”

Think Services, organizers of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) have announced that Mel Guymon, product manager for Google Lively, will be presenting the opening keynote to the Worlds in Motion Summit taking place at the Austin GDC from September 16-September 17 at the Austin Convention Center.

In his keynote, Guymon will provide a full overview of Lively, including the team’s vision for this product as a tool to enrich social interaction on the web. Guymon will also offer a historical perspective on how the Lively online world evolved from inception to its recent launch.

As a co-founder of the IMVU, the 3D avatar-driven instant messenger and chat experience, and as an early director of online 3D world There.com, Guymon is an authority on virtual world development. Guymon earned a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering and has served as both a submarine officer in the US Navy and a contributing editor for Game Developer Magazine.

His multitude of experience lends a unique voice to the lineup of speakers for Worlds in Motion Summit, which also includes Stephen Andrade, NBC.com's Digital Entertainment general manager, who alongside Bunchball founder and CEO Rajat Paharia is providing a talk on The Office's 'Dunder Mifflin Infinity' gaming-influenced social networking site.

Other topics being addressed at the Worlds in Motion Summit include the future of the metaverse, in-world advertising, and kids' virtual worlds -- with notable participants from Gaia Online, Three Rings, Electric Sheep, Samsung Electronics, Cartoon Network, Rebel Monkey, Sulake Labs, Intel and many more.

The Worlds in Motion Summit is a two day event taking place at the Austin GDC on September 16-17 at the Austin Convention Center. The emphasis of the summit is the careful integration of content and brands into interactive worlds by companies both large and small. The summit marks the intersection of games, business, and entertainment, and seeks to mark the path towards the future.

For more information on the Worlds in Motion Summit at Austin GDC including a list of confirmed speakers and sessions, please see the official website.

Teen and 'tween social networking site and doll dress-up community Stardoll announced that it reached 20 million registered users since launching in 2006.

Backed by $10 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures, Stardoll has doubled membership since announcing in August 2007 that it reached its 10 million members registered milestone. The company also announced that it has experienced a 33% increase in monthly unique visitors and that it has so far sold over 208 million virtual items.

To celebrate its 20 millionth member, Stardoll is giving away 20 Stardollars, the site's currency, to anyone who log in within 36 hours after the site reaches the milestone. The company is also giving away twenty couture creations to thousands of its members through a lottery.

Developer Fluid Entertainment announced Emerald Island, an environmentally aware children's MMO currently in open beta and scheduled for release in fall 2008. Though trying out the beta requires a downloadable application, Fluid intends to launch the game as a web-based application.

Set against an environmentally themed story, Emerald Island is designed to encourage self-expression, exploration, community participation, and global consciousness. Players will be able to take part in events and complete quests to help Tamino, the game's hero, save the island from a group of Pirat rodents.

Players can also try out a gardening simulation to plant and cultivate 150 different species of plants. Furthermore, Fluid has partnered with non-profit organization Trees for the Future to plant ten trees for every child that participates in the beta.

Based in Mill Valley, California and founded in 1998, Fluid Entertainment is an independent children's interactive entertainment developer led by founder and chief creative officer Scott Mathwes. The company secured $3.2 million in Series A funding led by Trinity Ventures in March 2008.

Singapore-based distributor New Era Digital Interactive Media will bring two online games to the Philippines, MMORPG Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and teen social networking site and virtual world Habbo, according to a report from the Philippine Daily Inquirer's gaming news site, hackenslash.

Sulake Corporation, the developer behind Habbo, announced in June that it registered its 100 millionth user-created avatar since the service's launch in 2000. According to Sulake, Habbo receives 10 million monthly visitors worldwide.

In just the past six months, the community has grown by nearly 20 million registered new users, mostly due to a mix of factors -- new marketing and in-game campaigns, celebrity appearances in various countries, enhanced user features, and a recent site redesign.

Though New Era plans to distribute and promote Habbo in the Philippines, the game will be hosted in Singapore. The company is currently in the process of opening an office in Pasig City and intends to eventually introduce prepaid cards for the game in the country, with denominations of ₱50 and ₱100 (approximately $1.23 and $2.45, respectively).

Organizers of the GC Asia Conference (GCAC), which will take place in Singapore from September 18 - 20, announced that Nexon Corporation (MapleStory) and Nexon Mobile CEO Joonmo Kwon will deliver a keynote speech titled "Online Game as Social Interactive Entertainment Media."

Kwon is also currently president of the Korea Association of Game Industry. He has previously served as chairman of the Korea Game Award's screening committee and as a member of the Committee of Korea Media Rating Board.

The convention will feature several other notable industry figures as panelists, including as Lucasfilm Animation Singapore's Games Division project lead Feargus Carroll, Electronic Arts' Asia Pacific vice president and general manager Christopher Thompson, and IGDA Singapore coordinator Allan Simonsen.

Said GCAC conference director Frank Sliwka: "Joonmo Kwon is a veteran in the online and mobile games industries and his knowledge of online games and entertainment will be very valuable to the GCAC attendees. His keynote is a great addition to the conference program, which intends to bring together industry specialists from around the globe to share their ideas and strengthen their business relationships."