FremantleMedia Enterprises has announced that they are to provide Habbo—the world's largest virtual world orientated towards teens, as they are so eager to constantly remind us—with in-game merchandising and sponsorship rights for the American Idol brand.

Beginning with the kick-off of the eighth season of the distressingly popular series, an American Idol "virtual world" is to be launched within Habbo. Habbo are to introduce virtual items and activities related to the show weekly throughout the twenty week long series.

In addition, other partners and sponsors will be given the opportunity to reach the show's fan base within Habbo, with the potential to be incorporated throughout the American Idol virtual world, including "opportunities like sponsor-branded event signage, green rooms, as well as other virtual goods inspired by the show."

"Partnering with Habbo to bring a unique virtual experience to their teen user base is a wonderful opportunity for us to deepen the user's association with the on-air show and increase the reach and interaction of the brand with our core viewers," said David Luner, senior vice president, Interactive & Consumer Products, FremantleMedia Enterprises, North America. "'American Idol' aligns itself with best-in-class partnerships, and Habbo's understanding and connection to the online teen audience is an ideal match."

Apparently we managed to completely miss that CyberSports' long-awaited free-to-play MMOG Football Superstars has been launched. Delayed until "late 2008" it made its debut last November, and has since seen 250,000 registrations.

The interesting thing about their release celebrating this fact is that they reveal the majority of these registrations were made before the game was officially available, with over 100,000 users registering by October, thanks to a marketing campaign that began in May.

However, in the eight weeks since launch, they're keen to stress, 220,000 individual games of football have already been played.

Phil Booker, CyberSports Head of Sales and Marketing, said: “Breaking the 250,000 barrier is an incredible achievement. It’s fantastic to see the results of the combination of strategic partnerships that we have set up and our marketing strategy using PPC, SEO and viral marketing paying off with such a large number of registrations. We’ve had great support from DBD Media and Infectious Media amongst others, and with their continued support, the registrations will continue to grow and Football Superstars will be the success that our hard work promises.”

A second big announcement from Sony Online Entertainment following the revelation that their titles would be coming to Steam—the company has announced that it now owns the online collectible trading card/strategy game Pox Nora, and "other key assets for future game development" from Octopi.

As part of the acquisition, members of the Tuscon-based Octopi development team are to form the core of SOE’s new Tucson studio, continuing to support Pox Nora as well as working with SOE’s Denver studio on new trading card and strategy game projects.

The news follows the previous announcement of Octopi, where they acquired all of their assets, including Pox Nora, from its parent company FUN Technologies.

“Our strategy and trading card games have been successful beyond our wildest dreams,” said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. “Expanding with a great product like Pox Nora and the outstanding development team from Octopi gives us a chance to extend our strategy game offerings and enhance the ones we already field.”

Creating the soundtrack for an MMORPG has to be a difficult proposition—how can you make sure you're creating iconic and memorable tracks while at the same time creating music that isn't overbearing?

It can't get easier when you're working on an MMORPG as idiosyncratic as Gaia Online's zOMG!, which features "inanimate objects such as lawn gnomes, rubber boots and alarm clocks" coming to life and attacking players.

We talk to composer Jeremy Soule about his history developing soundtracks for games, including his time at Square, discuss his influences, and explore the "help" he's recieved composing for zOMG! from the likes of Beethoven, Wagner and Debussy.

How did you get involved in game music originally?

Jeremy Soule: In 1994 I was the first American composer hired by Squaresoft to make music for their RPGs.

How did you get involved with Square?

JS: Well, here were really only two companies I had considered working for at the time— Squaresoft and LucasArts.

I had sent demos to both, and in fact you can hear of the musical selections from my original Squaresoft demo at my mySpace—and Squaresoft picked me up as a result. They were great to work with, as we had a nearly unlimited equipment budget. I only wish the drivers I was using at that time for the SNES supported things like amplitude envelopes. It was very difficult to make music for the SNES, and especially so with only partial capabilities.

What drew you to working on zOMG!?

JS: The team at Gaia Online is fantastic—I knew this would be a great project from the start and I was also excited about the possibility of working on a flash based MMO; enormous numbers of people would hear my work each day and for any composer that is a very satisfying feeling.

Linden Lab, developer of the virtual world Second Life, has announced that it has acquired two web-based virtual good marketplaces trading in Second Life items -- Xstreet SL and OnRez.

According to their announcement, these acquisitions are to allow Linden Lab to "reach a broader global audience for Second Life in 2009" and are to consolidate the two marketplaces on the Xstreet SL platform, "offering one online shopping experience for customers and merchants."

For the immediate future, Xstreet SL is to continue to function as it has with "only minor changes," while OnRez is remain active for a few weeks to give customers and merchants an opportunity to migrate their accounts and product listings over to Xstreet SL.

Similar to e-commerce sites for real world goods Xstreet SL provides an online catalog, where Second Life users can browse, purchase and sell Second Life-related virtual goods and services, as a complement to shopping "in-world".

In 2008, Second Life users purchased and sold more than $360 million USD in virtual goods and services.

“Linden Lab is expanding its footprint in the virtual world industry through four major initiatives – localizing the Second Life experience in key markets around the world, simplifying the ‘first hour experience’ to broaden consumer adoption, enhancing the platform for enterprise users and building our virtual goods marketplace,” said Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab. “Content creators and merchants are pillars of the strong Second Life economy. With these e-commerce acquisitions, we will now be able to offer content creators and merchants an opportunity to substantially improve their businesses, while enhancing the Second Life experience for all of our residents.”

MMO publisher OGPlanet (Rumble Fighter, Albatross18) has announced the addition of Player vs. Player (PvP) content to La Tale, its 2D side-scrolling role-playing game.

Players can now access a "Fight Arena" and compete in free-for-all battles that support two, four or eight players at a time. Players gain points for knocking other players out, which are converted to points that can be spent on special items after the battle.

The news follows other recent additions to OGPlanet games, such as updates to Cabal Online, plus a new location for La Tale.

"Now that we've implemented the Fight Arena, La Tale players can really find out whose skills are the strongest," said Ross Park, La Tale producer. "Our arenas are designed to give players a pure PvP combat experience that rewards the top player with top honors and bragging rights."

MMO social network MMOABC—who we've previously mentioned relating to their partnership with GameForge (Ikariam)—has announced a new partnership with developers Digenetics and Webplus to create a new browser-based football management game, Ultimate Soccer Boss.

The free-to-play Ultimate Soccer Boss is to be powered by Digenetics technology, with players and clubs to evolve over time, affected by variables such as number of plays, training matches, and club management.

In addition, Ultimate Soccer Boss is to feature an "Ask Advisor" feature that is to provide soccer managers expert advice on match strategies based on calculations performed by "complex evolutionary computation mathematical algorithms."

"MMOABC is very excited to partner with Digenetics and Webplus to create Ultimate Soccer Boss, the first ever online soccer manager browser game with evolutionary computation technology. Soccer managers will now finally experience what it truly feels like to manage their own unique clubs and compete against other soccer managers," said MMOABC co-founder and CEO Andy Tong. "Ultimate Soccer Boss is as real as it gets when it comes to managing a club since you'll experience random scenarios and outcomes based on how well you perform as soccer manager. This is a great breakthrough for soccer manager games and an incredible innovation for the video games industry itself."

Payment system provider PayByCash—behind the MMO prepaid card Ultimate Game Card—has announced that its services are now available to Indian customers in over 20,000 retail locations, where they can use PayByCash for games and other online goods and services.

Why is this notable? Well, because India has "extremely" low credit card penetration, and as one of the growing markets for onling gaming and virtual goods (according to the India technology trade organization, Nasscom, the entertainment video gaming industry in India exceeds $212 million, and is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 50%) it's "imperative" for online companies that non-card payments are made possible in the country.

The news follows other recent PayByCash announcements, such as the launch of PaxGuard, a system to reduce payment fraud-related expenses and lost revenue.

“It’s always been our mission to give gamers every opportunity to enjoy online entertainment no matter where they live,” said Kevin Higgins, President of PayByCash. “Our expansion into India enables its millions of consumers to experience and purchase the over 300 games, virtual worlds, and premium content of our PayByCash publishers as well as providing other types of merchants with a new revenue stream.”

[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 review, 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.]

The command came down from on high to check out Atlantica Online, a free-to-play MMO strategy RPG, so who were we to disagree? An award winning game in its native Korea, the title is published in North America by the US subsidiary of NDOORS.

Name: Atlantica Online

Company: NDOORS

Established: October 2008 (North America)

How it Works: Atlantica Online runs within its own client, and requires the download of a hefty 2.3 gigabytes of data for its installer alone. Navigation and gameplay are accomplished via mouse and keyboard input.

Overview: Atlantica Online is a strategy RPG—although players create their own character, they also hire "mercenaries" up to a maximum of eight to take part in turn-based tactical battles. The game is set in an alternate reality mixing real world locations with fantasy and steampunk, and includes a variety of community features such as the ability to control towns and a player driven economy.

Payment Method: Atlantica Online is free to play, and earns revenue via item sales from the game's cash shop.

Key Features:
- Massively multiplayer turn-based strategy RPG
- Community features such as town control, government systems and guilds
- Player driven economy

Useful Links:
Official Forum
Unofficial Fan Site
Unofficial Wiki

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Nintendo of America, Square Enix, N-Fusion Interactive, Redtribe, and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

Publisher Six Degrees Games has announced that its sports-themed virtual world Action AllStars—developed in partnership with the National Baskeball Association and Major League Baseball Advanced Media—has reached over 100,000 registered users within two weeks of being launched in mid-December.

The title is a free-to-play, youth-orientated virtual world that allows users to create an athlete avatar, interact with other users, play sports themed mini-games and compete in daily challenges, using real-world sports scores and statistics.

Though free-to-play, Action AllStars includes subscription memberships that allow players enhanced feature such as more avatar customization and new challenges.

“The initial success of Action AllStars provides our team with a great sense of achievement, especially at a time when we are still aggressively developing several key features of our world,” said Minard Hamilton, CEO and co-founder of Six Degrees Games. “The extraordinary response at this early juncture shows the appeal of not only our creative concept for this new form of sports-themed entertainment, but also the strength and consumer demand that our league partners at both the NBA and MLB add to the experience.”

Virtual world publisher IMVU has announced the closing of a Series D round of financing, with investments led by Best Buy Capital, Best Buy's corporate venture capital group and joined by existing investors Menlo Ventures, Allegis Capital and Bridgescale Partners.

The round raised $10 million and IMVU have announced the intention to invest it in the continued development of its 3D "virtual community" of the same name.

In conjunction with its Series D funding, IMVU announced that Best Buy Capital's Kuk Yi will become a member of IMVU's board of directors.

"This $10 million investment, led by Best Buy Capital, with renewed commitment from our existing investors is a testament to IMVU's continued success," said Cary Rosenzweig, CEO of IMVU. "Raising money in the current economic climate wasn't easy. The fact that our monthly revenue was growing in the face of the economic downturn gave investors confidence in our business model."