Jordan Weisman, founder of FASA and WizKids, has revealed the primary project of his new company, Smith & Tinker -- it's an online, free-to-play monster battling game called Nanovor.

Following an earlier interview with Weisman, the Battletech and Shadowrun co-creator, the executive and other Smith & Tinker execs discussed the product and overarching project in depth with Gamasutra.

The meeting, which took place at Gamasutra's offices, also included Smith & Tinker president Joe Lawndus and Charles S. Merrin, its senior vice president of marketing. Lawndus' background takes in Cranium and Hasbro -- he's the toy guy -- while Merrin has worked in the online gaming and web space for some years, including RealArcade -- he's the online guy.

Add in the game guy, Weisman, and you get the recipe for the company's new major product, Nanovor. (The company is also partnering with Piranha Games for an Unreal Engine-powered reboot of the MechWarrior franchise for PC and Xbox 360.)

Online game publisher GamesCampus announced the appointment of former Gala-Net executive Terry Kim as its vice president of Publishing. He will manage all aspects of publishing for the company's MMORPGs, such as Asda Story and Manga Fighter.

During his time at Gala-Net, also an MMORPG publisher, Kim administered the launches of Rappelz and Tales Runner, and helped redesign the structure for the company's game portal gPotato. Prior to that, he was the director of Marketing and Planning at GED Mobile Co.

Based in San Jose and run by OnNet USA, GamesCampus focuses on item-based sports and competitive games, such as 3D golf simulation game Shot Online. OnNet USA currently claims over 2 million users worldwide, who play an average of 25 million games yearly.

"Terry brings a broad knowledge of online gaming production, operations and publishing to this position and we are looking forward to leveraging all of that experience." says GamesCampus CEO Kevin Kim.

Microtransaction and virtual trading platform PlaySpan released Spare Change Ultimate Payment Wall, which enables developers to provide more than 50 payment methods with their social games and applications to users in over 30 countries.

Designed specifically for direct payments on social networks, Ultimate Payment Wall caters to the growing international population of social network users by providing them with payment options appropriate to their region and allowing them to pay in their local currency. PlaySpan also seeks to appeal to younger users with mobile, game card, coupon, and voucher-based payment methods.

This payment platform comes from Spare Change Payments, which PlaySpan acquired last April for an undisclosed amount. Founded in January 2008, the startup focuses on social network microtransactions and its technology is used in over 700 applications across Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo.

"The Ultimate Payment Wall solves several issues facing game developers and publishers today", says PlaySpan's Social Networking Monetization GM Lex Bayer. “Developers realize that providing additional payment methods drives increased monetization and payment conversion, but the logistics and integration requirements for all the various methods form a major barrier to implementation."

He adds, "Now developers can gain access to every payment method they will ever need, all under one roof. The payment wall also presents these various methods to users in a simple fashion that enables them to quickly pick the payment brands they already recognize and prefer."

Another week, another free-to-play RPG, right? With the flood of imports from Asia, kids games' popping up like mushrooms in the wake of Club Penguin, and domestic developers with an eye on the social gaming and MMO space ramping up production, it's hard to know which games will maintain any genuine interest.

San Francisco-based startup Sparkplay Media hopes that its "epic fantasy" MMO title, Earth Eternal, will attract a sizable audience. From characters to gameplay style to audience, CEO Matt Mihaly and team have put a lot of thought into the game, which is currently in closed beta and will soon launch a fully-public open beta.

Sparkplay and Mihaly have their gaming genesis in Iron Realms Entertainment, a company which runs microtransaction-supported text MUD games. Mihaly describes the money Iron Realms was able to earn as "modest" because of the game's small reach, but ARPU, conversely, was "insane", supported by a "small... really hardcore" audience.

Iron Realms began microtransaction-based MUD play in 1997. The company was able to maintain a $22 ARPU (average revenue per user), and a $75 ARPPU (average revenue per paying user), much higher than most online games these days, and certainly an extremely challenging record for Earth Eternal to beat.

Sparkplay spun off from Iron Realms in fall 2007, and has raised $4.25 million in series A venture funding from Redpoint Ventures and Prism Ventureworks. At one point several years ago, Mihaly was in discussions with Sony Online Entertainment to create a full-scale packaged MMO, but it never happened -- to his relief: "We would have gotten crushed by World of Warcraft, frankly, so it's good that we didn't pursue the project."

2009 GDC Austin organizers have announced that Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley will keynote next month's event, discussing the success and lessons learned from the firm's recently launched, family-friendly free to play MMO Free Realms.

Smedley, who heads up the long-time online game publisher/developer and creator of EverQuest and EverQuest II, will present a keynote entitled: "From Dragons and Daggers to Kart Racing, Cooking and Concerts ... It's a Whole New MMO World".

He will discuss how the critically-acclaimed freely available tween and teen title Free Realms, originally announced during GDC Austin 2007, has worked to expand the base of players engaging together in online worlds.

The online game, launched in April 2009 and monetizing via item sales and optional membership, saw 1 million registered accounts in the first ten days, and has already seen users reach nearly 5 million, according to a Comic-Con panel.

According to the announcement, Smedley "will inform attendees about the challenges and lessons learned when creating a full-blown MMO for younger audiences", with empirical research and insights.

The keynote will "speak to the challenges and boundless opportunity of connected games, and will also describe how to re-educate development teams to move away from stagnant MMO designs towards mass market success."

The SOE executive's talk joins an already-confirmed Blizzard keynote on 'The Universe Of World Of Warcraft', as well as a number of major online game-centric sessions at the event, which has three days of main conference content focused on connected games, online games, virtual worlds, and social networking game play.

GDC Austin (part of Think Services, as is this website) also has four two-day summits including the Game Writers, Game Audio, iPhone Games and Independent Games Summits, takes place at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas September 15-18, 2009. More information is available on the official event website, and early registration discounts will end on August 13.

Finnish developer Sulake (Habbo) appointed Mika Salmi as its new chairman of its Board of Directors.

Salmi, also a Finland native but now residing in San Francisco, previously served as president of MTV Networks/Viacom's Global Digital Media division. There, he oversaw more than 1500 employees and managed various MTVN brands such as Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and 30 others. He stepped down from his position at MTV last March.

Prior to MTV, Salmi founded Atom Entertainment, the online entertainment company behind AtomFilms.com and Shockwave.com. Viacom acquired the company for some $200 million in August 2006.

"Social entertainment is the convergence of social networking, gaming, virtual worlds and real time broadcasting," says Salmi. "Already a leader in virtual worlds and online communities with Habbo, Sulake is perfectly positioned to lead this new and rapidly developing converged business with innovative products, a profitable business model and an effective global operation."

World of Warcraft in China has seen some six weeks of downtime as government regulators process their approval of the transition to operator NetEase. It's in the midst of a partial return in the form of a free to play closed beta.

But an online game-focused consumer site, MMOSite.com, has captured some screenshots that show that WoW in China may not be quite the same as it ever was.

An official content review from Chinese Government entity the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) that concluded on July 22nd resulted in a number of changes to Blizzard's popular MMO to allow it to restart.

According to the MMOSite report, the lack of specific age ratings for games in China make issues like showing bones or the undead a gray area -- especially in light of a Chinese media controversy that occurred over a World Of Warcraft subway advertisement that included 'undead' characters.

Not only have piles of bones in the Chinese version of World Of Warcraft been replaced with sandbags, but the color of blood from monsters and opponents has been changed from red to black, leading to community jokes about petroleum running through characters' veins.

In addition, undead in-game characters have had visible skeletal bone structures 'touched up' to remove them, and several of World Of Warcraft's in-game talent tree icons that included skulls, severed heads, and blood have been changed to become boxes.

Gamasutra has contacted Blizzard for comment on the changes, and will update if any official statement is released.

In our latest employment-tastic round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from CCP China, Toys For Bob 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 our main market area this week include:

Social game developer Zynga completed its acquisition of MyMiniLife, Inc., a social networking site enabling users to build and decorate spaces and homes.

MyMiniLife not only provides an environment (through its site and Facebook application) for players to construct, furnish, and share their virtual dwellings, but also upload/sell items and earn MyMiniLife money through "stylized economic activity involving the building of properties and neighborhoods".

Based in Palo Alto and founded in 2007, the company has worked with Zynga for some time now, lending its technology to Zynga's FarmVille game on Facebook, which launched a month and a half ago. FarmVille currently attracts over 6 million daily active unique users. Zynga intends to further integrate MyMiniLife's staff and technology into its own operations.

"We're very excited to join Zynga and help grow the business in any way we can," said MyMiniLife CEO Sizhao Yang. "We're looking forward to being an integral part of Zynga's leadership and growth moving forward, and are happy to have supported FarmVille's amazing success with MyMiniLife's technology."