Worlds in Motion was piqued recently when we found out about Coobico, a new, free-to-play flash-based strategy MMO being developed by Linking People, a Hong Kong-based developer founded by a trio of German Web developers. Slated for early 2008, it's self-described as "MySims meets Habbo Hotel meets the Settlers," casting players on a deserted island and charging them with building a neighborhood, collaborating or competing with others.

That doesn't sound so revolutionary in and of itself. But what's interesting about Coobico is that it's not geared towards the usual suspects that many companies are rushing to appease these days -- the kids and 'tweens. Instead, Coobico is a casual MMO for adults age 30-44, the core of the casual gaming market.

We spoke to Worlds in Motion co-founder Lutz Winter about Coobico and creating an MMO for a different audience, and asked him what elements he thinks make an MMO "casual."

Traditional Elements for a Traditional Audience

"The genres of brainteasers, strategic-games and collect-and-build stick better with the casual market than shooters and hardcore-RPGs, because they don't require a steep learning of eye-hand coordination and endless hours of grinding and leveling up a character," Winter explains. "[With] World of Warcraft and the like, you can't compete if you are not spending enough time for leveling. According to a recent study from Electronic Arts, Jung v. Matt and German GEE Magazine, some 79 percent of the German gaming-market shares this opinion. This is not a niche market, it's an emerging trend."

An audience of players in their 30s and 40s is looking for something a little different in their multiplayer experience, then -- what is it, and how have they been underserved by other products on the market?

"'More' is the typical game-industry's approach to everything: more levels, more graphic power, more customization and even moreso, intertwining features. Here is a lesson that the game-industry can learn from the Web 2.0-world -- less is more, really," Winter opined. "Less is what a casual audience of above-30-year-olds are looking for. They don't want to waste their time and money on upgrading graphic-hardware just to play Crysis in all its beauty. They are looking for some thirty minutes of ease and challenge besides their working-life, their family and hobbies, instead of spending endless hours of grinding in an online-game."

He continued: "On the other hand, our target group are people who feel underwhelmed by casual titles like puzzle games, which miss appeal and [lack] replay value because they are just a bit too non-immersive; it doesn't earn me a lot of bragging-rights to beat level 30 of Tino's Fruit Stand."

Avoiding Community 'Culture Shock'

Communities are the key to online worlds, Winter says -- and the current community within MMOs currently reflects, he notes, the industry's "max-out principle," where the learning curve to fully engage in the virtual society is steep. "This doesn't mix well socially with the casual market," Winter says. "Such social discrepancies -- almost like culture shock -- are among the biggest shortcomings of recent multiplayer-products."

Winter recalls a story that illustrates his point: "I remember, I once followed a flame-war in a Final Fantasy XI forum, where players were bashing each other because the healer of a group had used the wrong spell to protect the group's tank against a certain monster (which he obviously didn't know enough about). One of the wranglers concluded that he wanted to make the online-life of that healer as miserable as possible from now on. Can you seriously imagine that above-30-year-olds have time or interest to engage in such bunk?"

Catering to a New Target Group

How does Linking People plan to reach, engage and retain this audience? "We will be winning a lot of contests, and thus make ourselves heard of," jokes Winter. "No, really, I recently read
(Guild Wars co-founder) Jeff Strain's presentation on "How to Create a Successful MMO", and I quite disagree with him on a multitude of facts -- he seems to never have heard the term 'Long Tail Market'! I second his opinion that people will not easily adopt new MMOs if they are already enganged in one or two of their choice -- but I beg to differ with his bottom-line."

The "bottom line" Winter cites is this Strain quote: "You must make a game that is so overwhelmingly superior that it can actively break apart an established community." Winter disagrees. "Instead, how about catering to a new target-group which never stuck with a traditional MMO in the first place?" He suggests.

Blending Social Networking With Massive Worlds

Winter goes on to describe Coobico as a "genre mix" of an MMO and a social network. "Alongside, we've got some additional viral features up our sleeves which will hopefully turn into a nice multiplier," he adds. "Word-of-mouth is a very strong medium to us: we will be offering a great product for free, and giving it a try will be a breeze. Coobico's quality will make adopters stay."

Are there any MMO games or social worlds providing a good example? Though Winter stresses that his aim is to create a unique mix of genres, he allows, "There are titles offering a similar gameplay, like The Settlers and MySims, but collect-and-build-games are typically not massive social worlds at heart. Social worlds like Habbo Hotel and Gaia Online, on the other hand, resemble other aspects of Coobico, but they are essentially just boosted chat-environments enabling you to play minigames, not real multiplayer-games."

However, Winter explains, socialization lies at Coobico's core -- the community must build settlements together, form groups and quest together. "Coobico will actively match settlers with their surrounding neighborhoods," Winter adds. "Neighbors are not an abstract concept in Coobico -- they are players running settlements close to your own estate; you can visit their village, and compete or collaborate with them."

Players will have a full-blown set of social networking features at their hands: they can keep a profile, take and collect pictures, pull in their favorite blogs and feeds, invite their friends and connect and communicate with each other as they play.

Exploring Coobico's Business Model

What about Coobico's revenue model? Winter says it's free to play, as subscription fees and club models "do not suit our market well." He explains, "Coobico will be free and sponsored by advertisement-partners through various forms of in-game-advertisement. Players will be able to purchase in-game currency to buy virtual gear, but this is just an option for those who don't like to earn their inventory and income through in-game-activities."

"We chose a revenue-model of in-game-ads because some of our asian core-markets don't offer mature micropayment-solutions and markets," he adds. "Especially in our Asian markets, we are going to launch additional premium services once we established Coobico as a brand name there."

German browser-based online game developer Gameforge has announced that is has opened a new San Francisco office to spearhead the company's push into the U.S. market as Gameforge Productions Inc.

Interestingly, the company also plans to seek out U.S.-based developers of full-scale MMOs looking for a partner to localize and operate their games in Europe.

Gameforge's own core development specializes in free-to-play titles such as Ikariam and OGame, whose graphical game clients are run entirely in-browser.

Its games are large social worlds apparently aimed more towards the 'hardcore' PC gamer, with an emphasis on more complex gameplay with player-driven communication, alliances, and trading.

Ikariam, a Civilization-like game, will be the title on which Gameforge's U.S. division first focuses - OGame, which the company also runs, is a strategic space-trading sim.

We had a chance to speak in-depth with Gameforge Productions Inc. president Lars Koschin, previously CTO of MMO portal Curse, about the company's products and plans.

San Francisco-based developer Vivaty, formerly MediaMachines, recently launched out of stealth mode to introduce a private beta for its first product based on its virtual spaces platform, Vivaty Scenes, a Facebook application for delivering 3D virtual spaces through web browsers.

Former Electronic Arts vice president and Vivaty's CEO, co-founder, and president Keith McCurdy, talked with Worlds in Motion about the company's virtual spaces platform, why users will gravitate away from 2D worlds and towards 3D worlds, and the trends that have made a browser-based 3d world like Vivaty Scenes more accessible

Can you tell us about the potential for Vivaty's platform?

It's full 3D with animations, avatars, and facial expressions. It's on the higher end of quality, but low end on the barrier for consumers to get to it. There's a very small plugin that gets downloaded to your browser. You download it once, and, like Flash, your browser can display a full 3D environment that looks something like Second Life or The Sims.

The implications for that is you can begin to have these 3D virtual experiences on pretty much any website. It could be on a commercial site like eBay or Amazon. it could be for a consumer brand for Electronic Arts and Nike.

FlowPlay recently launched its youngster-targeted online world ourWorld in an open beta, and the company claims ourWorld differs from competing virtual environments, with players not only able to build customized avatars, but take in-game jobs, play games from "leading online game developers" and even view YouTube videos in an in-world theatre.

The world is to launch soon with a level-capped free-to-play version (players looking to gain access to premium items and environments and higher levels must pay a monthly fee of $5.99) and we talked to FlowPlay co-founder Derrick Morton about what it is that sets ourWorld apart.

What makes ourWorld different from the other worlds which currently target youth?

Derrick Morton: ourWorld is a game, while most worlds are just destinations with activities. The ourWorld experience unfolds inside a meta game that rewards players with items and status for performing activities such as playing games or working in various jobs in the world (such as role-playing a barista in a coffee shop). Players progress through 50 levels of increasing difficulty in order to obtain virtual items (apparel, accessories, hairstyles, etc.) and status in the community.

We have as much in common with WoW as we do with Habbo. While the initial launch included features for a younger audience, ourWorld's experience appeals to a wide range of gamers, specifically the casual games audience. We know that there is an audience that is too old for Club Penguin and too young for Pogo and they are excited by a product like ourWorld. Over the next few months you'll see us evolve the product to appeal to gamers of all age groups.

Social worlds are a global phenomemon. But not only do players from across the world and from different cultures meet each other within the largest and most well known worlds -- there are also many worlds out there that are not obvious to the worldwide audience for their willingness to serve specific countries needs, such as use of local languages or other important cultural features.

Timik.pl, developed by virtuMedia, is one such world -- a social world, broadly similar to the globally successful Habbo Hotel, that serves Polish teenagers in the Polish language. Only recently launched and still in a public beta, we talked to virtu Media's CEO & Founder, Jaroslaw Jankowski, about development, the Polish market, and future plans for the world.

Introduce us to Timik!

Jaroslaw Jankowski: The main goal of Timik.pl is to integrate a multiplayer environment with chat systems, contests, and multimedia. The platform offers many types of user activities. They can perform their own quizzes and contests by using special applications, organizefashion shows, use a database and share uploaded movies with friends; there's even a fortune teller application. Users can explore public and private spaces, arrange their own rooms, and use currency.

In private rooms they can organize own photo galleries, create events and invite friends. They are represented by an avatar called a Timik, which can be created in different forms, from typical human beings to ghosts, animals, even dragons.

Online world firm Trion World Network has revealed its first projects - including a Jon Von Caneghem-helmed fantasy themed MMO, and a Sci-Fi Channel co-developed online game to intertwine with a TV series, as the company becomes a licensed PS3 developer and publisher.

The firm, headed by EA veteran CEO Lars Buttler and Might & Magic creator and chief creative officer John Van Caneghem, will deliver games developed by both its internal studios and external partners via its Trion Platform, which is compatible with broadband-enabled PCs and PlayStation 3 systems.

Delivering what Trion calls "server-based games", the user will have a client which handles I/O and rendering, while content - which can be changed dynamically - is stored on servers and fed to the clients as needed.

Games will initially be delivered via download, retail, and other distribution methods -- with Buttler alluding to the possibility of free AOL-disc-like distribution methods for the client. Different "channels", which are essentially different game titles, will be maintained on Trion's server, and deliver that dynamic content to users depending on which "channel" they engage with.

The first newly announced game for the Trion Network platform is a currently-unnamed fantasy MMORPG developed under Van Caneghem in Trion's Redwood Shores, California studio.

No specific details about the game were revealed, but Trion's promises "battles of enormous scale will create epic moments that an unprecedented number of players can participate in." It will be published by Trion in both North America and Europe, and promises dynamic content -- a feature at the core of the Trion Platform experience.

Abandon Interactive Entertainment recently opened its Freaky Creatures beta registration sign-ups to the public, promising to launch the beta for its virtual pet community this summer, and we talked to President and COO Jamie Ottilie about the company's plans for the title, a cross-platform (both mobile and PC) MMO that requires users to purchase collectible figures with USB drives to begin playing.

Introduce us to Freaky Creatures.

Jamie Ottilie: Freaky Creatures is a cross-platform, massively multiplayer online game that allows players to build customizable creatures and battle them against friends. Players begin with a starter pack that features two collectable action figures and a flash drive that brings the creatures to life online. The initial creatures come with 50 different parts, 20 powers and 4 objects that can be placed into the creature’s lair. The variety of parts and powers will allow players to create more than 3 billion visual combinations. Players can battle other creatures via PC to PC or PC to mobile game play.

Speaking as part of an in-depth Gamasutra analysis of subscriptions versus alternatives for the MMO/online game market, EA Mythic's Mark Jacobs has suggested that it's "very disingenuous when publishers talk about how many people are playing their game but won't talk about how much money they're making."

Jacobs is general manager and VP of the Electronic Arts-owned developer of subscription MMO Dark Age Of Camelot and the upcoming, similarly subscription-based Warhammer Online, and particularly notes on the subject of alternative revenue streams for online games:

"You know, everyone thinks it's just so cool to say that the subscription model is passé, that it's dead... They love to talk about their new models and how they are going to revolutionize the MMOG world. But MMOG publishers are spending a lot more on their games than anyone thought they'd be spending five years ago.

But if you're investing as much time and money as we are on our MMOGs, if you need to pay for the servers and the customer support, if you want to make a real profit on your game, subscriptions are the only way to go."

Weblin isn't exactly a virtual world. It's a personal avatar system that allows what Weblin have dubbed "social browsing" -- Users can see other users as they browse the web, and can interact with them by chatting or other expression.

A lite version was recently launched to allow uses to "quickly help users understand and appreciate Weblin" and we talk to GM of Weblin USA Marc Theermann about the system, including privacy issues, monetization and future interaction with virtual worlds.

Where did the concept of Weblin originate?

Marc Theermann: In 1996, Dr. Heiner Wolf, Weblin’s founder led a European Union research project. The aim of the project was to bring scientists from all over the world together, who work on the same subjects. His idea was based on a scene in a library: people who meet in the same row are mostly looking for the same topics. They can see each other and therefore they can communicate with each other. He projected this scenario to the Internet, and came to the conclusion that people who visit the same websites are mostly interested in the same topics and therefore they should see each other. Several years later he developed the avatar approach, which laid the foundation for the current company.

Space trading and combat-based PC MMO EVE Online has just passed its fifth anniversary, with that rarest of things for an online subscription game, year on year growth - with 220,000 active subscribers as of the end of 2007.

The game's Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson joined developer CCP in 2004 when they were "were just about 30 people in Reykjavik" – the studio now has 350 people, with additional offices in Atlanta and Shanghai, and 50 more people expected to be added by the end of 2008.

In this wide-ranging interview with Worlds In Motion, Richardsson looks at EVE's progress to date, gameplay comparisons with starkly different market leader World Of Warcraft, the lack of female players in the game, and much more.

What is it that makes EVE Online specifically different from your average MMO?

Nathan Richardsson: We believe that EVE has some fundamental foundations that differentiate it from other games. First and foremost is the single-shard world where everyone is part of the same universe. This enables a player-driven economy because we achieve the world scale required to make it effective.

In turn, the economy is the foundation for all interaction -- well, mostly for conflict -- but let’s call it interaction. You need players to gather and defend resources, to process them and manufacture ships and weapons out of them which are in high demand on the market since it’s so costly to defend the resources.

With such a large world, very large player organizations can flourish -- EVE has as many as 3,000 pilots in some organizations working towards common goals against other organizations of the same scale.

There's an intense political atmosphere and social networks are an important part of the game -- EVE is free-form, you set your own goals and it’s “class”-less too.

Along with announcing that its avatar and 3D virtual spaces platform had reached over 20 million registered users, IMVU officially made its public debut earlier this week after spending four years in stealth mode.

IMVU reportedly generates $1 million in revenue per month through its micro-payments economy and catalog of purchasable virtual goods, and the company plans to expand on that through a partnership with prepaid card provider InComm. Soon, prepaid cards for IMVU credits will be available in Target, 7-11, Blockbuster, and Speedway stores throughout the U.S.

IMVU CEO and president Cary Rosenzweig took some time to talk with Worlds in Motion about the now public platform, including its growing virtual goods catalog and plans for attracting new users.

Why make your public debut now?

Rosenzweig: It has to do with celebrating these milestones. The 20 million registered users was a real milestone for us. We've also had the world's largest catalog for some time now. We recently crossed the 2 millionth item we've ever created, too.

It's time that we start telling the story. I think we have a better handle on what exactly IMVU is. For a long time, there were many different elements to it that we've been identifying. It's about people, and it's about our members meeting others from around the world.

All of this came together, and we decided that it's time.

Rocketon is a new online avatar service currently in closed alpha, which intends to allow users the ability to treat the web as "a parallel virtual world" with each site an interactive destination on which users can meet, socialize and play.

Founded by Steve Hoffman (CEO) Eric Hayashi (VP Marketing & Business Development), and Naomi Kokubo (COO), Rocketon is based in San Francisco with 15 employees and a studio in the Ukraine, and we talked to Hayashi andHoffman about the service, how it works, and its place in the market.

So what's the point of Rocketon?

Eric Hayashi: Rocketon transforms browsing into a social experience -- individual sites can be lively virtual destinations that players can explore and interact with. Imagine every single website as its own virtual world that is interconnected with other virtual worlds, where people can jump from one to another with the click of a button. ESPN.com will become a sports-themed virtual world, MTV.com a youth-oriented virtual space and GAP.com a virtual clothing store.

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.

Cartoon Network New Media, the online publishing division of cable television channel Cartoon Network, recently pulled the curtain Mini Match, a free-to-play, browser-based 3D virtual world focused on delivering multiplayer match-ups and social gaming to kids.

Players create miniature avatars and are sent to a microscopic island, where they explore environments based on adventure themes in Cartoon Network shows, such as Ben 10 and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. They also play multiplayer games featuring characters and content from the channel's programs, all while trying to learn more about the mysterious island.

Creative Director Art Roche spoke with Worlds In Motion about Mini Match's kid-targeted social gaming features and the company's future plans for the brand.

Worlds In Motion: How long has Mini Match been under development?

Art Roche: We have been working on Mini Match for about a year, probably concepting and planning for a little longer than that.

Was this developed in-house or by an external studio, as is the case with FusionFall?

AR: We're using an external studio as a development partner with it. We sort of designed the game and got with an external vendor to build the game.

[Note: Roche later revealed its development partner to be Dubit, stating that the studio has done "an outstanding job of tackling this project and sharing our passion for making it the best it can be."]

What significant points do you see separating Mini Match from FusionFall or other kid-targeted virtual worlds?

AR: We consider Mini Match a light virtual world, as it's basically just an environment to walk around in and create your own avatar. We also consider the play sessions to be of a shorter nature than Fusion Fall or any other MMOG.

Talking to Gamasutra as part of an in-depth Gamasutra interview, Indigo Prophecy creator David Cage has been discussing MMOs as sandbox games, saying that leveling is great for those who want to "build self esteem", but asking: "What's the real narrative or emotional value?"

Cage is currently working on PlayStation 3 exclusive Heavy Rain, which was shown behind closed doors at last week's E3 event, and was musing on how you keep players involved in your game.

When questioned on how the wide-open 'sandbox' gameplay ethos, where you can go anywhere you like in the game world, helps immerse players, the Quantic Dream founder commented:

"Sandbox gameplay... yeah, it's true that in this industry, we have a real position between people talking about sandbox, and people doing rollercoasters. A rollercoaster is an experience that is entirely defined by some to be optimal.

From the time you're in the line, you go in the back of the rollercoaster and through the tunnel and everything is defined. We knew while you were waiting how to make the stress grow, how to make you feel something, get you scared, make you feel better, et cetera. This rollercoaster is being conceived by someone to optimize the experience.

Sandbox is not that. It's saying, 'Look, there are tools. There are things. Maybe there will be friends. Maybe not. Do what you want.' There's one possibility that these sandbox experiences are so fantastic because you've been extremely lucky. You know how to use the tool. You met people that were truly great, and you had something incredible to do.

RuneScape is a Java-based MMORPG that boasts over six million accounts and claims to be the second largest western-based MMO as a result (behind World of Warcraft). The reason for their lofty claims? A thin-client concept that means the initial download of RuneScape is only 1.2 megabytes, and unlike something like Second Life, due to procedural generation it doesn't have to download bandwidth-heavy textures and models.

The title has just launched in its latest iteration, RuneScape HD, and we talk to Jagex's Henrique Olifiers (head of development on their upcoming Sci-Fi sequel to RuneScape, MechScape) about the title, its technology and demographics.

Introduce Jagex and RuneScape.

Henrique Olifiers: We have around 400 people working in two specific buildings in Cambridge in the UK. About half of them are game development and the other half are customer support. We wanted to make sure our customer support and game development were close so they could learn from each other. The company was founded in 2001, but stems from a partnership of two brothers, Andrew and Paul Gower when they were undergraduates at University. They were MUD fans and they wanted to take the genre further, so they developed the first version of RuneScape, what we call today RuneScape Classic.

In 2004 we upgraded it with 3D graphics, and at E3 we announced RuneScape HD, which features higher definition graphics.

Now, one of the strengths of our game is our thin client method. We think games should be accessible for anyone anywhere, no matter what kind of configuration they have. We created this technology that runs in the browser, and is very small – only 1.2 megabytes – and all of the assets that you can see on the screen, the textures, the models, the lighting, is all generated procedurally by the client. It's the same technology that you see demo coders using at competitions when they make, you know, a FPS in 100k. So there are no slow downloads for what you see on screen.

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.

Sony Online Entertainment's working on massively multiplayer shooter The Agency for both PlayStation 3 and PC, which raises a lot of interesting questions about developing an online game for both platforms at once.

For example, with both versions underway for both PC and PlayStation 3, could players on both platforms interact in the same game world?

SOE is indeed considering it, says executive producer Matt Wilson -- "In fact, we're actually doing that at the office. Technology-wise, it's really not that complicated."

But there are three key barriers he says that stand in the way. First is game exploitability -- Wilson uses the example of the high quantity of hacks in a PC shooter like Counter-Strike to describe how it's significantly more difficult to secure a PC online title than it is on a console's closed platform, and maintaining the safety across platforms presents a challenge. "Being able to manage that is no simple task," he says.

The "hot thing" in recent months has been branded online worlds -- the industry's now got multiplayer spaces for everything from Hello Kitty to Build-a-Bear Workshop, and toy tie-ins like Webkinz are beginning to crop up everywhere.

But LEGO Group director of business development Mark Hansen was already thinking of an online play space based on his company's iconic building block toys back in 1999 -- and the toy company just had to wait for the tech to get up to date, he claims.

According to Hansen, the serious planning and partner investigation for building the upcoming PC downloadable LEGO Universe MMO began back in 2004.

"Around 2004 and 2005, we started to see that more computers were coming into kids' bedrooms," Hansen says, noting that in order to develop a game like LEGO Universe targeted at 8-12 year olds, the era had to favor more kids having access to tech.

"We took initiative and started searching for partners. We talked to over 26 different studios, and we picked one."

With Mythic's three-years-in-development Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning having shipped last Thursday and going up against Blizzard's mighty World of Warcraft, studio co-founder and lead designer Mark Jacobs is confident about his game's prospects.

"We're not saying we're going to beat [Blizzard], but we're not afraid of them," Jacobs tells Gamasutra as part of an in-depth interview published today. "We have our own hook; that's [realm versus realm combat], and we're pushing it and we're pushing it, just as we're pushing other innovations in the game. Blizzard is number one; we don't mind being number two, especially if it's a competitive number two. I can't worry about that."

The designer drew a parallel between launching Warhammer in 2008 and launching the company's previous MMO Dark Age of Camelot in 2001, at the time going up against Sony Online Entertainment's then-juggernaut.

"We were facing a similar situation," he recalls. "The big guy on the block was of course EverQuest. Ultima [Online] was of course doing very well, as was Asheron's [Call] -- not as well as Ultima and certainly EverQuest, but it was a competitive game... Obviously, we did quite well. We didn't beat [Sony]; we never said we would. But if you look at our numbers, we did really, really well."

But Jacobs also believes that an independent studio like Mythic was in 2001 would not have that same ability in today's MMO market. Now, his company has the considerable backing of new owner Electronic Arts -- and those kinds of resources are necessary to compete in a post-WoW world, he says.

"Back in 2001, you didn't have to spend anywhere near the amount of money you do on an MMO now," he points out. "Look at what we spent on Camelot: $2.5 million developing it, $650,000 in marketing it. You couldn't spend that on a triple-A MMO now if your life depended on it! You just couldn't! It would get you nothing in terms of content."

For that reason, Jacobs sees a hard road ahead for smaller companies like Funcom, which earlier this year launched Age of Conan.

Regarding Mythic's latest effort, Jacobs claims it has "the smoothest launch" of an MMO to date, as well as already besting Camelot's highest concurrent-user numbers by 50 percent.

"When you also look at our downtime -- only one patch in almost seven days -- that's a pretty tough record to beat when you look at the launches of every other MMO, including WoW," he says. "Especially WoW."

Jacob's comments came as part of an in-depth Gamasutra interview in which he deals with a multitude of other subjects around the PC MMO's launch.

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

Virtual world for tween girls Hip Chicas recently announced that it has opened registration for its beta trial, and we found the concept -- a Latina-themed virtual world for tween girls with a strong theme of "helping improve the planet" simply too intriguing to pass by.

As a result we talk to Lazaro Fuentes, CEO and Creative Director of the Hip Chicas "interactive brand", discussing the intentions of the world, the importance of the themes to the world and its design, and what the future holds.

How did the company come into being?

Lazaro Fuentes: We saw that games targeted at Latinos were stereotypically negative. We then looked at casual games targeted at girls and they were either inappropriate, or about bling-bling, shopping or lipstick. So we decided to create a hip option that engaged more fully girls in general and Latinas specifically, treating them as more than just lipstick and bubblegum while maintaining a feminine appeal. The result was Hip Chicas.

Why a Latina themed virtual world?

LF: 50% of the kids born in this country since 2004 are Hispanic but there is a gaping hole in the market for Latino tween content. If you look at the pre-school content, there's plenty. You have Dora, Diego, Handy Manny, Maya and Miguel and Dragon Tales. Dora, the leader of the pack, kicked off serious interest in the space in 2000 and has done $8 Billion in revenues alone in only 8 years. Most importantly, it introduced kids from all walks of life to Latino culture. But as girls graduate from pre-school content into their tween years, suddenly the options narrow to Barbie and Bratz.

We wanted to extend that general introduction to Latino culture that kids received as preschoolers in more specific ways and with content more suited to the age group. We also wanted to update it for a digitally savvy tween market and bring it to where they are: online.

Domain of Heroes is a browser-based MMORPG that its creators Tandem Games intend should be able to be played "anywhere and at anytime," that doesn't require Flash or any other plug-ins to run, and is surprisingly story-driven.

We talk to Jon Wofford, Creative Director, and Aaron Murray, Technical Director at Tandem Games about the title, and specifically their intentions to monetize it through microtransactions -- without item sales.

Introduce us to Domain of Heroes.

Jon Wofford: Domain of Heroes is our attempt to completely cripple the corporate infrastructure of modern society by drastically reducing employee productivity across the board. Mass hysteria! Also it's a fun text-based MMORPG you play in a browser.

How long has the game been in development?

Aaron Murray: We've been in full development mode since we got back from the San Francisco GDC. It's been 7 months now.

How big is the team?

AM: Jon does the creative stuff -- he handles the art and game world design, and writes the content. I am the game designer, programmer, and business guy. Of course, with just two people, we overlap quite a bit even in these areas. Our company, Tandem Games, has been around for about a year now. We demoed our first game last November at the IGC in Austin, then we made a demo in January that ended up winning the 2008 Intel Game Demo Contest for Best Graphics on Intel Integrated Hardware.

We first covered Brescia, Italy-based Koinup just over a year ago, and since then we've been keeping up with the unusual, "meta" social network, dedicated entirely to its users virtual (rather than real-world) lives.

The company recently announced plans to expand its presences in Second Life, and so we took the opportunity to talk to co-founder and CEO of Koinup, Pierluigi Casolari, and grill him on the reasons for a social network for virtual world users to exist!

Why create a social network for virtual world users?

Pierluigi Casolari: The first reason is about interoperability. More and more people are managing multiple virtual worlds accounts, and more users are seeing the utility of "virtual world cross plaftorms" or "meta-aggregators" for virtual worlds users.

The second reason is to create a new web-portal for virtual worlds. We started to work on this some months ago. Not all the internet behaviors are easily deployed within 3d interfaces. For example, gathering information is a process that is quite difficult in 3d environments, but at the same time it is quite trivial by browsing web pages.

Following this and other ideas we have start to building a web 2.0 portal for all virtual world locations. Presently, only Second Life is supported, but we are actively working for expanding the list. The goal of the project is to give Koinup visitors a preview of what virtual worlds are, what the most popular hotspots are and where you could find your friends online.

Doesn't it miss the point? After all, aren't people already happy socializing in the individual virtual worlds, and outside of that happy to socialize using Facebook, etc.?

PC: The syncronous communication and the immersivity of virtual worlds make them excellent for some aspects, but not for all. "Metaverse" citizens need web hangouts for sharing their content, their opinions, to build their network of friends, for uploading artwork.

Mainstream social networks are restrictive with virtual world content and people. Facebook bans people that are suspected of using "fantasy" or virtual names, and Flickr, in the past, has tried to ghettoize photos created within virtual worlds.

If virtual life and what happen in virtual worlds are to make sense, they need proper and specific tools, which we are creating for Koinup.

Lord of the Rings Online developer Turbine has often suggested in recent months its strong interest in bringing its massively multiplayer titles to consoles. And the Massachusetts-based company's recent West Coast studio launch seems aimed at gathering more developers with the chops to aid such an effort.

"We have a number of new things under wraps that we’re not ready to talk about yet, but I don’t think its any secret to anybody that we have a very significant console initiative," Turbine CEO Jim Crowley tells Gamasutra.

"And we were just recently talking about the continued expansion, creation and launch of our social network that sits on top of each of our game worlds, and the importance of that to our games and community," he adds. "There is obviously an extensive pool of game console and social networking [development] talent on the West Coast."

In addition to LotRO, the company also continues to operate its Dungeons and Dragons Online and long-running Asheron's Call. Although Crowley prefers to say that Turbine's approach to the MMO space complements, rather than competes with World of Warcraft and upstart challenger Warhammer Online, he does feel the company's approach is different in a few key ways, most notably what it calls an "emergent Web 2.0 focus," in addition to its attention to multiplatform development.

GMG Entertainment are a publisher of "digital currency cards" for online gaming/entertainment companies, and has just announced a new range of pre-paid cards to be sold exclusively at Toys "R" Us.

The cards are individually branded with titles from GMG partners, including AdvertureQuest, Cartoon Doll Emporium, Gala-Net, Stardoll, WildTangent and Zwinky, as well as a new partner, WeeWorld.

The announcement was made today by Rob Goldberg, founder and CEO of GMG Entertainment, and Worlds In Motion talked to Goldbert to discuss the company's entry in to the space, the unusual way that retail buying works, and the potential of pre-paid cards for both retailers and publishers.

How did the pre-paid business start to take off in North America?

GMG started in the marketing services working with retailers -- specifically Target -- but around the same time as that, well, it's not very well known, but it's Target who actually brought the idea of the pre-paid iTunes card to Apple and sold them on that. The first iTunes cards were co-branded and were exclusive to Target. In terms of retailers in North America who were focused on pre-paid cards for digital entertainment, Target were ahead of the curve. So a few years ago that led to their head of digital entertainment, Tim Pechmann, looking for additional cards to sell. He tried the eMusic card, the Rhapsody card, none of those sold particularly well, until Nexon met with him and offered him the same kind of pre-paid cards that they explained were selling so well for them in China and the rest of Asia. After a little research Target decided to sell those cards too.

Now, there's an interesting fact about these cards. Retailers love them over any other product they have in their store, because the cards themselves don't take up any inventory. They're not activated until they're purchased, so they don't sit on the balance sheet of the retailer. They feel like "free money" to retailers. So it's a very positive business for retailers to get into, and it really lowers the bar for any retailers who are unsure about it, they don't need to worry about losing money on it.

So, Target and Nexon. The only advertising that they did for that card was on their website, and yet in store it did exceptionally well. I can't quote the revenue but it did very, very well. So Target looked around for other companies to buy cards from.

Now, a very common part of retail is that the buyers are moved around the company constantly. So the DVD buyer from Target was promoted to diaper buying because it was a bigger category. So it's not like the gaming buyers at Target have years of experience buying games and know every new trend. They don't know free-to-play or microtransactions; they may not even have rudimentary gaming knowledge or experience.

Even with this kind of lack of knowledge Target were trying to get into the space. It's almost certainly the only time in history that a seventy billion dollar company has been cold-calling companies asking to sell their product.

We first talked to Hong Kong-based developer Linking People just over a year ago, and since then they've revealed the first pictures of their flash-based strategy MMO Coobico online.

We decided to get back in touch with co-founder and company director Lutz Winter to talk to him about the title and his company's different take on the free-to-play market.

Why did you decide to set up Linking People in Hong Kong?

LW: Hong Kong is just a vibrant and fast place for entrepreneurs, and it's still an excellent hub for doing business in mainland China and Taiwan.

The internet in China is an important playground for us, because it is not as saturated yet as most Western markets. We feel it's vital to be on the spot that is rapidly growing to surpass the United States as the nation with the most Internet users.

Lets talk about Coobico.

LW: Coobico is an immersive and persistent online-world, offering a blend of strategic city-building, socializing and lightweight role-playing.

It's a genre-mix that I've never seen before, especially the part of massively multiplayer city-building. It's like a title of the Settlers- or Anno-franchises meets Habbo Hotel.

Coobico also allows for casual MMORPG action where you can pick up a quest at your settlement to explore nearby dungeons, including combat and collecting useful gear, but sans the steep learning-curve and grinding of hardcore RPGs -- think of this part of the mix more like Bomberman than WoW.

Coobico is geared toward the "hardcore-casual", the gap between traditional MMOs and social worlds. It's for everybody who always felt that MMORPGs take too much time and effort, while puzzle-games appear as too simplistic.

Jagex has quietly crafted in RuneScape the world's second-largest Western MMO -- with roughly 5.3 million active players per month, the free-to-play, browser-based title comes in just behind World of Warcraft. Now, the UK-based company's heading for a new frontier with a game portal called FunOrb.

The recently-launched site offers what the company calls "deep casual gaming" -- the aim's to provide deep and compelling game experiences within the same time frames usually associated with casual titles.

It's a promising idea with some unique aspects to it -- and is sure to pose a challenge for the company as it's tasked with maintaining its growth plans for thriving RuneScape at the same time. Jagex CEO Geoff Iddison talks to Gamasutra about the details of FunOrb and how it plans to balance its goals.

I (personally) first heard about RuneScape when I was working in the specialist press; We were always checking our traffic to see how our site was doing, and RuneScape was the third biggest gaming website by traffic!

Geoff Iddison: It's at least that. Probably number two. It's the second-biggest western MMO currently. If you look at the number of active players for our game over a month period, we're about 5.3 million per month. World of Warcraft is about 9.3 million, and number three is well behind us. We're number two in the western world.

We launched our new game in March of this year called FunOrb. FunOrb is a deep casual game experience -- there's nothing quite like it on the market -- and we feel that it's really going to appeal to those ex-MMOG players who no longer have the time to play an MMO but want a deep, compelling gaming experience within an easily accessible, relatively short period of time. Playtime for the FunOrb games is between 12 and 40 hours, so it's deep minigames.

The whole business model of Jagex products, and this business model will go forward with our new MMO coming out next year, is free to play, and if you want deeper content, you pay a subscription. Subscription is five dollars a month for RuneScape and three dollars a month for FunOrb. To go into that content, you pay the monthly subscription, so it's basically a free to play model.

About 60 percent of the game content is behind that subscription barrier. In RuneScape, it may be different quests, the same quests but deeper, and it may be certain skills that you have. House building, for example, is a members benefit. There's a number of skills and quests and things that you can't do as a free member.

We've mentioned avatar staffing provider Metaverse Mod Squad multiple times on the site, as they've been very visible in the virtual world space, but one thing readers might have queried is exactly what an "avatar staffing provider" does.

To clear up this mystery, we've talked to Amy Pritchard, CEO of Metaverse Mod Squad, and she discusses her company's beginnings, their work in the field and the importance of child protection in MMOs.

Explain Metaverse Mod Squad.

Amy Pritchard: We're a moderation and customer support company for virtual worlds, MMOs, and traditional online communities. We work with companies to manage and moderate their online spaces, host virtual events, support their customers, protect their image, and keep kids safe.

Why did the company come into being?

AP: We founded the company in August 2007 as attorneys with a rock star team of community professionals. We were already moderating the traditional message boards, and we saw an opportunity to do the same thing in the 3D space. We quickly learned that working in this space requires folks that are especially fun and clever, and lucky for us, that fits with our skill sets.

The open beta for Perfect World International, Perfect World Entertainment's free-to-play Chinese Mythology-based MMORPG opened a couple of months ago, and frankly, we find the concept of releasing a Chinese Mythology MMORPG in the west a rather mystifying concept, considering how alien the themes and stories are to most gamers here.

As a result, we decided to talk to Jonathan Belliss, Product Manager For Perfect World International, about why they chose to release the title here, as well as go into depth on the title's development and design.

Perfect World was originally a Chinese MMORPG. Why bring it out internationally?

Jonathan Belliss: When Perfect World hit the free-to-play scene in China, it created quite a splash, really setting the standard for many other free-to-play games to follow. Local success soon became global success, and we decided that it was time to let the Americas have a taste of Perfect World.

While the game’s origins are definitely Chinese, its outreach definitely transcends ethnic and cultural boundaries; sort of like really good Chinese food. And trust me, you’re not going to find a place that serves a meaner free-to-play dish than Perfect World International.

But is it not a rather a difficult sell? Aren't the Chinese mythology themes rather obscure from a western perspective?

JB: I would have to disagree on this one. Quite the contrary really, as I believe that having a game that stems from Chinese mythos is an easier sell to our audience. The whole dragons, minotaurs, fairies, orcs and elves has been hashed and rehashed over and over. How about something fresh? How about something new?

Part of the fun in an MMO is running around and exploring the world. Personally, I’d much rather explore a mystical world full of adventure and lore that I’ve never been acquainted with rather than the same mythology that’s been spun one too many times.

Some of you may remember 10VOX's recent announcement—that they'd be entering the virtual world market with a pair of new toy/virtual world combos, KooKeys and Tracksters.

KooKeys are to be plush animals while Tracksters are to be die-cast vehicles, and both are to feature in quite disparate virtual worlds; with Tracksters in particular to be a MMO racing title that includes trading card aspects.

Entering such a crowded market with wildly differing properties sounds like a challenge to us, so we talked to Dean Cheshire, Head of Production at 10VOX to find out why they decided to enter the market and more.

Why enter the combined toy/virtual world market?

Dean Cheshire: Simply put, this market is ripe for innovation. Young players are tired of seeing the same old, tired concepts of yesteryear. 10VOX Entertainment t is deeply committed to introducing products that not only redefine this segment, but also provide a benchmark of quality. With Tracksters and KooKeys, we aim to do exactly that.

Isn't it kind of risky? It's the kind of market I kind of thing of as sewn up by things like Webkinz.

DC: I think the greatest risk is to the owners of these more established companies that are failing to change the way they see things. Children are changing—players are changing—and it’s our goal to be the epicenter of the solution. Anyone remember AltaVista? Probably not—the “originators” are rarely the innovators; through a combination of fresh ideas and thoughtful execution, 10VOX will re-cast a market that is clamoring for change.

With the existence of all sorts of ways to circumvent online game security—everything from aim-bots to more insidious hacks, game developers might often feel that they're fighting a losing battle to protect IP and gameplay integrity on multiple fronts.

Arxan are just one company that works in this field, offering anti-hacking and anti-tampering solutions. We talked to Avni Rambhia, technological evangelist at Arxan, to discuss the treats that face developers, Arxan's technology, and the future arms race between developers and cheaters.

What kind of security threats do MMO/Virtual World operators face?

Avni Rambhia: There are primarily two classes of threats: cheating through tampering or modification of the game client, and DoS and other internet-based attacks on the MMO servers. Cheating lowers the overall value and appeal of the MMO community, while attacks on servers result in expensive outages and incident management overhead.

How does Arxan help in these situations?

AR: Arxan's technology works to prevent the first class of threats—tampering of the clients. By preventing reverse engineering of the software, we harden the process of finding exploitable vulnerabilities; by implementing anti-tamper measures, we prevents modifications, and by providing forensics reporting capability, we helps the game owner identify potential cheaters as well as analyze attack patterns.

Application hardening is the generic term for anti-tamper/hacking technology. The hardening solution is built using a variety of individual techniques, including obfuscation, encryption, anti-debug, patch and repair, authentication and forensics reporting.

Additionally, since Arxan's technology works at the binary level in very small, lightweight units, it protects without affecting user experience or gaming performance.

This Monday, Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates publisher and developer Three Rings officially launched its online service Whirled, a virtual realm-cum-flash game portal -- which James has compared to a YouTube for games.

Gamasutra sat down with the company's CEO and designer Daniel James to discuss the meaning, future, and implications of Whirled, which allows beginners to enjoy a friendly virtual world.

The free web-based service allows players to create avatars, chat in share groups and rooms, and play online games that have achievements and online high scores, as well as multiplayer functionality.

But it also goes so far as to provide open-source tools which allow professional developers to create Flash games that can be plugged into the service's social features, and which can be enjoyed both in and out of the Whirled game space.

In this in-depth chat, James, whose firm also created steampunk strategy online game Bang Howdy, discussed why he's "probably crazy" to make something this wide-ranging, using community competition to make better games, and much more.

Asylum Entertainment launched an open beta for online world for children aged 5-11, GardenParty, a couple of months ago, and so we thought it was high time we talked to Asylum Entertainment's Victoria Pearson, about what the world does to differentiate itself in the ever-more-crowded space of child-orientated virtual worlds.

Introduce Asylum Entertainment.

Victoria Pearson: Asylum Entertainment is an award winning video game developer based primarily in the major brand name children's market. Since starting up in 1998, Asylum has completed a range of titles on multiple platforms for publishers and license holders including EA, Riverdeep, Vivendi, BBCW and Cartoon Network.

The founders of Asylum Entertainment, with young kids themselves, felt that they had the inspiration, creativity and the means to design and develop games for children. It was only back in 2007 that they considered moving into the MMO domain. Asylum wanted to create something which was both safe and fun for their kids, themselves, as well as others from all over the world.

The kid-orientated virtual world space is really crowded now though, no?

VP: GardenParty has been in development for nearly two years. Back then, there was a huge gap in the market. Now however, although the children’s virtual world space is becoming fairly crowded, it is Asylum’s belief that what GardenParty has meets the needs of players in a unique and special way. The feedback that we have received from kids and parents since being in beta has been incredibly positive.

Previous development projects of Asylum have almost entirely centered on the children’s market, and this experience with games for kids is, we feel, very evident in GardenParty.

Successful Flash game developers Paul Preece and David Scott have launched Casual Collective, a new free-to-play social gaming site, and have received $1 million in funding from investment firm Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Responsible for the popular "tower defense" games Desktop Tower Defense and Flash Element TD, Preece and Scott originally launched the site last December in what they describe to Gamasutra as "stealth mode." The relaunch introduces a variety of social networking features as well as several new titles.

"We've rebuilt it from the ground up, and we've spread our content over several servers," Scott tells Gamasutra in an interview conducted prior to the announcement.

"Our goal with the new site is to enhance the social features that did well, to create better and stronger games, and this time not lock them to the site but let people take them and post them all over the internet."

The recently launched Moondo "cross-gaming universe" from Funtactix is a intriguing proposition—an online world made of a variety of different games in different genres, in which the player's character, abilities and items are shared between.

To explore this concept fully, we talked to Sam Glassenberg, CEO of Funtactix, talking about his reason for starting the studio, cross-gaming`s benefits, and feedback so far.

Why did you begin Funtactix?

Sam Glassenberg: Funtactix is a small, two-year-old game studio. We wanted to take the core thrills of hardcore action games and share it with friends who aren’t hardcore gamers. Why should someone have to buy a $300 console or a $2,000 gaming PC and a $60 FPS to get the thrills of playing games based on concepts like capture the flag or team death match?

At Funtactix, we tease out the core ‘fun’ of these games and put it in a much simpler package you can play with your friends who aren’t hardcore gamers. There are no 20-key combinations: just a quick point and click entry into short game sessions that provide a colorful and varied multiplayer experience.

And that's Moondo?

SG: Moondo is what we call a cross-gaming universe—which means that for the first time, a casual gamer can bring their character and virtual items with them from game to game and across different genres of games.

For example, a power item that provides speed increases a player’s speed across all games in the universe—racing, shooting, sports—and games that haven’t even released yet. People no longer have to abandon an investment in a game when they to move onto another game.

Moodo doesn’t have cheesy flash games. It provides 3D multiplayer action served up in short game sessions that lets players move from game to game.

MMO publisher Outspark (Fiesta, Secret of the Solstice) announced the appointment Habbo veteran Paul Thind as the company’s chief business officer recently, and as he is notable as an instrumental member of Sulake's North American Habbo team (serving as general manager across a period where the virtual world grew to 20 million users) we thought we'd talk with him about his past and future with Outspark.

You were in command of one of the biggest names in virtual worlds today - somewhere people would consider to be at the top of its game, so why join Outspark?

Paul Thind: Outspark has been able to accomplish so much in a short time as a company and I recognize the opportunity for exponential growth. Outspark already has a loyal user base of more than 3 million and I’m excited about working with the team to help grow this base and push Outspark forward as a leader in the gaming and interactive entertainment space. On a professional level, the fact that Outspark is strong in the online game industry allows me to complement my experience as I previously was involved in community based online businesses focused around music, social networking and virtual worlds.

Outspark offers a very different service from Habbo. What are the challenges you think you're going to face?

PT: Outspark is perfectly positioned in the gaming space to become the first vertically integrated casual games platform. We are not only a publisher of games, but we also offer our audience, which happens to be predominantly North American, a playground for socializing, interacting and sharing. In addition, Outspark has the experience and resources to internally monitor and analyze our audience so that we can better serve the Outspark community. The only challenge I see will be to continue to scale the business and manage our internal growth strategy. Fortunately there’s a lot here to build on with a great team, a dynamic business model and a solid revenue stream.

Independent Developer Klei Entertianment (Eets: Chowdown) has taken the unusual step of developing a free-to-play title, Sugar Rush, for Nexon America—the publisher's first MMOG developed by a western studio and targeted specifically for North American audiences—and Worlds In Motion talks to founder Jamie Cheng about the decision, including the perceived risks (and benefits) of entering the still nascent US free-to-play market.

What made you decide that you were going to go with the free-to-play model?

Jamie Cheng: Free-to-play is something that I harped on about even before I started doing downloadable. On my first year starting the studio it was already here and most people didn't realize it. Even in 2006—when MapleStory had already come in and was already making money. So it was something I always wanted to get into. However, I knew I couldn't just do it without any funding or any experience, so I held off on it. When I saw that opportunity—I was talking to Alex in a bar and I found out what he was doing—I thought that's my opportunity. It's a great, perfect fit for all of us.

Nexon is the publisher, Klei is the developer. If you think about it from a certain standpoint, they're the label and we're the indie crew that created the game.

It seems like it's much more secure route to take than to go with self-publishing.

JC: Oh boy. Self-publishing is totally not an option for anybody that's never done it before—for anybody who's not done a free-to-play game. I can't stress enough how much I've learned in the last year. It's kind of amazing. It's a really exciting business. There are so many variables that you can tweak—you can change the number of users, you can change the conversion rate, you can change the average return per user. Whereas in every other model out there right now there's only one thing you can change, which is the number of users—number of paying users, that's it.

MMO technology company Simutronics and BioWare recently announced that upcoming massively multiplayer online PC game Star Wars: The Old Republic is being built with Simutronics' HeroEngine development platform, and so we talked to Simutronics' executive vice president, Neil Harris, about the unique aspects of the engine, Bioware's decision to use it, and the potential it holds for the future development of the title.

How long have you been working with Bioware?

Neil Harris: We've been working with Bioware for a little over two years, but we've been unable to announce publicly until now that The Old Republic was the project that we were working on.

Why did they choose to work with you?

NH: They were actually very anxious to work with us based on a couple of things. We've known the people at Bioware Austin for many years, and they also had two employees at the time who were former employees of ours. As a result they understood the unique philosophy that informs how we developed our engines and how they facilitates online game development, so they were very enthusiastic when they heard that we had build a graphical MMO engine in the same style of engines we had built in year past. They actually started knocking on our door before we thought we were ready to enter the engine licensing business... you could say they kind of forced us into it.

Nexon has recently been making a major push into the North American market after success with localized titles such as MapleStory, Audition (including the decision to develop the title Sugar Rush with Vancouver-based Klei Entertainment—interviewed previously), and the Korea-based development of Combat Arms, the company's first FPS has been led by an aim to reach North American consumers as much as Korean.

Worlds In Motion talks to Nexon America's Min Kim and Herb Yang about the title, the differences between the markets, and the individual design decisions during the process of development.

Combat Arms was released first in Korea?

Herb Yang: Yeah, I think they launched about three months or so ahead of us.

Min Kim: This was different because usually we release something, and then way later we release it to the States but we identified this right away and then we started modifying and localizing it as soon as it came out.

HY: So, we actually have more content in some respects, than they do. We have new content that they haven't seen yet, but they have some extra maps and stuff like that.

Was this process at all accelerated by Battlefield Heroes?

Min: No. We were actually planning on it before.

I know it's an extremely different focus because they're trying to make a casual title and you're trying to make something a bit more...

MK: Core.

Free-to-play creativity-orientated virtual world for children Shidonni recently announced the launch of an open beta of its premium version, which introduces "an advanced set of creation tools and activities", and we talk to CEO, Ido Marzursky, about the unusual decision to develop a world so heavily based on drawing and creativity.

Can you introduce Shidonni?

Ido Marzusky: Shidonni is a one year old start up based in Israel. It was founded by Nachshon Peled and I; the company is funded by a group of British investors who are very excited about games and virtual worlds.

We have just launched our virtual world for young kids under the same name, Shidonni. When we started out we wanted to focus on a fun experience based on kids' imagination and their endless creativity. We felt then as we do today that a lot of games on the internet are based on templates, ready made items and a very commerce oriented flow. We wanted to offer a different approach which is no less fun and focus on children development, empowerment and education.

Shidonni is based on these values. Based on patented animation models, we bring kids' drawings to life on screen. In Shidonni kids play, care and share animals and worlds that they draw themselves. Each animal moves, eats and talks with the kids that created it.

Sony Online Entertainment's upcoming DC Universe Online is a key project for the Everquest publisher, which has latterly been trying to push into more casual markets with its FreeRealms title.

The game is a PlayStation 3 and PC MMO which will feature dozens of characters (from Batman through Superman to Lex Luthor) and settings from the DC comic book universe, as well as customizable superhero or super-villain characters created by users.

DC Universe Online is believed to be due out some time in 2009, and earlier this year, sister site Gamasutra sat down with DCUO senior producer Wes Yanagi to talk about the project.

During the course of the chat, Yanagi discussed the contributions of venerated comic book artist and executive creative director Jim Lee, possible revenue models, and how the studio playtests and balances a game with such diverse characters and environments.

Avaloop's new online MMO Papermint, which has had an intriguing history and a distinctly different graphical style, entered Open Beta last month.

Papermint is a free-to-play, browser-based 3D MMO that combines casual gaming and social networking. Players create an avatar from "paper cut-outs" and can then play mini-games, design objects, and decorate their personal space.

They can also get involved in family networks, roughly described as "a web of fictional family relationships between players" -- which can include the possibility of getting married and having children, which are in turn new players in the world.

Avaloop is a fully independent company working out of a "former local cinema" in Vienna, Austria. Papermint has been in development since May 2006 and was in closed beta since May 2008.

The game world is modular, consisting of an ocean with different islands created in collaboration with different artists and illustrators, which allows "microlocalisation of in-game communities according to geographic and thematic differences," with different islands for nationalities or common interests.

In honor of its availability of the alternative online world, Worlds In Motion is talking to lead artist Barbara Lippe and creative director Lev Ledit about the development of this intriguing 3D world.

This includes an in-depth discussion of the striking art direction, the influence of games including Puzzle Pirates, andan exploration of their attempt to create a world where "people can feel physically connected without being at the same place in real life."

What set the development of Papermint into action?

Barbara Lippe: This is a question for Lev, as Papermint is his brainchild.

What I can say is that I got to know him when he was making feature films. For me, he was that typical artsy film guy, but with a lot of humor and drive, and the ability to motivate a team to execute almost impossible things.

I was interested in console games at the time also (and have been since my childhood in fact, when I fell deeply in love with Link), as I had worked in Tokyo before. Japan's game culture showed me a thrilling way to implement my characters into something exciting that people could use and play with.

However, one day Lev came to me with the idea of a virtual world, an online society. I was always glad to turn my characters into "living" creatures and agreed to draw for the prototype.

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.

Cartoon Network recently launched its "triple-A" browser-based MMO FusionFall, developed by the Korea-based Grigon Entertainment.

We talk to executive producer, Chris Waldron, about developing with the Unity platform, as well as the challenges faced when creating a title they found was "going to be the first MMO for a lot of players."

Though Cartoon Network's web games are popular, why did you decide to go as far as creating a full MMORPG?

Chris Waldron: We've always taken pride in the games we produce for CartoonNetwork.com, and it’s always been our plan to create games of all kinds, from the most casual to the most immersive. With this strategy in mind, FusionFall was a natural fit, and I can’t tell you enough how thrilled I am that we have finally launched.

How was the response during the beta?

CW: The response was fantastic! New fans and old fans alike seem to be really enjoying the game; we had a very positive response from both kids and adults playing during our beta phase, with more than 2.5 million accounts created, and we think as it grows there will be a mix of players—both new ones and those familiar with games from CartoonNetwork.com, as well as their friends and families.

Unisfair is a provider of virtual events, trade shows and conferences, and with the current economic climate discouraging international travel, Brent Arslaner, the company's VP of Marketing, believes that virtual events are the future of trade shows and conferences.

We talk to Arslaner about Unisfair's history, the benefits (and negatives) of virtual events, and their future.

Introduce Unisfair.

Brent Arslaner: Unisfair offers the technological platform and services for hosting online events. We provide solutions for hosting online events, such as single webcasts, web conferences, virtual trade shows and online expos, as well as virtual job fairs and recruitment events.

The company's founder and CEO, Guy Piekarz, started the company in 2001 to leverage the Internet and new media technology to offer hosted meetings, extending early efforts of trade shows to bring their offerings online. He set out to combine three trends in virtual worlds, social networking and Web conferencing and in such a way that companies could save money on travel expenses and decrease the productivity losses attributed to attending physical events.

We just mentioned the fact that Fallen Earth has entered closed beta, so there's clearly no better time to sit down and have a chat with the title's lead designer, Lee Hammock.

Hammock talks to us about the history of the title, its design goals, and some of the things that set the title apart from others—such as the title having "Bigfoot ... and Chupacabra!"

Can you introduce the history of the company and the team behind Fallen Earth?

Lee Hammock: Fallen Earth the studio spun out of Icarus Studios—as many of you know, Fallen Earth operates on the Icarus Studios tools suite. The initial idea for the game started with Jim Hettinger, Brad Lineberger and Charlie Tyson, although the concepts have changed and improved as better technology was developed. The dev team started with a few key players. I was hired as a writer in 2005 when the content department was two people. Now I work as the lead game designer overseeing a content department of 14 people. We also have art, scripting, QA, back end and front end departments whose lives I make difficult every day.

Why develop a post-apocalyptic MMO?

LH: We got the idea for Fallen Earth by surveying the other MMOs on the market, where room existed to explore new niches, and what sorts of stories always seemed to be in the public zeitgeist. People are intrigued by the idea of an apocalypse, and we thought that tapping into this genre would make us different from other games. After taking a look at some inspiring works (the Mad Max movies, The Postman, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Fallout and a few others) we came up with something that represented the genre, but was unique in its own way.

Offerpal Media has announced that it has closed a second round of funding—with $15 million of investment led by D.E. Shaw Ventures and participation from existing investors InterWest Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners, and as we didn't think that news was interesting enough on its own, we're rounding it out with an interview with Offerpal Media's CEO, Anu Shukla.

We talk to Shukla's to get her take on his company's offering—which offers virtual world developers and publishers a way to integrate advertising with their virtual worlds through targeted offerings that allow the players to (for example) earn in-game currency.

Can you describe what Offerpal offers to MMO developers?

Anu Shukla: Offerpal Media monetizes virtual worlds and MMOs by allowing their users to earn points or other types of virtual currency in exchange for taking part in targeted advertising offers including free trials, discounts, online surveys and more. Our turnkey platform plugs into the publishers web site or application through an I-Frame to help them start making money right away.

In turn, what does it offer to consumers?

AS: Most virtual worlds and MMOs nowadays use virtual currency to allow consumers to purchase virtual goods or premium services. Previously, consumers only choice was to pay real money for these virtual currencies, but Offerpal provides consumers with an alternative payment method—by completing advertising offers—in order to earn virtual currency for free.

Atlus has announced its first MMO title for its recently formed online community, Atlus Online—the Korean developed Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent.

Developed by JoyImpact (licensed by HanbitSoft) the title is to be given “the same style and caliber of localization that Atlus has been known for over the years,” and is to be published by Atlus Online in North and South America and the rest of the world except Europe.

Set in a “steampunk”-esque world, Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent features two nations battling over a resource known as “Neo Steam”, from which players choose their allegiance before selecting their class. Each player in Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent also begins with a pet.

More information about Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent’s beta and launch dates is to be released by Atlus Online in the near future, and we’ve talked to Atlus Online’s Head of Operations, Jamie Ortiz, about the company's decision to make the title it's first MMORPG, their localization, and the potential monetization.

Neowiz is now one of the larger Korean online game publishers, but it began as an internet services company having nothing to do with games. Once Neowiz decided to enter the business, it did so with a bang, releasing Special Force, one of the first and most successful free-to-play titles, still in operation today.

After its initial success, the company acquired two previously indie development studios, Perfect KO developer Thingsoft, and DJ Max developer Pentavision.

Gamasutra spoke with Neowiz executive vice president (and former president of now-subsidiary Thingsoft, as well as former CEO of Nexon) Sang-Won Chung regarding the challenges of the oversaturated free to play market as it stands now in Korea.

In a particularly amusing anecdote, Chung also recalls his experiences in bringing the popular FIFA Online to Korea with Electronic Arts -- and how it turned from an EA side project into a title with real focus.

Live Gamer—the notable publisher-supported player-to-player real money trading site—has announced a "Treats for Trading Around the World" promotion within GoPets, created specifically to "introduce and educate the casual gamer about player-to-player RMT."

We've decided to talk to the company's co-founder and president, Andrew Schneider, to discuss the concepts of player-to-player trading, its potential, and the reason for running the promotion.

Can you introduce the concept of player-to-player trading?

Andrew Schneider: Player to player trading has been a driving force behind the rapidly growing virtual economy for over a decade now. Online gamers spend—and make—hundreds even thousands of dollars buying and selling virtual items for real money contributing to what is now estimated to be over a $2 billion worldwide market.

The practice began in MMOs such as EverQuest, Ultima Online, Meridian 59, and Lineage with players trading amongst themselves on internet auction sites but quickly evolved into a massive industry—one that unfortunately operates without the consent of game publishers in the black market.

When we founded Live Gamer in 2007 we sought to offer publishers, operators and players alike a legitimate and sanctioned alternative to all of the black market trading outlets and quickly partnered with leading online publishers including FunCom, Sony Online Entertainment, Acclaim, GoPets and many others.

In the current economic climate, it's hard to find a company with good news to share. And the volatile MMO business might be the last place you'd look.

Yet Iceland-headquartered CCP, developer of EVE Online, is not just healthy, but growing, seeking 60 new hires, says North America president Mike Tinney. "We're in a pretty strong position these days, and it's refreshing to be able to say that in today's economy."

Amid the challenges faced by the Icelandic economy, CCP is a "safe harbor," Tinney says. While employees in the hard-hit region face personal hardship, CCP as a company is bringing capital into the company. Asked about reports that the company may move its headquarters, Tinney says, "I would classify that as a rumor."

One factor in the company's continued stability is its self-sufficiency, Tinney tells Gamasutra. "We publish our own content, we design our own content, we control our billing relationships, we control our hosting relationship."

"We have partnerships in place, but we're not a traditional developer-publisher relationship, where the publisher oftentimes has problems controlling the content pipeline, and the developer often has problems controlling or influencing their delivery to the customer, or their interface with the customer," he says. "I think that has helped us out a lot over the years."

Today, Conduit Labs launched the public beta of Loudcrowd, its online music game-social networking hybrid.

Developed by a staff with a mixed web and game development background, Loudcrowd hopes to blend the social aspects of a music site like Pandora or Last.fm with the gameplay appeal of a Rock Band -- while leveraging the design concepts behind hardcore MMOs, Conduit Labs' CEO Nabeel Hyatt says.

"I would call it more of a music games channel than I would a single game," says Hyatt. While the Loudcrowd dance game is a "a very quick 30-60 seconds" of gameplay, according to Hyatt, "the DJ game has a competitive leaderboard mode similar to the way you might be competitive in Rock Band or Guitar Hero or any Xbox Live game."

Tracks from artists like Cut Copy, Santigold and The Twelves are included, and special items can be unlocked and stored with the player's persistent character. While there is no navigable virtual world in this version of the game, players can network and exchange info, tracks, and playlists. The game will support microtransactions for both music tracks and character items.

When Outspark first came onto the scene in 2008, it was just one in a sea -- now seven seas, probably -- of companies porting over Korean MMOs. But the team, lead by CEO and ex-Yahoo Games exec Susan Choe, has always had a grander vision.

Now, ahead of the formal announcement, Choe outlines the Outspark platform, which will be available for developers from major AAA publishers to tiny two-man shops.

Though the company does operate its own free-to-play games, and will continue to do so in the future, it is opening up its solution to external publishers and developers looking for a foothold in this complex market.

The platform will offer a vertically-integrated solution for the deployment of games online: support for web-based and in-game item sales tied into Outspark's own Spark Cash payment system; an Outspark installer package for game clients; integration with the Outspark user system; game stats and finances reports for developers; client content management for patches, and cross-marketing opportunities with the other titles in the Outspark lineup.

To learn more about this evolution of the free-to-play business, WorldsInMotion.biz sister site Gamasutra went to Outspark's San Francisco offices and spoke with Choe.

In an overview of a newly released study, UK-based analyst firm Screen Digest presented a view of the subscription-based MMO market in the West.

According to their estimates, which did not try to estimate the microtransaction-based online game market, the subscription MMO sector, led by Blizzard's World Of Warcraft, grew by 22% in 2008 and reached consumer spending levels of $1.4 billion in North America and Europe.

With a 58% share of Western consumer spending on subscription MMOGs and over $2.2 billion in cumulative spending on subscriptions since the beginning of 2005, World of Warcraft remains dominant in the market, estimates the survey.

However, growth in consumer spending on other subscription titles was "robust" during 2008 at 27%, confirming continuing adoption of the business model across other games and services as well.

These results "are encouraging for the future of subscriptions in MMOGs, and show a marked improvement on 2007 where growth in ex-WoW consumer spending was just 12%."

By 2013, Screen Digest expects the subscription market to top $2 billion in consumer spending, holding its own alongside micro-transactions, due to "consumer acceptance of predictable subscription payments and the innovative use of premium subscription business models."

Other drivers include the continued introduction of more mainstream games services, broadband internet adoption and the overall development of the European market. Following the announcement, WorldsInMotion.biz sister site Gamasutra sat down with Piers Harding-Rolls, Senior Analyst for Games at Screen Digest, to discuss the results and their ramifications for the online game market.