Posts Tagged ‘MMO’

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Sony gets serious about MMO’s, social gaming, and microtransactions

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Arguably, SOE’s virtual world/meeting place, Home has been a bit of a dud. It’s had a rocky road thus far, but it looks like there might be a glimmer of hope on the horizon. To be fair, Sony has always stated that Home is a testing ground for a number of future projects. It looks like this holiday season and early 2010 will see the first true realization of these behind-the-scenes- projects.

sony home 1While Sony counts approximately 27 million gamers on it’s flagship platform the PS3, they’re currently just shy of have 50 percent of these users involved with Home (appox. 10 million). And even though these numbers seem paltry when set next to figures such as Zynga’s, Sony has a unique market, as they’re playing in a closed room, but now trying to open the doors to play with others. To this end, Sony announced today that a new game, quite different than Home players are used to will launch within Home’s virtual world. Typically, Home’s offerings are nothing short of an ‘average’ Second World experience. 3D avatars, wandering around, playing a mini-game here or there, etc. With the launch of Sodium One, all of that is about to change.

Not only will Sodium One give players a completely new experience with Home, it’s also a stepping stone to an even larger ambition SOE has in store. Following the lines of a traditional MMO, Sodium One is a virtual world within the virtual world of Home. In premise, the game is a simple action/pilot/shoot type game. However, any worries about the title’s ability to stand on it’s own within Home have been quickly dashed, as early reports state that the 3D art and animations are on par with today’s standards. I mention this, as Home’s standard wander around action is relatively slow, often begging the question – is there something wrong with my console?

As with a number of features within Home, Sony also plans on taking advantage of users’ willingness to pay with RMT’s to distinguish themselves. The first five levels are free, but after that, players have the option to unlock more xp through microtransactions ranging from $.99 to $4.99.

PlayStation Home director Jack Buser comments that this in only the beginning of a virtual goods business model in Home. “We’ve evolved Home into a true social gaming platform,” Buser said. “We are poised to take a leadership position in social games with Home.”

And as we predicted, 2009 has truly been the year of the free-to-play. Sony may not have been first on the spot, but that’s not to say they’re too late to the game. They’ve quietly been building the back end processing, currency, digital objects, and development and infrastructure to open the doors for developers to create virtual goods to be sold within Home.

Sodium One, developed by Nottingham, UK based Outso is only a first piece of a much larger full scale MMO developed specifically for Home. Halli Bjornsson, CEO of Lockwood Publishing, the firm behind Outso’s development work, said that Sodium Two will launch early next year with additional multiplayer combat options. Launching the title piece by piece allows Outso to tweak the game to users’ preferences as they move through the development cycle, and thereby reduce risk of non-acceptance.

As it stands right now, Sony’s outlook for Home is twofold: one piece will continue to expand the virtual content within the complete world of Home, while the other piece continues to develop tools for outside developers to create immersive 3D gaming experiences for Home users. Buser comments that around 30 game developers have already signed up for the process.

And to top it all off, Home’s numbers have been on the rise. October of this year saw 8 million users, while only two months later, Sony has capped the 10 million user milestone. 2010 already looks interesting and promising for Sony.

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Ngmoco acquires iPhone and Facebook game maker Miraphonic

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Late 2009 has been a banner time for games maker ngmoco. Granted, a lot of their success has been leveraged buy Apple giving the green light to microtransactions in free-to-play games on the iPhone, but obviously the ngmoco team had to have a product in the works that would fit this model perfectly – as they did with their recently released Eliminate first person shooter.

epic-pet-wars-sBuilding upon their push for social gaming, ngmoco has made it’s first acquisition, buying out Miraphonic, makers of iPhone and Facebook titles Epic Pet Wars and Epic Soldier Wars.

Announced via twitter from ngmoco CEO Neil Young, “Delighted to announce that Miraphonic, creators of the awesome Epic Pet Wars have been acquired by ngmoco!” No financials of the deal have been disclosed.

Epic Pet Wars is (yet another) virtual animal training and fighting MMO that Miraphonic states has over one million users. Fitting in-line with ngmoco’s strategy, the game is free-to-play/download but monetizes via sales of in-game currency ‘Respect Points’ which are used to purchase virtual goods. Respect points cost anywhere between approx. $1 right through to approximately $40. Miraphonic’s Epic Soldier Wars operates under the same premise.

If ngmoco’s commitment to developing and publishing quality free-to-play/microtransactions monetized social games was in question, this purchase should certainly seal the deal. Clearly, the company’s acquisition of former MySpace SVP of business development, Jason Oberfest, back in September is already starting to pay off. Charged with “negotiating deals to drive revenue and support the launch of innovative new products…”, it’s fair to say that Oberfest can now call his first deal done.

Granted, ngmoco is receiving a bit of press hype as of late, but they’re still swimming in very competitive waters. Social games makers including Zynga and Playfish are still raking in the profits, but it’s good to see an up and coming player in the field, as the next 6-12 months at ngmoco will really put their new business model to the test.

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The Hunter bags over 1 million users

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

In the world of free-to-play gaming, there’s generally only two genres to choose from: Fantasy MMORPG’s and the few FPS that are in existence. So what happens when you cross an MMO with a FPS, add a heavy dose of stealth, and set it in a real world scenario, aka hunting? The answer is nothing short of Metal Deer Solid, or, as it’s better known, Emote Games’ The Hunter.

thehunterApparently, there are a number of folks looking for ‘other’ genres in their free to play diet, as Emote Games announced yesterday that their genre bending hit has officially past the 1 million registered user benchmark, thereby making it the leading destination for fans of the virtual hunt. The title has achieved this number in a relatively short amount of time, officially launching back in April of this year.

“This is not surprising” says Morgan O’Rahilly, CEO, Emote Games, “The Hunter is miles ahead of its direct competition in terms of quality. And the whole idea behind The Hunter was to break down some established genres – to take something from hardcore gaming, something from free2play or mass market social gaming, add something brand new – and create a hybrid that challenges pre-conceived notions of ‘game’ and ‘genre’. Being this innovative brings its challenges for sure – we’re hard to pigeonhole – but what the heck, it keeps the experience fresh and interesting and that’s what we’re all about.”

And while there are a number of quick, I can knock this out before dinner type of missions, players can also get the war paint out, with over 60 percent of the expeditions within The Hunter can last over 30 minutes, given player preferences.

The game is also one of the most rapidly developing titles I’ve seen to date. During the beta and early official stages, weaponry was pretty basic. It got the job done, and had realistic enough actions and effects, but nothing really worth writing home about. Taking cues from, and listening to their user base, Emote Games is stepping things up, and will shortly be introducing a compound bow option, that according to the Emote folks will be “the best iteration of a bow in ANY video game.”

“There aren’t too many games that allow you to sneak around with a bow, and even if you’ve played one you won’t have experienced anything like this before,” says Emote COO Dave Rose. “Snaking through the trees, trying not to breathe too hard, senses wide open for the slightest sight or sound of prey… I hope a million more people come and try it out. Even I’m surprised how good it is.”

As with any modern online title, The Hunter includes a number of socializing options, including a partner finder that comes in might handy when hunting down particularly large game.

If you’re looking to give something a bit outside your regular realm of games a try, I can personally recommend giving The Hunter a go. But don’t just take my word for it, over 1 Million other hunters agree.

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Quick Hit Football suits up for summer training

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Quick Hit (formerly Play Hard Sports Inc.) is a new kind of company producing a new kind of game.  I’ve been closely following the movements of this Boston area startup for a while now, and it looks like they’re right on track to not only give is something completely different, but completely free as well.

It came as no surprise to find out that the folks over at the good ship VentureBeat have been thinking the same thing, and recently sat down with Quick Hit CEO Jeff Anderson to talk about their first product: Quick Hit Football.  Anderson, former CEO at another Boston area company you may have heard of, Turbine, developers of the highly successful Lord of the Rings Online MMO is in good company at Quick Hit, with what he calls the “ultimate trifecta” of talent.  Designers and developers of the upcoming free-to-play title hail from the dev teams that have worked on Madden, NFL 2K, ESPN footcall, All Pro Football, and NCAA to name a few.  Partner them with talent from the LotRO and Ultima Online teams, and sit back and watch the games begin.  Literally.

quickhit

One of Anderson’s key points, and what makes Quick Hit Football different from all the ‘other’ football games out on the market today, is that they’re not out to try to recreate, or better the Madden experience, but rather, are focusing on building a robust social community around an authentic football experience.  Based on a low-spec flash based platform, Anderson also points to one very major difference (and draw) that Quick Hit holds in their favor: free.  While Madden and 99.44% of all other football titles on the market today are available exclusively on a console, Quick Hit seeks to bring the power and excitement of the game back to the PC, thereby giving a much larger audience a chance to play.  Combining the social community experience with the PC and flash allows not only the player to chat, socialize, and compete all in one place, but they’re not always specifically bound to localized servers and geography.  In other words, football fans from Ohio could very well find themselves in a duel against players from Japan or South Africa.

Quick Hit is also banking on the enormous numbers of fantasy football players in North America alone, some 20 million.  Toss the Madden players, clocking in at around 8 million, in there, and you’ve got a gold mine waiting to happen.  The concept and development of Quick Hit Football have not been centered around player’s abilities to juke a Running Back, or scramble a Quarterback faster than their opponent, but rather utilizing football fan’s already built in knowledge of what will and what will not work in a standard game.  Using the knowledge players set out to coach their team all the way to the superbowl, a feature and style of play now missing in most football genre games, as Head Coach 10 has officially been scrapped.  Echoing a growing sentiment in gaming overall, Anderson’s team has been very careful to ensure the authenticity (adding Bill Cower is a prime example) and depth of the game, but at the same time have make sure that the game is simple enough to understand, thereby allowing just about anyone to jump right in and get up and running within minutes.  Continuing this trend, Quick Hit football is also set up to be run in a more ‘casual’ way than it’s console competitors (aka Madden).  Traditionally with a console type football game, players either play the computer or an opponent that’s physically sitting next to them, and can plan on at least an hour of play time before a final score.  Not so with Quick Hit’s version.  “We developed Quick Hit Football to be something people can play in 20-25 minutes from start to finish,” says Anderson.  In other words, this type of gaming is absolutely perfect for the mid season armchair quarterback to get his/her game on during a lunch break, waiting for the train/plane, or just about any time.

Given the concept, scope, and talent pool involved, Quick Hit Football could very well be the great alternative to Madden that we’ve all been looking for for quite some time now.  Interactive play, check.  Utilizing knowledge and love of the game, check.  Ability to play just about anywhere and in a reasonable amount of time, check.  Anyone want to place some bets on how long it’ll take before CBS, NBC, ESPN, and/or ABC sports come a calling to use this technology as a visual representation platform for their fantasy football leagues?

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MapleStory celebrates 4th year

Friday, May 8th, 2009

In celebration of their upcoming 4th birthday, Nexon America is rolling out the red carpet for loyal fans of one of the very first free-to-play, microtransaction monetized games.  Launched on May 11, 2005, MapleStory quickly became an online legend with it’s groundbreaking social features, unique art style, open world opportunities, and again, unique and innovate method of play vs. monetization.  Worldwide, MapleStory counts over 92 million users, 6 million of whom reside in the US.

But to MapleStory players, it’s not just a game.  It’s gone far beyond just a 2D side scrolling virtual world/game.  One might even say there might be a cult of ‘Story going on, as fans of the game have solidified the title’s place in gaming history through countless blogs, fanboy (and girl) community sites, and videos.  A quick pass through YouTube reveals close to 200,000 video results.

“After four years of service in North America, MapleStory continues to evolve and surprise us all. We are very grateful to our loyal fans and this celebration is for them,” said Min Kim, Nexon America’s Vice President of Marketing. “MapleStory fans have helped create something special and we’re going to reward them with new, exciting content to enjoy throughout the summer and beyond.”

And reward Nexon will.  The new birthday goodies looks like so:

  • Fourth Anniversary Maple Weapons – Monsters will be dropping special anniversary weapons. Or the players can exchange previous anniversary weapons and Maple Leaves for new Fourth Anniversary Weapons, Maple Hats, Maple Shields, Maple Earrings, or Fourth Anniversary Scrolls.
  • Item Upgrades – Maple Hat and Maple Earrings obtained through monsters are upgradable using Maple Leaves. The earrings can be upgraded by completing additional quests.
  • Leveling Up Event – Each time players levels up, they will receive Maple Leaves. The number of Maple Leaves rewarded will vary depending on the level. Higher level players will receive more Maple Leaves.
  • GM Events – The GMs will run special events and summon last year’s anniversary boss, Big Puff Daddy, at random times.
  • Monster Transformations – Any player can transform into one of MapleStory’s monsters for a given period of time.
  • 4 Candle Event – Nexon is giving away 1,200 prizes over 40 days, including in-game items, Nexon Game Cards, digital cameras, iPod Touch and a laptop computer. Players who play for 40 minutes will receive a candle. Once a player has a candle, they can receive up to four pieces of cake for each successive 40 minutes of game play. Players who get four pieces of the cake will have a chance to win.
  • Maple Quiz – Players can take the Maple Quiz. For every question a player gets right, five Maple Leaves and a special cake will be rewarded.

In addition to this content, Nexon has a whole slate of daily events planned.

So if you’ve never given MapleStory a try, or were just looking for the right moment to jump back on the train that started it all, look no further.  MapleStory – a story of how one game could change the entire way we look at the gaming industry.

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Funcom and Turbine give away virtual goods

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

Earlier this week, both Funcom and Turbine started giving away virtual goods within Age of Conan and Asheron’s Call and Dungeons & Dragons Online, respectively.  Funcom hopes to draw new players in and lure back former players with free trials and exclusive virtual items.  Turbine, however is on another path, with their virtual goods giveaway being a bit more of the ‘D’oh!  Our bad – here’s some free stuff’ variety.

Funcom – Age of Conan

aocYesterday marked the kickoff of a new Funcom initiative.  Watching player numbers decline, Funcom’s not about to let their investment simply slip away, and they’ve now opened a free trial program.  This trial lets new users try out the game for 7 days at no cost.  Since Funcom’s announcement of shrinking server populations, the company desperately needs to draw in new players as well as retain current ones.  To this end, Funcom is going 1up on the free trial, and now sweetening the deal with tossing a few virtual goods in Conan’s backpack.

MMORPG.com and Eurogamer.com, Funcom partner sites, are now holding the keys (literally) to these new AoC freebies.  Both sites were issued 20,000 trial keys, one lot to be used for North American gamers, and the other for European gamers.  These are the promo keys needed to obtain the three unique virtual items.  These items are designed to allow for easier and faster early gameplay.  Items include:

  • Totem of Origins – designed to allow players to teleport back to their home city from anywhere in the world after level 20
  • Bag of Holding – an über backpack designed to increase users’ overall inventory space
  • Enruned Kosalan Ring – increases all damage dealt by the wearer

Note: these items are available ONLY through the MMORPG.com and Eurogamer.com keys.  A free trial version of AoC is of course available directly from the Funcom site, but alas, no free stuff.  And if three free virtual goods weren’t enough to get players interested, Funcom is also tossing in the family truckster and roof rack as a bonus if a trial is converted to a fully paid version.  What I mean by that is Funcom is giving new paying customers a Snow Mammoth mount (family truckster) and a Mammoth Bag (roof rack) that are designed to further speed up early to mid level playing.  What’s interesting to note is that these potentially five free virtual goods are not simply cosmetic upgrades, but items that will significantly improve player’s performance and speed through the game.

This raises two interesting points.  First being, I clearly remember Funcom’s AoC presentation at last years Games Convention in Leipzig where they told press members that they’re really struggling with end game content.  Has this end game content been significantly improved (and better yet, tested on a massive scale)?  It would appear so, as Funcom is obviously making a push to move new players through early stages quite quickly and on board to take on the darkest of dungeons.  The second question raised is whether or not Funcom is testing the microtransactions waters with AoC?  Remember, they’ve got at least two free-to-play titles in the works that we know about.  Could Funcom even be considering opening AoC up to an in-game item mall, or do they want to stick to the tried and true method of subscriptions, all the while working on free-to-play in the back room?

Turbine – Asheron’s Call and Dungeons & Dragons Online

pc-dungeondragons-online-stormreach_boxServer migration is never an easy task.  Especially when you’re running an MMO which sees literally no down time what so ever.  So when Turbine recently migrated servers for both Asheron’s Call and Dungeons & Dragons Online things weren’t exactly what you’d call ‘Smooth’.  The migration resulted in a significant amount of downtime, and as is standard industry practice with server downtime, Turbine extended all subscriptions by one day.  But the folks in Mass. didn’t stop there.  Turbine stepped up to the plate and started handing out the virtual goodies to eager MMO players.

This coming weekend all Asheron’s Call and D&D Online players will receive a +25% XP bonus as well as an increased rare item drop rate of virtual goods.  But wait….the Turbine goodness doesn’t stop here, as they’ve managed to turn a faux pas into a virtual goods teaser.  All users of D&D Online with active accounts during the downtime will receive a special in-game item when the next major patch is released later this summer.

Nice guys eh?  Well of course, but what’s more is that by giving away ‘free’ virtual goods within a game, Turbine is giving a ‘behind the curtain’ nod at the real-world financial value of in-game virtual items.  As with all goods and services, naturally distributing a large amount of one particular item immediately decreases it’s value of worth, but to the average player, the ‘Oooo.  Neat!’ factor far outweighs the ‘Aw man, it’s not worth as much anymore, ‘cause everybody has one’ factor.

Turbine has already clearly indicated that they’re interested in microtransactions, hiring a microtransactions manager.  Additionally, yesterday’s rumor mill was in full effect with reports that LotR was more or less ‘ready to go’ to be ported to a console experience (specifically the XboX 360) but had hit a snag as Turbine would like to feature the title as a free-to-play with microtransaction options, causing Gold vs. Silver XboX subscription headaches.

While perhaps not the best of circumstances to introduce players to virtual goods (and the associated advantages and downright cool factor), both Turbine and Funcom are using difficult situations to their advantage.  Both companies have free-to-play/microtransaction based projects in the works – so why not wet the appetites of their current customers through targeted promotions?  Brilliant folks.  Simply brilliant.

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Cross Fire nets 25,000 users in 3 weeks

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

It looks like 2009 is quickly shaping up to be the year of free-to-play first-person-shooters (FPS).  Admittedly, the timing of Subagames’ release of their open beta stats is slightly suspect, appearing just one day after Nexon had released their whopping 2 million North American player stats.  However, Cross Fire’s numbers are quite impressive in their own respect: netting 25,000 registered players since the opening of the beta on January 30, 2009.  The open beta runs through the end of February, and if G4BOX Inc. and Wicked Interactive Ltd., the North American publishers of Cross Fire stay on target they could end up doubling this number.

Chief Executive Officer of Wicked Interactive Garvin Yeung says, “We knew there was an audience out there that was really anticipating Cross Fire, so we expected a good result.”

G4BOX CEO Howard He adds, “But even we are amazed by the overwhelming response that Cross Fire has garnered thus far.”

As previously reported, the Cross Fire website had received 1.9M hits prior to the November 7th closed beta launch, two-thirds of which came from the US.  Cross Fire has been a success in Asian markets, with an excess of 500,000 users simultaneously playing.  The North American open beta introduced new features including an in-game friends list, new maps, weapons, and items.  In addition, a military ranking and stat-tracking package has been introduced.  Wicked and G4BOX have started tracking players’ progress and activity since the open beta onward so that players are able to accurately gauge their skills against the rest of the Cross Fire community.  And as with any respectable MMO, Cross Fire now features a clan system whereby players can band together to play in persistent teams.  Supported by a Subagames clan page, this feature maintains rankings of all clans not only active in Cross Fire, but across the entire catalogue of Subagames’ free MMO’s.

Developed by SmileGate and Neowiz, Cross Fire is an online military FPS developed for the PC platform.  Players choose their role in this conflict scenario shooter, either Black List or Global Risk mercenaries.  They are then thrown into the thick of battle by joining a combat team that must cooperatively work together in order to complete objective based operations.  And while Cross Fire does sound a bit like the rising number of free-to-play FPS’s currently making their way to market, their standout feature is the unique “Ghost Mode”.  In this mode, one team is in possession of a top-secret cloaking device that allows them to become invisible to the opposing team.  “Ghost” teams are armed only with knives, and must utilize stealth tactics to hunt and track the other team.  Other play modes available include Team Death Match, Search and Destroy and Elimination modes.

Naturally, as with most free-to-plays, Cross Fire features an extensive set of character customization and upgrade options.  This in-game currency used in Cross Fire, may also be used in any of Subagames’ other titles including Metin2, ACE Online and Prison Tale, as well as the upcoming Prison Tale 2.

Sign up and join the trigger pulling fun at crossfire.subagames.com.

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UC Irvine lands $3M for further study of Virtual Worlds

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

Billed under the title ‘Can the same technologies you use to play hard also help you work hard’, The University of California at Irvine has recently been awarded a $3M grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study emerging forms of communication.  The study will incorporate elements of MMO’s and Virtual Worlds including World of Warcraft and Second Life, and aims to help organizations collaborate and compete more effectively in a global marketplace.  This new grant ups the ante from previous UC Irvine studies, as they were granted a $100K grant from the NSF last year for an ethnographic study of World of Warcraft.

“Many technologies have come out of computer-based games, and their concepts appear to have real potential,” said Richard N. Taylor, director of UCI’s Institute for Software Research, which is conducting the three-year study. “This grant will determine how emerging technologies can be used or modified to support serious group work.”

As a flailing economy sees more and more companies opening the doors to worldwide collaboration, Virtual Worlds are looking more and more attractive to these businesses.  To grow and promote efficiency and productivity, these companies are turning to virtual worlds as a place where workers can collaborate thousands of miles apart from each other, while still being in the same ‘virtual’ room.  The UC Irvine study aims to help in this area, applying lessons learned, and yet to be learned in large-scale multiplayer online gaming, social networking, and file and media sharing.

In order to keep feet and minds grounded here on planet Earth, UC Irvine researchers will gain ‘real world’ perspectives by collaborating with five organizations from aerospace, telecom, transportation and electronics sectors, along with the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana.  Some of this real world perspective could make it’s way into virtual world testing, as Irvine scientists are already speculating about plugging real world engineering specifications into virtual worlds like Second Life to test and develop personal rapid transit systems.

“Advanced information and communication technologies can lead to breakthroughs in productivity and boost morale, but they can also be problematic and unsuccessful, leading to wasted investments,” said Walt Scacchi, senior research scientist and project leader. “One goal of this research is to understand the conditions that lead to failure or success.”

UC Irvine scientists Walt Scacchi, senior research scientist and project leader, and Richard Taylor will be joined by Alfred Kobsa, Cristina V. Lopes, Gloria Mark, Bonnie Nardi and David Redmiles in their studies.

Ed. Note: This announcement couldn’t have come at a better time, as PC World’s Darren Gladstone recently published a piece regarding including your game playing skills as a resume builder.  Give it a read here.

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SOE talks RMT with DC Universe Online

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

Riding hot on the coattails of yesterday’s Red 5 and microtransactions conversation, Gamasutra’s Brandon Sheffield sat down with DC Universe Online’s senior producer Wes Yanagi to talk about the game itself, development, and how RMT’s will factor into the game.

While a wide range of topics were discussed, the 500-pound gorilla in the room turned out to be the ye old subscriptions vs. microtransactions discussion.  Yanagi would not comment on whether DC Universe Online will go with one monetization method over the other, he did say that he thought microtransactions still have a huge potential.  Yanagi specifically pointed to Sony’s Free Realms, which he expects will turn a profit sooner or later, furthering the opinion that SOE is gently testing the free-to-play, microtransaction based waters and learning what the Western market will and will not accept.

Thankfully Yanagi and co. have learned quite a bit about MMO’s and their development, particularly the beta phase and when and when not to release a product to the general populace.  When asked about the development of DC Universe Online and MMO’s in general, along with producing a solid Beta (think the Hellgate London debacle), Yangani responds with,

“… For us, we’re playing it with the team, with our team. It’s kind of our product, our baby, and so it’s always “the best product ever,” and then we can keep playing on that.

But once we release it internally to other parts of SOE, we want to make sure that there’s another level of polish there, so that people are excited about that and then going on to the next step of any kind of closed beta.”

Given the opinions that we’ve heard far and wide in the Western market and the negative opinions regarding the ‘pay to pwn’ theory, introducing microtransactions to DC Universe Online might be a perfect gateway for SOE, as costume customizations in a superhero game simply go hand in hand.  Sony’s already headed down this path with the customizable Little Big Planet outfits, likewise with home.  Toss in the microtransaction based Superhero costume customizations that City of Heroes has already tested the waters on, and adding microtransactions to DC Universe Online is simply a no brainer.

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OMG! zOMG! nets half a million signups!

Monday, December 8th, 2008

OMG rly?  Gaia Onlines’ first entry to the casual MMO space has certainly stuck a chord with audiences world wide, with Gaia recently reporting that zOMG! has reached the 500,000 player benchmark – clearly indicating that they’re onto something good.  Something VERY good.

The new MMO entered it’s open beta testing phase on November 6th, and in just over a month Gaia has seen a landslide of registrations and active players on it’s servers.

As discussed in our coverage of the opening of the beta, zOMG! is flash based a casual MMORPG that pits players against monsters and enemies in 16 different zones with a wide variety of battle rings and recipes to choose from.  The main story centers around the unexplained transformation of inanimate objects into now living beings bent on wiping out the human race.  The ‘Animated’, as they’re know in-game consist of yard flamingos, gnomes, plungers, etc. can only be defeated by characters equipping themselves with magical rings and battling it out.

Existing zOMG! players now have an entire new army of fellow players to engage and play with in their ongoing campaign to smash the evildoers and live in peace and harmony.  And it’s not all just smash and grab in the land of zOMG! as the game also incorporates elements of social networking and entertainment, streaming music, and naturally, Gaia Online’s in-game, microtransaction based item mall.

When zOMG! went into an open beta phase, Senior Producer David Georgeson stated,

“Our top priority is providing a high-quality MMO gaming experience that’s fun and challenging, and also user-friendly for all levels of players.  We received a lot of great feedback from gamers during our Closed Beta, so we’re throwing open the doors as we update the game with new features and additional content.”

It seems like Gaia and company are and have been listening to players’ feedback,

“Positive feedback from satisfied players not only aids our team in modifying and ultimately perfecting the zOMG!! gameplay experience; it is truly rewarding,” said David Georgeson, Senior Producer of zOMG!! at Gaia Online. “After a lengthy development process, it’s almost surreal to watch players dig right into the storyline and begin realizing the game’s full potential.”

While Gaia Online is no stranger to massive usership, currently home to seven million plus gamers that enjoy Gaia’s wide selection of free-to-play titles, another 500,000 players in the zOMG! space doesn’t hurt anything.

Given the troubling financial climate, Gaia Online is also attributing a bit of the success of zOMG! to the inherent nature of the business model: Free-to-play.  If the price wasn’t enough of a selling point, providing a feature rich game in a browser based format makes adventuring through zOMG! even easier with no download, or credit card required.

Learn more and take zOMG! for a spin on your own over at zOMG.com.

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