Posts Tagged ‘rebel monkey’

Turbine lands (yet another) influx of cash, Masher Media scores for development of Myminipeeps

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Despite disparaging reports of VC’s tightening the screws on who gets their cash, and who doesn’t, yesterday’s news of major player Turbine and startup Masher Media both receiving investment money sheds a new light on the state of play.

Westwood, Massachusetts based giant Turbine, developers and publishers of the successful Lord of the Rings Online series, recently scored $6.6 million in series D funding, part of a planned $50 million investment round. This funding comes just one month before the planned public release of their Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberon title goes live. As you’ll remember, Turbine made some waves a few weeks back when it announced that their long time subscription based title Dungeons and Dragons Online would be going the free-to-play route. The title will still incorporate subscriptions, qualifying these paying players as VIP members with a monthly allowance of in-game currency to spend, but otherwise, it’s wide open for free gaming.

The yet again in the title stems from the fact that over the past several years of operation, Turbine has raised literally tens of thousands of dollars in venture capital. The lions share arrived via GGV Capital and Time Warner in 2008, where the company saw $40 million in investments. Previous investors include Columbia Capital, Tudor Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, and Granite Global Ventures.

On the other end of the spectrum, August 11th also saw VC money flowing into (yet another) virtual world for children. Tech Coast Angels has invested $300k in Masher Media Inc., who are currently working on MyMiniPeeps.com, a virtual world aimed at kids ages 6 to 13. This new virtual world is billed as, “an online experience as exciting as a video game but with more social networking, multiplayer, and complete and enriching real-world content.”

Masher Media Logo“Even in this difficult economy, Masher Media is a good example of how a great new company with an exceptional market opportunity can get investment money and get it fast,” said Richard Sudek, president of TCA.

And as evidenced in our video interview with Rebel Monkey CEO Margaret Wallace, the kids virtual world space is becoming an increasingly crowded space, Masher Media is holding one particular ace-in-the-hole that would certainly be attractive to any investor: CEO Sherry Gunther. Counting over 20 years experience entertaining kids, Gunther has produced animated hits including The Simpsons, Rugrats, Family Guy, and PowerPuff Girls to name a few. She also has two Emmy Awards and a Cable Ace award in the trophy cabinet.

Tech Coast Angles founder Luis Villalobos comments, “As investors, first and foremost we bet on people, and Sherry Gunther, the founder and creative genius behind Masher Media is one of the most accomplished people in her industry. Moreover, Masher Media has a terrific concept in a fast-growing market. This was an easy investment decision.”

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SOE Prez John Smedley to deliver keynote at GDC Austin

Friday, August 7th, 2009

If you were in search of this years “The One” gaming convention, look no further. It seems like the gathering in the Lone Star State is shaping up to be a veritable industry ‘who’s who’. Yesterday, GDC Austin officials announced the SOE President John Smedley will deliver a keynote speech detailing the success and lessons learned regarding the recently launched runaway tween success, Free Realms.

john-smedleyHis address, “From Dragons and Daggers to Kart Racing, Cooking and Concerts … It’s a Whole New MMO World,” will detail how Free Realms has worked well for SOE, expanding the title’s base of players and how they engage with each other in online worlds. Smedley is also expected to “inform attendees about the challenges and lessons learned when creating a full-blown MMO for younger audiences,” and complete with research and insights. Ooo…pie charts?

This keynote is a so-to-speak homecoming for Free Realms, as the title was first officially announced at the GDC Austin in 2007. Fast forward to an April 2009 launch, and SOE has seen over 1 million registered users pass through their doors in only 10 days. According to a recent Comic-Con panel, Sony has recently past the 5 million user mark, with no signs of slowing anytime soon in sight.

If a keynote by the man behind EverQuest I and II and Free Realms wasn’t enough to get your feet moving in the right direction, remember, GDC Austin has also confirmed Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce and World of Warcraft production director J. Allen Brack to discuss the operating challenges and lessons in the talk “The Universe of World of Warcraft.” An naturally, one of our personal favorites, Rebel Monkey CTO Jeffery Kesselman will be on hand and discussing how CampFu “combined open source technologies to build an industrial strength platform for unified multi-player casual game-play and social web experiences” in his talk, “The Monkey Wrench: Design and Architecture of an Online Environment.”

The GDC Austin event takes place at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas September 15-18. This conference is the major focus of a larger gathering also featuring four two-day summits including the Game Writers, Game Audio, iPhone Games and Independent Games Summits. To find out more, visit the official GDC Austin website.

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fatfoogoo Powers mEgo’s New Virtual Goods Storefront

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

fatfoogoo’s Microtransaction Ecosystem Bolsters mEgo’s Avatar Engine,
Tapping into the Rapidly Growing and Lucrative Virtual Goods Market

fatfoogoo, the leading provider of in-game and online commerce ecosystems, today announced it is powering mEgo’s smart virtual goods marketplace, where users can style, animate and accessorize their online personal profile. mEgo is a first-of-its-kind, portable multimedia profile aggregator designed to manage and integrate one’s online identity into a highly personalized avatar through a patent pending user interface.  More than 1.25 million mEgos are currently found on more than 650 social networks, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Flickr.  With added customization and content purchase abilities made possible by fatfoogoo’s commerce technology, mEgo is participating in the highly lucrative market for virtual goods. Already part of a growing trend, the Gartner Group predicts that in 2011, more than 80% of active Internet users will have an avatar.

mego_logo_rasterWith fatfoogoo’s commerce system, mEgo users can purchase a vast number of virtual goods – such as clothes, accessories, background displays, animations and featured content – available in the storefront on mEgo.com or its integrated websites.  The smart storefront allows users to dress by brand, theme, price-point, popularity, auction and rarity.  Through the mEgo user interface, consumers click on the virtual good on the avatar to learn more about the item and click-through to purchase the real-world item.

fatfoogoo is the leading monetization software provider handling microtransactions, subscriptions, virtual currencies, e-wallets, goods trading and more. Its core competencies matched mEgo’s needs – supporting global online transactions with expertise in telecom, an area of growth for mEgo. mEgo and its new virtual goods marketplace will soon be available on mobile devices, including the iPhone, as well on IM services.

“The immense undertaking in managing mEgo’s storefront filled with limitless items, global currency exchange and staying true to a particular brand was easily accomplished with fatfoogoo’s commerce platform,” said Martin Herdina, co-founder and CEO, fatfoogoo. “As the virtual goods industry rapidly expands beyond virtual worlds to casual and hardcore games, online stores and social networks like mEgo, companies depend on our technology and experience to increase the key factors for success – low fraud rate, global economic management and shortened development time. It literally pays to outsource commerce needs.”

By outsourcing the marketplace to fatfoogoo, mEgo was able to quickly have a robust virtual goods offering.  More importantly, with fatfoogoo’s technology and best practices, mEgo can rely on low fraud rates and international monetary compliance.

mego_pay

“We are very excited to work with fatfoogoo and provide our users with a proven and tangible global commerce solution,” said Ariel McNichol, mEgo co-founder and co-CEO.  “Tapping into fatfoogoo’s e-commerce platform, our virtual goods storefront has come to market six months to a year sooner than if we had to build the system ourselves – a win-win for everyone.”

As the company solves the problem of having to create and maintain different profiles on multiple social networks and sites, it keeps its leading edge with the launch of its new online storefront and additional avatar functionality. mEgo is currently developing a contextual suggestion feature that will tap into profile data to offer users relevant utilities, content and products.

In recent news, fatfoogoo announced its partnership with Digital River. Combined, the two companies will provide on-demand e-commerce and in-game commerce for publishers on a global scale. Additionally, fatfoogoo is the exclusive provider of in-game commerce for Rebel Monkey’s virtual world, CampFu, now with more than 100,000 players. Its white-label commerce system is a custom turnkey solution for publishers and developers that want to enhance the online experience for gamers or online users in any industry.

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Video: Interview with Margaret Wallace of Rebel Monkey – creators of CampFu

Friday, May 29th, 2009

I had the fortunate experience to sit down with Margaret Wallace, CEO and Co-founder of Rebel Monkey recently, and discuss not only their hit virtual world CampFu, but where Rebel Monkey comes from, youth oriented virtual worlds, microtransactions and much more!

Speaking to the fact that the youth oriented virtual world space is becoming increasingly crowded, Margaret presents Rebel Monkey’s take on how and why CampFu stands out in the crowd.  “We really wanted to focus on cooperative gaming.  We really wanted to emphasize the idea of the individual player being part of something bigger than themselves.”

Moving on to microtransactions and how they factored into the development of CampFu, Margaret tells me that the inspiration for CampFu came from her and co-founder Nick Fortuno’s views on the success of the free-to-play model in Asia, and how it was a good fit for what they were planning with their virtual world.  “Free to play was definitely the way to go for online.  It’s no longer a question of if microtransactions will take hold in Europe and North America.  …Now everyone’s onboard and trying to figure out their offering.”  Looking forward, Margaret shared with me her thoughts on where microtransactions are headed.  She sees the marketing becoming much more ubiquitous, with not only innovators like Rebel Monkey experimenting with optimizing revenue streams, but also larger portals, and even the old school powerhouse portals migrate (at least in part) to utilizing microtransactions.  Wallace also sees microtransactions becoming much more wide spread across various platforms, and moves towards universal wallets containing currency that can be spent across these platforms.  Using CampFu as a prime example of this prediction, Wallace goes on to tell me that while CampFu is only available on a browser on a computer right now, down the road she envisions an iPhone component that would carry a level of virtual goods offerings that would tie back in to the main ‘home’ of campfu that lives at campfu.com.  Wallace also hinted at an xbox component, all leading back to a total CampFu experience.

Looking ahead, talking about what’s next for Rebel Monkey and CampFu, Wallace tells me that the virtual world is only in it’s infancy right now, with plenty more additions and revisions planned.  A ton of social networking features are planned, and plenty of new virtual goods, both clothing and virtual housing decoration are on the way.  Rebel Monkey will also shortly be launching new games for CamFu players, and focusing on the way teams can form and support themselves, as well as creating API’s for developers to create their own real time cooperative games to be used within CampFu.

Rebel Monkey also isn’t just satisfied with one virtual world, but as Wallace explains, the engine that powers CampFu will be utilized to grow and develop further virtual worlds, making CampFu just one of several virtual world offerings from Rebel Monkey.

Wallace admits that Rebel Monkey is still ironing out the details surrounding a universal currency that would cover all of Rebel Monkey’s planned virtual worlds, but she does say that it has an undeniable appeal.  “We definitely are leaning towards having a universal currency that would work with all of our virtual world offerings, because if we have a player that has FuCash from CampFu why would we want to establish all these hurdles for them to use their FuCash in other properties that we launch.”

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Over 100,000 happy campers worldwide at CampFu

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

NYC based Rebel Monkey has recently announced that they’ve surpassed the 100,000 registered players mark in their Casual MMO CampFu.  Launched only in February of 2009, clearly CampFu is on to something special, not only attracting, but engaging and retaining users.  Rebel Monkey reports that they have users from every continent except Antarctica, encompassing 110 countries around the globe, with users spending on average over 60 minutes on site both playing games and socializing with other users.

logoNaturally, as will most virtual worlds, CampFu offers users a wide variety of online activities and features including a virtual CampGround, chat, hundreds of virtual goods and avatar costumes, but what truly sets them apart from the crowd is their innovative real-time co-op games.  This co-op gaming experience leads to a natural formation of teams and alliances that carry over outside the games and into the social area, the CampGround.

“CampFu is a fun and fresh online hang-out that is different from anything else out on the market,” said Margaret Wallace, CEO of Rebel Monkey. “Players have really responded to the look of our avatars and that you can actually use your avatars inside of the games in real-time – unlike a lot of online multiplayer sites out there where avatars are usually relegated to the sidelines.”

Another interesting aspect of CampFu is the user demographics.  It’s very difficult to call CampFu a ‘youth’ virtual world, but it’s also not quite a ‘hardcore’ gamer virtual world.  Spanning the masses is one of the keys to CampFu’s success.  Some arrive headed straight to the games, while others simply enjoy the social networking and community aspect of CampFu.  Globally, there are an estimated 231 million casual gamers worldwide, with 180 of them estimated to partake in virtual worlds such as Club Penguin or Habbo Hotel.  Given these numbers, and CampFu’s wide reaching appeal, Rebel Monkey and CampFu stand at a very interesting crossroads that could eventually see them skyrocket to the top of the virtual world scene.

Powered by the company’s own Monkey Wrench multiplayer gaming platform, CCO Nick Fortugno states, “if you want to play as a group with your avatars inside of a real-time casual gaming environment, you are really only going to find that at CampFu.  Expect more kinds of real-time co-op games to come – exploring deeper levels of team play and collaboration.”

Rightly so, Rebel Monkey is doing a bit of celebrating this week, and sharing the love with these 100,000 registered users.  They’ll be launching new parts of the CampFu CampGround, along with a full site re-design.  If that wasn’t enough to keep current and future users coming back for more, Rebel Monkey has also slated a number of new co-op games, social networking features, and avatar and cabin customizations later this spring.

If you’ve not done so already, head on over to CampFu.com and see what’s got over 100,000 registered users entertained and coming back for more.

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