Six Degrees Games Inc. is gearing up for the launch of their sports based virtual world for kids called ActionAllStars.com.  In addition to winning virtual trophies in baseball, basketball, and action sports, users can create fully customizable avatars and char with buddies.

In an impressive run, Six Degrees has been able to sure up licensing deals with traditionally hard-to-get plays such as the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, and ESPN.  Last March big gun David Ortiz, most noted for his success with the multibillion-dollar Madden franchise came aboard.  If this wasn’t enough to get your interest, how about a $7 million venture financing deal?

According to Virtual Worlds, in the first two quarters alone, $345 million clams have been invested in the virtual world market.  They also report that as of August 2008, there were 163 youth-oriented virtual worlds live or in development.

While the dominant players in the youth oriented virtual worlds include Gaia, Habbo, and Walt Disney’s Club Penguin, Six Degrees is confident they can stand not on the shoulders of giants, but firmly along side.
“The market is becoming crowded,” said Minard Hamilton, chief executive of Six Degrees Games. “My sense is that it’s becoming more important to differentiate yourself.”

Hamilton is no stranger to a continually crowded marketplace, having spent five years in the position of executive vice president with Jamdat mobile, a company that sold games for mobile phones.  In this highly competitive field, Hamilton justified top billing fees by securing licensing deals with major league sports brands.  Clearly Hamilton and company were doing something right; EA stepped in in 2006 and purchased Jamdat for $684 million in cash.

“And there were a lot of similarities between mobile and online,” Hamilton said.

Together with Jamdat’s Senior Vice President of Sales, Ben Jones, Hamilton co-founded Six Degrees Games in 2007.  The duo took one look at the virtual worlds space and decided the playing field was ripe for development.

Reaching back into the Rolodex, Hamilton and team capitalized on their connections with sports brands, and began securing licenses from the NBA and MLB to use logos and jerseys in the virtual world.  Sex Degrees Games and the NFL are currently ironing out a deal as well.  Wanting to cover all the bases, Six Degrees Games isn’t limiting itself to ‘mainstream’ sports, but has also secured deals with ESPN to include real time sports news and scores along with X Games video.

“Sports sites have a built-in audience of passionate fans,” said Paul Verna, an analyst with EMarketer who estimated that revenue from ads and paid content on sports sites would hit nearly $3 billion in 2012 from $1.5 billion in 2007. “These fans have an insatiable thirst for facts, figures, statistics and trivia. And they like to share their knowledge and opinion with others.”

While Hamilton and Jones have decided on a subscription based model for inclusion into their virtual world, given the immense potential of virtual item sales, development and evolution of the Six Degrees Games virtual world is certainly one to watch.

ActionAllStars.com is currently in closed beta, but you can get an quick view of what the virtual world will look like at: beta.actionallstars.com.

via L.A. Times