Posts Tagged ‘virtual world’

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New concept virtual world SecretBuilders seeks to engage and educate

Friday, December 5th, 2008

In case you missed it a few weeks back, it looks like Google’s attempt at a virtual world competitor to SecondLife: Lively, wasn’t so lively at all, and is about to go down the tubes.  While it’s a sad day anytime we hear of a game/world/concept go sayonara, how’s that expression go…there’s a silver lining in Tokyo?  Or something like that.

Now entering the ring in the white corner, weighing in with StoneSoup magazine and The Huffington Post, hailing from Northern Californiahhhh…..Secretbuilders!

SecretBuilders is another new entry to the virtual world sector – but with a new an innovative twist.  Specifically not targeting the Lively/SecondLife demographic of 30-40 somethings, SecretBuilders is aimed at the 7-14 year old market, thereby putting it in the same pot as Club Penguin and ZooKazoo, an already boiling hot market.  eMarketer places 53% of all kids involved in one virtual world or another (or several) by 2011.

But hold up there Mr. Naysayer.  SecretBuilders has an interesting twist.  Fun AND education.  Players can create their own 2D avatar and play approximately 30 mini-games throughout the different areas of the virtual world.  Kids can talk to each other within the world with offensive language filters in place.  Nothing new to see here, but….this is where things get interesting.  Let’s say a player approaches a man by the name of Galileo and wants to talk to him.  Here they can find out a number of things regarding Galileo, when he lived, what he’s famous for, etc.  His profile will also reflect these teaching tools.  Likewise, players can create pictures via their mouse cursor, but what they may not realize is that they’re painting over, or mimicking a painting done by a famous artist – learning tools included.  The world also includes a plethora of writing and art contests to enter, a kids magazine and room customization/personalization tools.

So far we’ve got a new Virtual World with an innovative concept – but how about some support?  Well getting a nod from Arianna Huffington at The Huffington Post isn’t a bad way to start.  On December 10th, SecretBuilders will launch a contest titled “Dear Mr. President” where users can submit a photo including a caption addressed to president-elect Barack Obama.  The Huffington Post will publish the winning entry on President’s Day.

The site membership is free for now, but plans to introduce premium subscriptions and microtransactions in the coming future.  SecretBuilders is open to product placement and in-game advertising, and currently has join ventures with Art in Action, The Monterey Bay Aquarium, WildPlanet Toy Company, and StoneSoup Magazine.

This new entry to the virtual world space is the brainchild of Umair Khan, who founded the company in January 2007.  14 programmers based in Bulgaria also support the Menlo Park based team of 7 US programmers.  After a short testing phase of only a couple of months, the world now has approximately 5000 members in 27 countries around the world – all via word of mouth marketing.

Khan has raised $2.4M in tow rounds of funding via Angel investors Scott Hassan of eGroups and a founding member of Google, Carlos Cashman founder and CEO of CourseAdvisors, and Ken Morse, co-founder of 3Com, Aspen Technologies, and professor at the MIT Sloan School.

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Free to Play World of Kung Fu partners with MMOsite for Giveaways

Monday, November 17th, 2008

VestGame Entertainment, publisher of free-to-play martial arts MMORPG ‘World of Kung Fu’, has recently announced a partnership with MMOsite to host a giveaway of valuable items from the WoKF item mall.

Coincidentally riding on the heels of Nexon’s 7-Eleven announcement (bad timing?), VestGame Entertaintainment is partnering up with popular gaming portal MMOsite.com and will be giving away a ton of new in-game items (read: WotLK just came out – where did everyone go?).

World of Kung Fu has approximately 250,000 registered users that adventure and explore the 3D virtual world of ancient China.  The game takes place in a fantasy land steeped in ancient Kung Fu morals of justice and heroism.  Both hard core and casual gamers are enveloped in Chinese Kung Fu philosophy, grasshopper, with graphics inspired by landscapes and open countryside settings portrayed in traditional Chinese artwork.

Players visiting MMOsite.com can take advantage of these free, in-game promos by visiting the contest section of MMOsite.  Items to be given away include:

  1. Gallant Steed – Fast moving white horse. Lasts 7 days.
  2. Novice Tai Yi Pill – Ancient medicine that restores 50,000 Hit Points.
  3. Wooden Waist Pendant – Nice accoutrement. HP +20.
  4. Small Experience Charm (5) – Gain 120% experience for 1 hour.
  5. Deepfried Steamed Bun (5) – Restores 150 HP over 15 seconds.
  6. Novice Lion Toy (5) – Enables player to revive at current location.

“We are happy to see so many new players in World of Kung Fu, and would like to take this opportunity to show our appreciation for their support”, says Zhenghua Zhuang, Head of North American Operations at VestGame.

“MMOsite was chosen to host this event because of their long standing support of World of Kung Fu as well as for their credibility in the MMORPG community”, he added.

I gave World of Kung Fu a whirl over the weekend, and while my comments above regarding Lich King is out – where did everyone go? are meant as a slight jab to the MMO community in general for all of a sudden grinding back to life, I found WoKF quite enjoyable.  Granted, there wasn’t the massive server population as experienced in WoW, which actually made the game quiet nice.  The scenery and graphics are well executed, and the storyline is pretty interesting.  Would I make this my main go-to M-F?  Probably not – but at a free-to-play price, and now including free goodie bags, it might be enough to get me started on an alternate project while I’m waiting 45+ minutes to log onto a WoW server just to see what all the excitement is about.

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zOMG! Now open to the public

Monday, November 10th, 2008

If just writing zOMG! wasn’t fun enough, this new free-to-play offering from Gaia Online will certainly bring a smile to your face.  Unleashed upon the public last Thursday, this is Gaia’s first casual MMO game.  Having completed a successful closed beta test, the open beta zOMG! is an adventure game that pits players against monsters in 16 different zones with a wide variety of battle rings and recipes to choose from.  Gaia Online seeks to successfully meld the attractiveness of the online social community experience with a fun and enjoyable MMO gameplay experience.

“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,” said David Georgeson, Senior Producer of zOMG! at Gaia Online. “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.”

Listening to the community, and it’s needs and wants, has never been something that Gaia has shied away from, and by opening the beta doors, they’re expecting an even larger pool of feedback and suggestions to learn from.  Gaia is actively soliciting feedback from players via the site’s message boards and forums.

Lucy Newman over at gamertell.com reports on Kate Pietrelli’s announcement surrounding zOMG!

“In development since 2006, zOMG! is a fun and engaging casual game that blends social online community experiences with accessible MMO gameplay. Gaia community members currently hang out in the virtual world with their friends, watch movies online together in the theater, share artwork in the online art gallery, and chat through the Gaia Instant Messaging (GIM) system. The community asked for new ways in which they could interact and play with their friends in Gaia, and so the MMO game was designed to be an extension of the Gaia virtual world with all the fun social elements of chatting and hanging out with friends, in addition to playing a challenging multiplayer game with quests, monsters, battles and more. Gaia Online will monetize the game through the sale of virtual goods (battle armor, rings, etc.), which tie into their current microtransactions based business model.”

While I’ve yet to personally give the game a look-over, I have visited and spent some time with Gaia, and I can’t imagine they’d deliver anything less than outstanding.  Grinding rep this weekend was about as thrilling as watching the grass grow, so perhaps a break from the uphill battle is just what the doctor ordered….and with a name like zOMG!  you just KNOW there’s got to be some fun somewhere therein.

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fatfoogoo wins runner up in Munich Venture Lounge’s Media and Technology competition

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

In spite of the global financial crisis, last Tuesday’s Munich Venture Lounges’ “Media & Technology”, with over 100 participants from start-ups and venture capitalists was extremely well attended.  The event was hosted by the corporate finance advisory firm CatCap, the VC firm Neuhaus Partners, and the PR network European Marketing Communications.

The competition was narrowed down to 9 startup companies, each with an opportunity to present their company to the jury.  From these 9 start-ups 3 top winners were chosen,  nFon, fatfoogoo, and Just Landed.  As a result of this win, fatfoogoo CFO Thomas Offner has been approached by a number of VC’s in attendance, as well as those interested in further investment in the gaming and virtual world communities.

“We’re both honored and proud to have been selected as finalists for this competition.  A runner up win in this very exclusive and high investor potential competition is a double win for fatfoogoo.” says CFO Thomas Offner.

fatfoogoo CEO Martin Herdina adds, “The win today is just more proof of fatfoogoo’s very positive momentum in this fast paced market.  It’s great to get this positive feedback from the gaming industry as well as the financial community.”

To read the release please visit: http://www.venture-lounge.de/allgemein/munchener-venture-lounge-media-technology-am-28-oktober-2008 (in German)

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IMVU shoots for the stars – and brings one home

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

Palo Alto based virtual world IMVU has recently been named a Rising Star in the Silicon Valley Fast 50 program.  This special award is bestowed upon a fast-growth company and is based on percentage revenue growth over three years (2005-2007).  This year’s Silicon Valley Technology Fast 50 program is co-presented by Deloitte, Silicon Valley Bank, Korn/Ferry International, Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, Cornish & Carey Client Solutions, and ABD Insurance and Financial Services — A Wells Fargo Company.

Founded in 2004, IMVU Inc. is a virtual world where adults and teens can interact with each other in a unique 3D setting.  While still officially in a public beta phase, IMVU has already reached a number of highly significant milestones: 25 Million registered users, 100,000 register developers, and generating approximately $1M in revenue per month.  IMVU currently houses the world’s largest virtual goods catalog, with over 1.8 million items available for purchase or trade.  IMVU generates over 90 percent of its revenue from the direct sale of virtual credits.  These virtual credits are the in-game currency used my IMVU inhabitants to purchase any number of these 1.8 million items.

Part of IMVU’s success is attributed to its wide range of interested parties.  IMVU is not just a destination for those interested in virtual technologies and games, but also boasts a wide cross section of people from all walks of life.  IMVUers include Anime fans, Goths, Latinos, Moms, LGBT, and many more, thus every type of group under the sun can find someone with similar interests within the IMVU world.  Players represent themselves with highly customizable 3D avatars, and via IMVU’s hybrid of 3D technology, artistry, and tools, they can buy new products for these avatars, all while having a good time.  IMVU currently generates over $1M in revenue per month via in-world microtransactions.

“The Deloitte Silicon Valley Technology Fast 50 Rising Star companies have shown the strength, vision and tenacity to succeed despite a very challenging technology environment,” said Mark Jensen, partner and national director, Venture Capital Services, Deloitte & Touche LLP. “We applaud the successes of IMVU and acknowledge its place as one of the few to accomplish such a fast growth rate over the past three years.”

“We are greatly honored to be recognized by Deloitte for our strong revenue performance,” said Cary Rosenzweig, CEO of IMVU, Inc. “To achieve revenue, we deliver value for our customers. We couldn’t do it without the help of our amazingly creative IMVU community of developers, who create almost all the digital items purchased by IMVU members.”

If winning the Rising Star award wasn’t enough, just qualifying for the program is daunting enough.  Companies must be incorporated a minimum of three years and have revenue in only three or four years, have operating revenues of at least $50,000 in 2005 and $5,000,000 in 2007, be headquartered within the San Francisco Bay Area (subsidiaries or divisions are not eligible, unless they have some public ownership and are separately traded), and own proprietary technology or proprietary intellectual property that contributes to a significant portion of the company’s operating revenues or devote a significant proportion of revenues to the research and development of technology.

From all of us here at fatfoogoo, gratz IMVU!

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Vivaty to bring Virtual Worlds to your browser sans client

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Picture this…a world where dashing off to your favorite virtual world is no more than a few clicks away, all the while having several other tabs open.  Tabs you say?  Isn’t that browser based?  What about that pesky IT department restriction of not being an admin, and not having sufficient rights to install said client?  If San Francisco based Vivaty has it’s way, clients are a thing of the past.  And to be honest, after the last 1.5 GB WoW patch update, I say….good riddance.

Former EA VP, CEO and co-founder of Vivaty Keith McCurdy and co. have been working on such a solution for over a year now.  They’ve steadily been gaining tracking since their summer ’08 release of Vivaty Scenes application.  Scenes is a personal profile page where the user can control who has access to this area, the objects within the area, flickr photos, youtube videos, etc.  OK, nothing new you say?  Agreed, it’s not a new concept…but since Wednesday, the application, titled Vivaty Everywhere, is available in a rich 3D environment right in your favorite browser, thereby making it a ‘take it with you where ever you go’ virtual world.  The feature allows users to embed a scene on any website and/or blog.

“Our vision is to make virtual experiences as accessible, engaging and easy to use as a Web page,” said Keith McCurdy, Vivaty CEO and co-founder. “Vivaty Everywhere gives brands, fan sites and bloggers a rich, engaging way to inject their sites with social experiences that reflect their media and style choices.”

In a recent Forbes.com interview, McCurdy states:

The idea is to create a solution for brands that want to advertise in the virtual world.

“The old model was to take a branded experience and bring it into an application virtual world [like Second Life],” he says. “Now, [we] can bring it to the customers on social networks or a branded site.”

It tackles the problem of “Second Life’s” “big empty” world by finding and engaging folks where they happen to be.

If Vivaty’s main goal is to attract brands to further Virtual advertising and engagement spaces, they’ve been given a big thumbs up with their recent deal with Universal Music Group.  Vivaty has landed a deal to create a Queen and Paul Rodgers themed scene to promote the new The Cosmos Rocks album.  The goal is to attract Queen and Paul Rodgers fans to these virtual spaces, scattered across the web, to listen to the new tracks, watch videos, and discuss the band.  They’ve also recently inked a deal and developed a scene for Barely Political, a leading political satire firm.

“We are pleased to invite Queen and Paul Rodgers fans to a 24/7 listening party in this visually rich, social experience around a highly anticipated album,” said Andie D’Avino, director of online marketing at Universal Music Group. “Making Queen’s Vivaty scene embeddable means it’s extremely accessible to fans, no matter where they are online.”

If some of this in-browser gaming sounds familiar, idSoftware’s recent placement of Quake Live, a free-to-play, browser based first person shooter, might ring some bells.  Unity and Flash are currently working on web publishing tools, Triton World Network is working on it’s own cloud computing gaming platform, and one of our favorite, Acclaim games has been working on server technology and server side game development tools for over a year now. Vivaty is perfectly positioned, and leading the charge of ‘lose that junk in your trunk’ via browser based technology.

“The big trend is that the world of monolithic downloadable application worlds is going to go by the wayside in favor of browser-based worlds,” Reuben Steiger, chief executive of virtual worlds marketing firm Millions of US.

“Worlds plugging in to the browser are becoming the de facto interaction for real-time communication on the Web.”

Vivaty currently has browser based 3D Virtual Worlds apps developed for both facebook and AIM users.  While attracting brands to advertise in these browser based virtual worlds appears to be the main monetization module, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Vivaty investigating further monetization via a microtransaction model within these virtual worlds.

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Martin Herdina to speak at Virtual Worlds London Expo

Monday, October 20th, 2008

Along with being an official sponsor of the 2008 Virtual Worlds London Expo, fatfoogoo’s CEO Martin Herdina will be join by Rohan Freeman, CEO of Sine Wave Company, Andrew Schneider, Founder and President of LiveGamer, and Karl Mehta, Co-Founder and CEO of PlaySpan in a panel discussion regarding Virtual Goods.

Taking place today and tomorrow, the Virtual Worlds London Expo is the leading European event for businesses seeking to maximize and comprehend business strategies within virtual worlds.  The Expo seeks to bring all major players in the virtual world space together in one location to look at best practices, insights, and networking.  Fortune 1000 companies, investors, media, startups, consumer entertainment and youth brands, ad agencies, and of course virtual world platforms and their associated developers regularly attend the annual event.

Martin Herdina will be taking part in the Virtual Goods: The Next Big Business Model talk from 2:45 PM to 3:30 PM.  An outline of the discussion:

Virtual goods and currencies have become the driving economic force for a number of virtual world companies. What does it takes to build a successful company with a strong virtual goods business? What types of items do consumer want to buy and in what context are they motivated to continually buy or upgrade their virtual items? How do you grow a virtual goods business and what are the pitfalls? In what cases does a virtual goods business model triumph over advertising or subscription models?

fatfoogoo’s CEO is expected to analyze and elaborate on the different monetization use cases (subscriptions, primary market, secondary market), their differences, their shortcomings and outline the key factors to run a
successful virtual goods business.

Mr. Herdina is in good company at this year’s Virtual Worlds London Expo, as keynote speakers include Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Labs (Second Life), and Niniane Wang, Lively Engineering Lead, Google Inc.

The Virtual Worlds London Expo is made possible by Virtual Worlds Management, and includes The Virtual Worlds 2008 (New York, April 3-4, 2008), Virtual Worlds Expo (Los Angeles, September 3-4, 2008), Virtual Worlds London (October 20-21, 2008).

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Stevie Case to present on Metanomics.net

Saturday, October 11th, 2008

fatfoogoo’s Stevie Case will be joined by Jay Geesman of Xstreet to present ‘Monetizing the Metaverse’ – a talk about their business experiences in Second Life and other Virtual Worlds.  Professor Robert Bloomfield, Director of the Business Simulation Laboratory at Cornell University, will moderate the show.

Stevie will be going live this coming Monday, October 13th at 12 noon PST.  The show may be seen either within the Second Life virtual world in the Metanomicsregion at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Metanomics/129/174/40, or directly on metanomics site at http://www.metanomics.net/WatchNow.

Stevie is expected to discuss primary markets in which publishers sell directly to players, and secondary markets where players sell to other players.  She’ll also be talking about fatfoogoo’s unique white lable solution that can handle any type of microtransaction for publishers, including time to integration.  Stevie will also give viewers a rundown of fatfoogoo’s partnership program with Sun’s Project Darkstar, with a focus on Call of Kings.  Last but not least, a previous episode of Metanomics struck a chord with views, and Ms. Case will be addressing a “universal avatar” whereby users can more from virtual world to virtual world seamlessly without the need for separate registrations and release of personal information with each new virtual world the visit.

With over 50 one hour long programs dedicated to virtual world economies, metanomics is a storehouse of information coming directly from the industry experts.  Focusing mainly on economic and business situations and scenarios present in virtual worlds such as Second Life and There, Metanomics aims to understand and provide a better insight as to how residents of these virtual worlds establish, manage, and operate their virtual businesses.  Conversely, the show also looks at real world businesses and non-profits and how they interact with the growing virtual world and economy(ies).

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Free-to-play Empire of Sports in ‘Private Launch’

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

Sports MMO’s seem to be one of the newest and fastest growing trends in the virtual world, and developers F4 and Infront are soon to be tossing their entry onto the playing field.  Officially billing itself as a non MMO, Empire of Sports is an errr… non- massive, multiplayer online game focused on and around, you guessed it, any and all things sports.

Players start their non-mmo adventure as a rookie, and level up skills through a variety of entry-level sports: Soccer, Tennis, Basketball, Skiing, and Bobsledding.  You may also choose to participate in a wide variety of training exercises.  Word on the street is that Empire of Sports has a few goodies still up its sleeve and plans on introducing Track and Field events into the game in the near future.

An interesting and ‘real world’ touch to the experience gaining process is that each sport has a number of skills attached to it.  Training exercises can be done in single player mode that increases your general skills (think balance, reaction time, muscle structure) and you can practice specific skills to increase your ability in individual sports.  In other words, it’s a whole lot like being a real world athlete – you can go to the gym to pump some iron, thereby increasing your overall athleticism, or head off to the green ‘bounce back’ wall and work on developing that killer backhand.

As you train and gain experience in particular sports, you gain a competitive advantage over opponents.  You may also purchase in game equipment to give you some extra pwnage power.  Items can be acquired in three different ways: some are earned as a reward for winning a particular tournament or match, some are purchased with ‘won’ in game currency, while the others, and perhaps most important, can be purchased via an in game mall with microtransactions.  According to F4 and Infront, the microtransaction gear is not meant to provide über status in the game, and should not provide an unfair balance to the competitive non-MMO.  A nice balance considering the game should attract a wide variety of players, some with massive amounts of time on their hands, while others would still like to have some nice gear, but don’t have hours and hours on their hands to win the appropriate cash and/or tournament(s).

As with 99.44 percent of all (non) MMO’s, Empire of Sports supports guilds, aiding in quickly and easily finding others that have a similar play and/or time schedule.

Empire of Sports is currently in ‘Private Launch’ at the moment, which basically means you’ll need to fork over an email address to get playing….but other than that, you’re in like Flynn.  Empire of Sports is free-to-play with microtransactions supporting the continued development and support.

Give them a visit at www.empireofsports.com

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Rocketon releases new features to alpha testers

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

Private alpha phase virtual world Rocketon has announced a number of new features via an email dispatched to alpha testers.  The new developments can be split into two distinct areas.  First up, more activity please.  ‘Quests’ have now been introduced whereby players must stumble across quests in order to solve puzzles to receive in-game rewards.  Players can now also grow their own monster pet and fight in ‘Monster Fights’ against other players.  And now for a dash of goo – Players are now able to cover other avatars in slime, goo, and various non-niceties.

Rocketon goes social

Rocketon’s second upgrade comes via a variety of social features.  First and formost, users may now create their own personal rooms and invite other players over to take advantage of the virtual worlds main focus at the moment.  Within these rooms, players can aggregate content from all over the web including pictures and images from Flickr and videos from YouTube for example.  Rocketon has also included profile pages for it’s users, making it easier for others to find other players with similar likes and interests.
Rocketon is a virtual world that exists on top of a 2D web.  Third party websites make up the ‘landscape’.  Users can watch online videos together in a ‘screening room’ format, play Rocketon’s games, or simply visit other pages together.

The site currently features cartoonish avatars that are fully customizable via a microtransaciton mechanism.  No updates as of yet as to how and where the microtransaciton customizations will come into play, but hey…they’re still in alpha.  Let’s just keep our eye on these guys for a bit.

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