AGDC: Looking at Multiverse's Non-Games

When Multiverse went to version 1.0, it released four games as a part of a Worlds in Progress demo, including the Multiverse Social Demo. Most of the other products appearing out of the platform fell more in the MMOG camp than on the virtual worlds side of things. Corey Bridges, Multiverse Executive Producer and Marketing  Director, told VirtualWorldsNews.com that the game-based worlds made up about 60% of the development. But the Multiverse team brought along a few developers to the Austin Game Developers Conference, including developers from social and educational platforms. Tim Holt is working with the  University  of Central Florida's Retro Lab to develop Lunar Quest, a testbed for education in virtual worlds and MMOGs. "Multiverse is great for us doing educational research," said Holt. "I tried to start this a few years ago, and I went to different platform developers then. Every one of them said, 'Oh, yeah, that's interesting. How much money do you have?' And you just don't have any."

Mulitverse distributes its software for free, charging 10% of revenue down the line if any of the games begin to develop profits. And while Holt says there may be potential for expanding Lunar Quest to a commercial educational tool or tying it to text books, right now he has no plans for revenue. The majority of the funding comes from The National Science Foundation.

"There are softer returns for Multiverse, I guess," said Holt. "I'm trying to be a good developer. I suppose I'm an evangelist. I bring game design experience for feedback, but they're not making money off of us."

Sean Yeomans, President/Producer of Telos Entertainment, plans to make a living from his social world, City of Sinners and Saints. He describes the simple, cartoony virtual world as a "casual world, in the Nintendo approach of looking at people who want casual games instead of even serious, time-consuming social games."

"I'm taking an entertainment approach," said Yeomans, who has a background in children's education and animation. "It's all about what people want to do to have fun. The most fun I've ever had at a party was a Saints and Sinner's party where the Pope was breakdancing."

Asked if that means the Pope will be playable, Yeomans sees it down the line, but at a premium. He's still in the process of developing the game and seeking funding, looking for a true launch close to a year down the line, but he's outlined revenue models.

Sinners and Saints will be a subscription supported platform with an option to buy premium items as well. Yeomans says that research shows virtual worlds like his can support a subscription of $10-$20, but his aim is to keep it inexpensive. And the in-game currency for special characters and items can be  easily earned through social interactions, like vSide's Respekt, or bought.

But even before he's lined up funding, Yeomans is benefitting from Multiverse's network of worlds, all accessible through one browser.

"We're piggybacking off of their marketing," said Yeomans. "The way the revenue model works, it's in Multiverse's interest to help make you successful. They get nothing if you don't do well, so they've been very helpful."

Currently Yeomans is working mostly in his own project, but he plans to release  some aspects of his code after  he receives funding. For example, he's working on a phone-shaped friends list application that allows users to communicate within his world. Once he has his funding, he plans to allow other developers to build it even farther, potentially distributing it across the network.

"I don't want to look for competition inside the Multiverse," said Yeomans. "There's plenty of competition outside, but here it makes more sense to work together."

Multiverse representatives pointed out that that's in keeping with their goal of creating a developer community to quickly build out the network instead of encouraging competition. That community is making it easier for Holt to get the world he needs.

Lunar Quest is a ground for evaluating how successful MMOGs are when teaching, specifically basic physics concepts. It's set in quaint, vaguely retro moonbase where the user can interact with minigames that are then launched in an external Flash browser. While schools may be interested in participating in the experiment, they're probably less likely to install a client that can also access James Cameron's latest game project or a darker, adult-themed social world.

"I raised those concerns to Multiverse," said Holt. "And they were very receptive to potentially creating a client that only access educational games or children's games or social games. They might not want to do it just for me, but as more developers work together, the changes get easier."

And for educators looking to explore virtual worlds, that might make Multiverse a welcome change.

"Previously you could teach easily through a Half Life 2 mod," said Holt. "But obviously that has a lot of disadvantages."