Liveblogging Worlds in Motion: MindCandy's Michael Acton Smith on "Thinking Outside Virtual Worlds"

Toy companies are rapidly picking up toys tied to virtual worlds. You only have to see the coverage over the last few days to follow the boom. MindCandy has a background in creating Alternative Reality Games (PerlexCity), but now it is launching a product of its own, Moshi Monster—“Imagine Tamagotchi mixed with Facebook and a little bit of Big Brain thrown in.” Michael Acton Smith took the stage to talk not only about his projects, but about the industry as a whole.

“I believe there’s still a huge amount of opportunity left in this space,” said Smith. 

Game designers, though, need to start thinking “beyond the screen.” The revenue stream has too much potential not to. “More importantly,” said Smith, “it allows consumers to connect to our worlds and create more engagement and, hopefully, more fun.”

Moshi Monsters was aimed at children, but the early focus tests are showing interest across surprisingly old demographics. Virtual Pets—from the Pet Rock to Tamogotchi to the Pleo—have always held interest for broad variety of users.

MindCandy wanted to create a pet in the browser that “felt very alive with very deep interactions with the owner and rich animations” complete with a robust behavioral engine based on the amount of care that users provide. 

Setting online pets apart from Furbies, though, is the ease of interaction. From Webkinz to MyePets to Moshi Monsters, interaction is key. MindCandy, for example, is adding widgets aimed at its older audience to tie their pet experience to Facebook or Bebo.  Once users add friends, the creatures will socialize even when the users are offline, generating a Facebook-style newsfeed to track activity.

For the younger audience, MindCandy is adding “stealth education” with changing vocabularies and puzzles tied to the in-game currency of “rocks,” with monsters adding new puzzles for their owners every day.

The project is in beta now and will go live in about a month. The business model is like Club Penguin (free-to-play with a tiered subscription), but the company is already launching offline products like a mobile accessory that flashes when phones go off.

Elsewhere in the Industry

Smith then ran through a list of other products he finds interesting that blend realities, some for play now, and some that create more potential for play in the future.

[Note: I’ll add links to our coverage of most of these products soon, but you can also google them on the site. We’ve been following this space for a while.]

The big category is Webkinz. The company is already launching different models, but it’s also selling figurines, lip gloss, and more to monetize the interest in the brand. Lots of companies are following suit. [ed: it seems like a new one at least every week]

Barbie Girls and Be-Bratz target an older market. Barbie Girls, though, offers some free content and as taken an early lead in users

Collectible cards, like Bella Sara, Chaotic, Maple Story, World of Warcraft, have also spread across the environment. 

In the other direction, companies like Moo.com (with Habbo), Stardoll, Zazzle, and FigurePrints.com  allow users to take elements from the virtual world to the real. Sometimes that’s as simple as printing your avatar on a tshirt, sometimes it’s designing clothes for your avatar that can then be fabricated for you, and sometimes it’s the creation of your avatar itself.

TestTubeAliens.com is an alien in a tube of water, when held up to the screen, it detects screen patterns and changes the mood of the physical alien. UbFunKeys comes from Mattel and operates in the similar fashion as Webkinz, but with plastic instead of plush. Tamagotchi recently updated its online world. Me2 from IrwinToy.com is a motion sensor that records your physical activity and then points to your virtual character at home, potentially promoting activity away from the sedentary lifestyle.

Other products like iBuddy or Ambient Devices’ gadgets interface with your computer or environment to provide you more information, creating more of an augmented reality than a straight up virtual world, but creating possibilities, said Smith, for giving feedback to users away from their avatars.

Other items, like Tshirts from Thinkgeek, Firebox, eLaundry.com, and Tqualizer imprint electronics that are tied to other tshirts or products, giving feedback through interwoven screens.