Monte Cristo Games Receives $7M for CITIES XL
Monte Cristo Games announced earlier this month that it had received €4.5 million (or about $7 million) from Arts Alliance, 360° Capital Partners, and Innoven Partenaires. The money will be used to continue development on CITIES XL. Monte Cristo has its roots in simulation games, but CITIES XL is described as merging "video gaming with social networking and virtual worlds." Users will be able to create their own cities and then opt to interact with thousands of others online in persistent environments across multiple planets. CITIES XL is set to launch in Q1 2009 for Windows in English, French, and German.
It seems like the online component is an extra service, "The Planet Offer," which, according to Monte Cristo's FAQ, will let users
- Build your cities in a virtual world populated by other subscribers. This allows you to cooperatively create a living online community
- Trade with others, specialize your city in specific activities such as tourism, entertainment, business development, recycling management and more
- Visit other cities and host events for others to attend and enjoy
- Cooperatively create a booming metropolis teeming with life and businesses
- Participate in competitions and enjoy a calendar of events that will keep you coming back to your planet
- Share your in-game experience with friends through a companion community website
It sounds like an interesting combination of the classic Sim City approach to gaming and more open-ended virtual worlds. The former may put CITIES XL into competition with upcoming games like Spore, but the latter, to me, makes it sound like a fairly unique proposition. Of course, that's just an impression based off of an FAQ and a trailer, so we'll see what else happens before 2009.
"We are very pleased to receive this new round of funding from such renowned partners," said Jérôme Gastaldi, CEO of Monte Cristo Games. "This new funding will allow us to dedicate additional resources to creating the best entertainment experience possible in CITIES XL, while also leveraging our incredibly talented development teams in Paris and Kiev to create a fantastic virtual world and online community."
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