Playce: A Mirror World for Games

“We believe people should be able to send a link to a friend, jump in, and play a really hot, 3D game, with no DVD and no cost," explained the Playce spokesperson at TechCrunch today [I missed her name].

It’s a games destination/platform/publisher that works on a free-to-play model. Interestingly, it focuses on games set in the real world, with the lobby built on a mirror world. It looks like that’s partly just a lobby at first, but it seems like the games themselves are then set in the mirror world.

“What we’re doing is creating a mirror world," the spokesperson continued. "It’s a virtual world built on real world imagery and data. We’ve taken a lot of open-source information from GIS information satellites [and more]. Our world is exact. Every pixel has a coordinate. And every pixel has an http address.”

Playce draws on independent game developers and hosts the games, provides analytics, and aids in monetization. The games are free for users and developers. Playce makes money on advertising and virtual goods.

Its a Windows-only, IE-only, ActiveX plugin, but the company is working with other technologies to open up to other platforms. [That news drew a little groan from the TC audience.]

It seems pretty neat. There are certainly mirror worlds on the way with higher quality graphics, like Twinity, but Playce doesn't seem interested in creating an environment for things like business, avatars,  events, or user-created content (at least for now), but hosting an environment for games.

It reminds me, though on a larger scale, of the little easter eggs that pop up in Google Earth or Virtual Earth, driving a milk truck or flying around. Only now it's an open platform for developers and there are monsters being shot by helicopters.

I missed the presentations for Grockit, an MMOG for learning, and Akoha, which  seems more like an alternate reality game for social good. I'd love to hear more if anyone caught the presentation for Grockit. If you're interested in trying out Akoha, though, they sent us a link for 100 free starter kits. I ordered mine. So we'll see how that goes.

Comments

[Jeff]

Her name is Carmel Gerber.

[Jordi]

There are other mirror worlds coming that are not 3D and having different goals, it is the case of erepublik or twinverse, a social media sharing space on top of Gmaps. Here is a screencast
http://twinverse.com/screencast2/screencast.html