Three Rings announced today that Whirled was "open for business." The user-generated virtual world offered content creation tools when it opened for beta in March and now features more options as well as monetization tools for developers and users. Users can purchase Bars via credit cards, PayPal, SMS, Target pre-paid cards, and more; earn Coins, which can also be used to purchase goods, in various mini-games; or get Bling, which can be cashed back out of the game, for selling goods in the user-created shops. With a suite of APIs, code available for its original games, and 12 example games, the company is hoping to jumpstart its developer base.
Along those lines, Three Rings also announced a Flash Game Developer challenge and the Whirled Game Developer Bonus Bling Pool. Developers using the Whirled APIs can get a share of $25,000 of prizes each quarter and a monthly pool of $10,000 divided up each day according to hours of gameplay on the site.
According to Three Rings itself, the company has done over $14 million in revenue to date, mostly through Puzzle Pirates. Venture Beat reports that the pirate-themed casual MMO has has 200,000 active members, including 75,000 subscribers, and generates about $350,000/month in revenue. CEO Daniel James admits that may be considered smallish, but says he's focused on engaging the core users. The same report puts Whirled at 60,000 registrations since its open beta launch and 15,000 active users logging in each day.
"Three Rings is taking a ‘ridiculously open’ approach to Whirled by publishing metrics, transparent business terms and a large part of the code-base as open-source," Michael Bayne, CTO and co-founder, said in a statement. "To kick-start creativity, Three Rings offers the source code and assets for all Three Rings’ original games and other content as examples for developers to explore and modify to their own nefarious ends."
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