Virtual Worlds News

Free Realms Tallies 5 Million Users; No, Really

Tomorrow in Austin, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) president John Smedley will make it official. The company's free-to-play, kid-friendly PC game Free Realms has passed the five million registered users mark -- and surprisingly, it did so sometime last month, says Smedley.

Q&A: Co-Founder Taehoon Kim on Nurien's 3D Social Network

In the past ten months, Nurien has raised $25 million for its 3D, casual gaming-influenced virtual world. The world is already in open beta in Korea, where users have previously gone crazy over casual MMOs and games from Nexon as well as social networking from Cyworld. Nurien is hoping to capture the graduating users from Nexon and provide something new for everyone else. Once domestic users have had a chance to test out the product, Co-Foudner Taehoon Kim told us, the company will look at a worldwide launch for later this year.

Q&A: Steve Hoffman and Bryan Suchenski of RocketOn

RocketOn is an emerging virtual world that runs as a simple Firefox browser extension, creating a virtual space that is overlaid on your Internet's browser screen. While you browse, you can send your onscreen avatar hunting for hidden virtual goods or socialize with other RocketOn players. Steve Hoffman, CEO and Co-Founder of RocketOn, and Bryan Suchenski, QA Manager and Co-Designer, sat down to talk with Virtual Goods News about how RocketOn's unique architecture was letting them use virtual goods and virtual currency in unusual ways.

"We’ve built the architecture and now are deploying all the goods on different sites," says Hoffman. "We can overlay on sites without their permission. If you go to RocketOn right now, you can buy soda from a machine. If Coca Cola partnered with us, we could sell actual little Coke cans. If Nike partnered with us, we could sell Nike branded apparel and gear."

"We’ve built the architecture and now are deploying all the goods on different sites," says Hoffman. "We can overlay on sites without their permission. If you go to RocketOn right now, you can buy soda from a machine. If Coca Cola partnered with us, we could sell actual little Coke cans. If Nike partnered with us, we could sell Nike branded apparel and gear."

Q&A: Designing Virtual World Toys with Ginny McCormick, Techno Source

In October, Disney launched a line of toys called Clickables for its fairy-themed virtual world, Pixie Hollow.  The toys let users take elements of the virtual world experience back to the real world and vice versa. Instead of simply unlocking content online, each toy, whether a bracelet or a charm or jewelry box, lets users share virtual content with offline friends. Simply by touching bracelets together, two girls can become friends in Pixie Hollow. I've been a fan of the interaction for some time, and I recently spoke with Ginny McCormick, interactive director, Techno Source, who helped developed the technology and toys alongside Disney's virtual worlds team.

Q&A: Sulka Haro on Habbo's Dual Currency System

Last month Sulka Haro, Lead Concept Designer, Habbo, blogged that the virtual world would be testing out a new dual currency system. Users would still be able to purchase Credits and spend them on virtual goods, but now they could also earn Pixels through activities, memberships, and just time spent on the site, and use them to defray the cost of other purchase or unlock special features. Yesterday the company announced that it was rolling out the system worldwide from its UK test. We spoke to Haro about the decision.

Q&A: Paul Thind, Chief Business Officer, Outspark

We reported last month that Outspark had hired Paul Thind as its Chief Business Officer. Thind previously spent 3.5 years at Sulake, North America, working as general manager and helping orchestrate some of Habbo's content partnerships, celebrity promotions, and large ad sales initativies. Outspark formally announced Thind's new role today where he will  oversee the company's "growing game publishing business, its portal community initiative and help the company continue to expand and enhance its immersive online social community." We spoke with Thind yesterday about leaving Habbo and making the switch from virtual worlds to social games. 

Q&A: Rob Frasca, CEO, Viximo

I had a chance to catch up with Viximo CEO Rob Frasca last week at the Virtual Goods Summit. Viximo is a Cambridge-based start-up breaking into the virtual goods space with gifting partnerships for games, communities, Facebook apps, and the iPhone. It offers its own content and transaction system to partners on a revenue share basis. So far the company isn't involved in virtual worlds, but Frasca says that's on the roadmap.

"What we're trying to do is be a virtual goods or digital goods market maker, which really means you have to create supply, generate demand, and then do the transactions in between," explained Frasca. "On the supply side we have the creator community, this community of what we call 'Digital Da Vincis,' and we're actively recruiting Digital Da Vincis to come in and join our community, and then we give them the tool set to create our inventory of digital goods.The primary goods we're going after first are gifts, social networking gifts, online gifts, gifts for the iPhone, and those kinds of things. We want to build out as many topnotch creators as we can and really fill our inventory with great gifts."

Q&A: Multiverse Executive Producer Corey Bridges on Places, Buffy, Social Networks, and More

At the Virtual Worlds Expo earlier this month, Multiverse made a slew of announcements, ranging from a partnership to develop a Buffy the Vampire Slayer MMO with 20th Century Fox and a virtual Titanic experience with James Cameron to a whole new side of its virtual world, Places, and an integration with social networks.  I caught up with Co-Founder and Executive Producer Corey Bridges at the show to talk about the new announcements.

Q&A: Academy Award-winner Jon Landau on Multiverse, Film, and Virtual Worlds

Jon Landau, who won an Academy Award for his role as producer on Titanic, took the stage on Thursday at the Virtual Worlds Expo to talk Multiverse Executive Producer Corey Bridges about the evolution of virtual worlds and some of the ways they're enabling new production tools in film. I sat down afterward with Landau to talk a little more about the tools he's using and where he thinks virtual worlds are going. I also spoke with Bridges about the raft of big announcements Multiverse made, but that's a Q&A for a slightly later time.

Q&A: Sears CMO Richard Gerstein on Marketing Across the Metaverse

Last month Sears launched an ambitious back-to-school campaign across seven different youth-oriented virtual worlds and avatar sites. It's a new direction for a major brand. While some, like Scion, have run multiple campaigns in different virtual worlds, this is the first to aim for this wide of a reach as a part of a cohesive campaign. It's still early, but the kids are starting to head back to school, so we caught up with CMO Richard Gerstein for an email Q&A about the early results, why Sears took this approach, and what virtual worlds offer to the department store giant.