Virtual Worlds News

Sulake Looking To Take Bobba Multi-Platform

Earlier this month Sulake soft-launched Bobba, a new virtual world for mobile phones. The world expands on the lessons learned from teen-centric Habbo and an earlier R&D project for mobiles, Mini Friday, in an effort to reach an older audience. Bobba started off on Nokia devices, but is expected to hit the iPhone this summer.  According to Sampo Karjalainen, Sulake co-founder and CCO, speaking to Gamasutra, the company is planning on bringing the world to PC users and, possibly, consoles. 

“Of course I can say that we’re not planning to limit this only to mobile phones. In the future it will also be for the PC platform market," Karjalainen told Gamasutra.

Sulake Aiming To Bring Bobba To The iPhone In Q2, Aiming Older

Yesterday we noted the soft launch of Bobba  a new, 3D virtual world, for mobile users.  Currently the services is only available on the Nokia S60, but Juhani Lassila, Director, PR & Communications, Sulake, tells us that this version is largely for testing, and that Bobba will hopefully be appearing on iPhone and iPod touches by Q2 of 2009. 

"Bobba is currently in its early stages and Sulake is continually developing it further. The now published beta version is mainly meant for direct end user testing and feedback," Lassila said via email.

Sulake Bringing Bobba To Mobiles

Earlier today Sulake soft launched what could potentially be the Habbo-killer for teen virtual worlds. Bobba is a new, 3D virtual world, now in beta, for mobile users.  Currently Bobba is only available on the Nokia S60, but the website lists iPhone and iPod touch versions as "coming soon." 

Sparkle Looking To Connect Virtual Worlds Through iPhone

Yesterday we reported on the launch of Sparkle IM, a new iPhone app from Genkii that provides a way for Second Life and OpenSim users to stay connected when not logged in. A lightweight IM client ties the worlds together, but that's only the beginning. The company is already engaged in talks with Sony Computer Entertainment America about integrating with the PlayStation 3's Home,  says Genkii COO Adam Johnson, and fully open to talking with as many other virtual world or MMORPGs as possible.

"We will also be adding support for Jabber/XMPP based services, as well as allowing users to connect to all of these accounts concurrently," Johnson explained via email.  "The goal of Sparkle IM is to allow users of any of these services to stay connected no matter where they are.  We also are looking for ways to allow for cross communication between these services, so a Home user could chat with a [Second Life] user for example."

Genkii Launches iPhone Support For Second Life Chat, New World On The Way

Tokyo-based Genkii is a company focused, in broad terms, on new media and storytelling. Its first products were interactive comic books for the iPhone based on Japanese manga. Its founders, though, have a fairly extensive history in virtual worlds, one that's coming to bear in new products announced today. The first is Sparkle IM, a new app available for $4.99 for the iPhone that brings instant messaging, regional chatting, teleportation requests, and friending from Second Life and OpenSim grids to the iPhone. 

That's an interesting new development, but it's also one that others have pursued before. Coming down the pipeline, though, is the first 3D virtual world designed for the iPhone, Sparkle 3D.

MoiPal to Expand with Branded Goods, Mobile Payments in 2009

MoiPal bills itself as a mobile-oriented virtual world, and understanding this is key to understanding the company's shape and future direction. MoiPal intends to grow first by attracting young mobile-oriented users by marketing through shared interests, like promotions incorporating virtual goods sponsored by musical acts, and through making sure that users can pay for microtransactions from their handsets. MoiPal's stated goal for 2009 is to grow its userbase from 100,000 users to 1 million.

"The main differentiator for Moipal from other virtual worlds is that the avatar is doing stuff for you when you’re not there. That’s how it works on a mobile phone, otherwise it would use a lot of bandwidth expense for moving your avatar to different locations," says Joakim Achren, founder and CEO of MoiPal's parent company, Ironstar Helsinki. "Your Pal avatar is more like a virtual agent you give commands to.  It’s why the game is 2D, and why you don’t actually walk around the world. The avatar is your agent and you give it instructions, then come back and go, 'Ah-ha, so this is what happened.'"

MoiPal bills itself as a mobile-oriented virtual world, and understanding this is key to understanding the company's shape and future direction. MoiPal intends to grow first by attracting young mobile-oriented users by marketing through shared interests, like promotions incorporating virtual goods sponsored by musical acts, and through making sure that users can pay for microtransactions from their handsets. MoiPal's stated goal for 2009 is to grow its userbase from 100,000 users to 1 million.

"The main differentiator for Moipal from other virtual worlds is that the avatar is doing stuff for you when you’re not there. That’s how it works on a mobile phone, otherwise it would use a lot of bandwidth expense for moving your avatar to different locations," says Joakim Achren, founder and CEO of MoiPal's parent company, Ironstar Helsinki. "Your Pal avatar is more like a virtual agent you give commands to.  It’s why the game is 2D, and why you don’t actually walk around the world. The avatar is your agent and you give it instructions, then come back and go, 'Ah-ha, so this is what happened.'"

Meez CEO John Cahill: Everyone Needs A Mobile Strategy

Yesterday Meez announced that it had acquired Pulse Entertainment, a mobile avatar and messaging service, and brought it in to extend the Meez brand and services to the mobile world. With a teen demographic using its avatars, branching out into handsets seems ideal.

"We acquired Pulse Entertainment to be a mobile distribution for Meez Avatars. Our intent is to develop Meez assets for the mobile environment and Pulse's services," said CEO John Cahill. "Our audience is a natural fit for mobile, and most of our audience is already mobile enabled. Even the parts that don't have credit cards have mobiles. There's huge opportunity for mobile monetization."

Quick Stat: Sulake's Mobile Mini Friday to hit 1M

Mini Friday, the mobile virtual world from Sulake, is about to hit 1 million  users, reports VentureBeat. The world was at 110,000 registered users in October 2007 when we first heard of it. At that time, it was regarded as just an experiment, but it's since grown steadily, reaching 300,000 registered users in February 2008 and 500,000 accounts in May. Interestingly, it's growing particularly well in Brunei and Indonesia. Changes are on the way too: Sulake is prepping to take Mini Friday out of beta soon and will expand it to run on phones other than the Nokia S60 series, including the iPhone. With Sulake staffing for a new 3D property as well, it looks like the Finnish company will soon have a wide portfolio of virtual worlds. [via VentureBeat]

Icarus Ports Platform to iPhone

Icarus Studios announced today that it had ported its virtual world and MMOG platform to the iPhone. The company will be showing off a prototype this week of a 360-degree tour of a sample 3D virtual world with navigation handled by the iPhone's accelerometer. The official launch of the client will come in Q1 2009. I'm excited to take a look at the prototype to see how the company is handling the platform as a development tool for everything from AAA MMOGs to Web-based virtual event tools to serious games to mobile worlds. The biggest question for me is whether the different interfaces will work together, as Multiverse is doing with its Web-based 2D client and downloadable world browser.

“We are committed to porting our platform to established and emerging devices. The iPhone offers a tremendous opportunity to extend Virtual Worlds and MMOGs to mobile devices in a visually rich and intuitive device,” CEO James Hettinger said in a statement.

Video: Samsung's Mobile Immersive Virtual Outreach Navigator

The SISA Computer Science Lab at Samsung posted a concept video last week of their Mobile Immersive Virtual Outreach Navigator (miVON), a mobile interface for 3D virtual environments. The first part, while pretty impressive, looks like standard navigation using panning and tilting, but the final bit shows the user moving his hand behind the phone to affect the environment with hand gestures. We've talked before with Lab VP Victoria Coleman abous Samsung's interest in taking virtual worlds to consumer electronics. It looks like that's coming to fruition. Video below.