Virtual Worlds

Tiny Planets: Where kids can safely explore space (podcast)

Tiny Planets is a new online destination for children built around the space exploration theme of the eponymous animated TV series.

The Web site, aimed at children ages 6 to 12, features games, videos, social networking, a virtual world, and the ability to purchase virtual goods with real money or points earned from participation.

To prevent cyberbullying and other dangers, kids must select from prewritten phrases to interact. The site doesn't allow free-form text entry. To avoid potentially inappropriate screen names, children select theirs from options provided at sign-up. The site does not collect any personal information from children, … Read more

Heavy layoffs hit Second Life parent company

Linden Lab, the San Francisco-based company that manufactures virtual world Second Life, announced on Wednesday that it's going through a "strategic restructuring" that will see about 30 percent of its employees laid off. The company is combining its engineering and product divisions into a single unit, among a few other structural modifications like an overhaul of Linden Lab's customer service team.

"We've emerged from a two-year investment period during which, among other things, we've spent a considerable amount of time improving reliability and the overall user experience," said CEO Mark Kingdon, who … Read more

Augmented reality edges closer to mainstream

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--To an unenlightened observer, Ron Haidenger's demonstration of playing a video game by tilting a piece of cardboard back and forth looks more than a little bit nutty.

But to anyone wearing his company's computer-enhanced glasses, which seamlessly delete the image of the cardboard and replace it with a metal ball spinning through a gleaming three-dimensional maze, it's a near-hypnotic experience.

"The response no matter where we show it is phenomenal," says Haidenger, manager of Vuzix's consumer division. "There's a huge hunger in the market for AR hardware."

AR is, of course, short for "augmented reality." The concept isn't entirely new: it's crept into public consciousness in the last few years in the form of those virtual yellow line markers in broadcasts of football games and heads-up displays in some cars.

But a new crop of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists has more ambitious plans. They gathered here this week in the Santa Clara Convention Center for a conference that's not called one--the official title is the first Augmented Reality Event--to come up with concepts that will convince all but the most technophobic that they should be looking at the world through a new set of spectacles. … Read more

Virtual goods revenue continues to climb

New survey data from research firm Magid and Associates and in-game commerce provider PlaySpan shows that virtual goods sales continue to grow, with games leading the way to monetization.

Virtual goods remain a promising alternative to advertising, and even to subscription revenue for many games and social networks. As mobile games continue to play an important role in gaming revenue, I would expect to see the sales of virtual goods continue to skew toward mobile devices as users seek instant gratification and bite-sized chunks of high-quality gameplay.

The follow-up to last year's survey reveals that buying habits aren't … Read more

The man behind World of Warcraft magazine (Q&A)

More than five years after its launch, World of Warcraft is still as popular as ever. These days it boasts more than 11.5 million users, many of whom are waiting eagerly for the game's third full expansion, Cataclysm, which is expected later this year.

It's not clear yet if the new version will match the impressive sales of its predecessor, Wrath of the Lich King, which sold 4 million copies in one month, but there's sure to be a rush of excitement when it does launch.

One thing that's clear, though, is that WoW fans … Read more

Cory Doctorow, geek culture icon (Q&A)

"For the Win," the latest young-adult novel by science-fiction author, journalist, and copyright activist Cory Doctorow, hit the shelves Tuesday. The book is about the drama surrounding the unionization of virtual world "gold farmers," and is based on his hit short story, "Anda's Game."

Doctorow, who has held policy positions at both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Creative Commons, is also an editor of the influential technology culture blog Boing Boing. Add his spot on the Wired magazine masthead and there are probably few, if any, people with more geek culture cred.

From his home in England, the Canadian-born Doctorow, a Hugo Award nominee, is one of the most prolific writers going, constantly turning out blog posts, magazine articles, novels, and everything in between. And he travels more in a year than most people will in a lifetime.

His Boing Boing posts can cover issues from the fact that there are now at least 13 open-source hardware companies making $1 million or more annually, to anything related to Net neutrality, to the current battle over the U.S. Federal Communications Committee's decision to give Hollywood permission to activate the so-called "Selective Output Control" technologies in consumers' set-top boxes.

Doctorow recently sat down for a "45 Minutes on IM" interview and discussed a range of topics such as a new-style approach to print-on-demand to gold farming, NAFTA, and quite a bit more.

Q: Welcome to the third installment of "45 Minutes on IM." I wanted to start by saying I love how your official bio has a one-sentence version, a one-paragraph version, and a much longer one. How did you decide to break it out like that? Doctorow: It was based on the requests I got from press and such--my publicist, magazines, Web sites, etc.--they'd all request one of the three. I found myself trimming the long bio to fit the other two lengths over and over again, so I just made a template that included all three. I try to make a template out of any text I type more than once. Though sometimes it takes me three or four reps before I go, 'Duh, make a template stupid!' I have a grand plan to put together a wiki-editable FAQ of all the questions I get asked in e-mail someday.

In the long version of your bio, you talk about the "audacious experiment in print-on-demand publishing" for your next book. What does that mean?… Read more

Virtual goods expected to hit 20 percent of game revenue

A new study by virtual goods provider Viximo suggests that by 2011, sales of virtual goods will amount to 20 percent of U.S. game software revenues.

According to the report (registration required), this forecast is predicated on the expectation that virtual goods will grow faster than the overall gaming software industry. In 2009, U.S. retail sales of console, portable, and PC game software generated revenues of $10.5 billion, an 11 percent decline over the $11.7 billion generated in 2008. In the meantime, virtual goods revenues are expected to hit roughly $1.6 billion in 2010 and … Read more

Start-up hopes to bridge real, virtual worlds

LONDON--Micazook, a start-up trying to bring some real-world flavor to virtual worlds on the Net, plans to publicly launch an online realm it calls Project X for now.

"A beta will be out in the next few weeks," Michael Fotoohi, managing director and one of the prime programmers behind the project, said at the Image Sensors Europe conference here. By then, he said, Project X should have a real name instead of its present placeholder.

Project X attempts to overlay the free-wheeling style of Second Life over a model of the real world. The company has obtained high-resolution … Read more

Social gamers accept marketing for virtual currency

Alternative payment methods enable developers to monetize significantly larger portions of their user base, according to a study released Wednesday.

Fifty-three percent of social gamers surveyed for the study, overseen by ComScore and Offerpal Media, said they are enthusiastic about alternative, or indirect, payment methods as a way to earn virtual currency for free, rather than having to pay for it directly.

These alternative forms of payment take many forms, including filling out a survey, watching a video, shopping at online retailers, or signing up for a subscription in order to get points for the games they play on leading … Read more