With a team of Netscape veterans at the helm, Multiverse Network Inc. is hoping their Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) platform will help game makers and entrepreneurs stake their claim to a multibillion-dollar market.
Thanks in large part to the wild commercial success of games such as "World of Warcraft" and "Guild Wars," it's not hard to imagine why so many are interested in developing Massively Multiplayer Online games of their own.
That's easier said than done however, as the prevailing wisdom is that in order to be competitive in this game space, a developer needs to employ a team of no fewer than 100 employees and have access to roughly $40 million in funding.
This means that for the vast majority, building an MMO game is an unobtainable dream.
Multiverse co-founder, executive producer and marketing director Corey Bridges explained that his company is looking to change this dynamic by freely offering all the tools a developer would need in order to begin building a 3-D virtual world of their own.
He went on that instead of charging for the use of the Multiverse platform up front, the company relies on a 10 percent revenue share that is only applied once the developer begins to charge their users.
Another benefit is that developers keep the full intellectual property rights to their games under the Multiverse model.
In addition to its revenue share agreement, Bridges also said that the company offers a more traditional licensing program as well as a license for use with company Intranets.
Naturally, many would assume the only way a company could offer so much for free would be by giving away an inferior product. This could not be further from the truth as not only is each server able to handle up to 2,000 concurrent logins, but also the Software Development Kit (SDK) takes advantage of other technologies such as free voiceover IP (VoIP) and PowerPoint (PPT) integration as well as the ability to embed web content within the virtual world.
Looking ahead, Bridges stated that he believes his company is in a good position as it is able to offer a platform robust enough to deliver much more than just MMO games.
He added that virtual worlds are a new medium and that he is already seeing businesses adopt 3-D worlds for use in their applications.
One such company is Accelerate Technology, which is using the Multiverse platform in its new-hire training program.
Dubbed NECO, or New Employee Company Orientation, Accelerate's program can be customized to resemble any corporate campus and be used to help new employee's familiarize themselves with the company, as well as get a kickstart on filing out HR paperwork before their first day on the job.
Bridges also said he could see their technology being used as a collaboration space as well as a place for sales representatives to rehearse before going out in the field.
However, as he concedes, virtual worlds are still in their infancy, so the true potential for this new medium has not yet been realized.
Nonetheless, the company has been successful thus far. It currently has around 18,000 teams working on projects for their platform and is set to make a few major announcements later this week during the Virtual Worlds Conference in New York.
Press ESC | Close [X]
