More money flowing into the virtual worlds industry: French firm Chapatiz has bagged €350,000 from various investors, which it plans to use to continue the development of its Chapatiz.com virtual world for pre-teens, and also to expand to other countries.
The company says it’s already signed up more than 770,000 French-speaking children for the web-based world, which launched in 2005 and combines games, user-generated content and social networking. It’s free to access too. The new investors include Newfund founder François Véron, business angels Dusan Stojanovic and Jean Bégo, and several unnamed IT experts.
Moderation is clearly a big thing for Chapatiz, as you’d expect from a world targeting such young users. The company records all conversations and IPs within the world, and has published a list of unacceptable behaviour for users that can lead to temporary or permanent bans:
- They disturb or threaten other members any which way.
- They attack human dignity.
- There is debauchery or sexual talk.
- There is abuse of credulity for personal benefit.
- There is intrusive publicity or propaganda.
- There is exchange or demand of personal information.
- There is illegal activity or encouragement of illegal activities.
A useful checklist for anyone running such a world.
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