What to do after trousering $160 million when your first virtual world is bought by Viacom? If you're Neopets founders Adam Powell and Donna Williams, you turn your attention to the pure MMO space, albeit with a twist. The pair have started a new firm, Meteor Games, which is working on an innovative new project.
It doesn’t have a name yet, but in an interview with Wired, they’re adamant that it’s not taking on World of Warcraft. Instead, it’s designed to be a more casual dip-in-dip-out MMO, with elements of social networking and casual gaming thrown into the mix.
It sounds intriguing, particularly the mention of the way people might play simple Flash games (chess, Snake) inside the MMO, connecting out to players on pure casual games websites. I love the idea of playing Snake and if you win having the Snake jump out into the MMO and start helping you out, too.
The game will be subscription-based, albeit cheaper than WoW with an eye to attracting tween gamers, and there’ll be microtransactions for in-game items to bring in more revenues. However, the latter will be about customisation - clothing and pets - rather than giving gameplay advantages.
Another interesting aspect - mobile functionality appears to be high on Powell and Williams’ agenda too, although it won’t be there on day one. It’s clearly easier to have a mobile element when it’s in your thinking from the start of a new MMO, rather than trying to add it into one that’s well established.
We’ll have to wait until early 2009 to see the fruits of Meteor Games’ work, however.
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