Accel Partners, the venture capital firm funding the current social networking phenomenon Facebook, is to invest an undisclosed amount in German online gaming company Gameforge, producer of ‘freemium’ MMOs such as OGame, Gladiatus and Dark Pirates.
That’s correct – ‘freemium’ MMOs – which basically refers to the business model where the basic game is free but users pay micro-stransactions to upgrade and personalise their characters. It is also perhaps the most ugly neologism in the games industry since ‘edutainment’. It's also not dissimilar to getting your first hit for free... a business model beloved of many Bolivian entrepreneurs.
Whatever, Accel wants to capitalise on "very high growth" in the online gaming sector and Gameforge’s registered user base of 40 million clearly seems ripe for the picking.
Gameforge co-founder Klass Kersting said that the market for MMOs is shifting away from young, male students and towards the mainstream, "partly because of the success of World of Warcraft."
"Social interaction is the game - we just put together the framework. There are no computer characters, just people communicating and creating their own game, so the whole game evolves through that interaction," Kersting added.
Eh? Social interaction is a game is it? Nice one. Comments to the Forum please.
The fact that Gameforge’s games are played via a web browser also reduces the technological barriers to entry for non-traditional and non-hardcore MMO players. Whether or not it reduces the quality of the gaming experience is another matter entirely.
Gameforge is set to release a new Korean game this autumn called Nostale, featuring cute, cartoony characters and targeted at female gamers aged 12 to 40 years old.
source: Media Guardian
That’s correct – ‘freemium’ MMOs – which basically refers to the business model where the basic game is free but users pay micro-stransactions to upgrade and personalise their characters. It is also perhaps the most ugly neologism in the games industry since ‘edutainment’. It's also not dissimilar to getting your first hit for free... a business model beloved of many Bolivian entrepreneurs.
Whatever, Accel wants to capitalise on "very high growth" in the online gaming sector and Gameforge’s registered user base of 40 million clearly seems ripe for the picking.
Gameforge co-founder Klass Kersting said that the market for MMOs is shifting away from young, male students and towards the mainstream, "partly because of the success of World of Warcraft."
"Social interaction is the game - we just put together the framework. There are no computer characters, just people communicating and creating their own game, so the whole game evolves through that interaction," Kersting added.
Eh? Social interaction is a game is it? Nice one. Comments to the Forum please.
The fact that Gameforge’s games are played via a web browser also reduces the technological barriers to entry for non-traditional and non-hardcore MMO players. Whether or not it reduces the quality of the gaming experience is another matter entirely.
Gameforge is set to release a new Korean game this autumn called Nostale, featuring cute, cartoony characters and targeted at female gamers aged 12 to 40 years old.
source: Media Guardian
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