Disney Offers Pirates-Based MMO to Casual Gamers

Disney is demonstrating its new Pirates of the Caribbean Online game, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMO) aimed at casual gamers, for Mac and PC at CES. The game is built within the world of the popular film franchise of the same name, and utilizes the same engine powering ToonTown, Disney's online world for children.

In Pirates, players not surprisingly take on the role of a pirate, and interact with the characters from the movie. Your goal as a player is to advance in level, increase your weapon skills, and rise in notoriety. You increase your skills with hand-to-hand combat (think sabres), learning and using Voodoo, and performing quests. The game also utilizes pirate ships, which can be crewed by your friends, and hunt down other player-controlled ships and corrupt Navy ships.

The game environment currently encompasses much of the Caribbean Sea, with real-world islands that have been made around the movies' themes. Players can interact with NPCs, get quests, form in-game guilds, gamble by playing poker and blackjack with in-game money, and it's even possible to cheat -- and to get caught cheating (beware having your Ace of Hearts be the second one in play).

While much of this sounds like any other MMO, Disney wanted to make sure Pirates was as accessible as possible. To do this, they took some of the simulation-like elements found in hard(er)-core MMOs out of the game. For instance, when you die, you get taken to prison, where you can simply kick your way out (as in the movie). No having to get your body back, and you can just get your sunken ship repaired, even though it was sunk by your opponent.

In addition, characters are not tied to specific servers, and can hop back and forth from server to server to run with friends as needed. The game also allows players to instantly travel to each other once they have learned how to teleport via a Voodoo quest, taking out any tedium associated with long travel-times in-game.

We asked the developers on-hand at CES demonstrating the game why the emphasis on casual gamers, and they pragmatically said, "Because we're Disney." In addition, with the broad appeal of the movie franchise, the company felt that a casual environment would better match the movies' fan base.

Disney has also lowered the barrier to entry with the game by making it downloadable-only. There is no retail box to buy, and thus zero up-front cost to try the game, and users can play the game as long as they want for free. Rather than limiting the trial account by time, you simply can't progress past a certain point without a subscription.

Speaking of subscriptions, Disney is also making Pirates a bit less expensive than other MMOs like World of Warcraft. The first month is US$4.95, and subsequent months are priced at $9.95. The company is also selling subscription cards for those (casual gamers) who might not feel comfortable putting their credit cards online.

The game launched for Mac and Windows in October of 2007, and Disney plans on periodic content expansions that will be included in the subscription cost of the game. The Mac Observer will be reviewing the game in the coming weeks.

WorldWinner Delivers Cash Competitions to iWin.com

WorldWinner today announced an exclusive deal with iWin, Inc. that calls for WorldWinner to manage the Tournament Games component of iWin.com. WorldWinner is a subsidiary of FUN Technologies Inc. and the leading provider of online game competitions for cash and prizes. iWin is a leading developer and publisher of casual games.

As part of the agreement, WorldWinner has developed a co-branded site, available via hyperlink from the Tournament Games section of iWin's Web site. All of WorldWinner's popular games are available as cash tournaments via the co-branded site, which offers users all of the functionality, look and feel of WorldWinner's innovative site experience. iWin players can now compete against millions of players comprising the WorldWinner network, including those from WorldWinner's partner sites, AOL Games, MSN Games, GSN.com and Pogo.com.

"Partnering with iWin is yet another step in our strategy of identifying and partnering with the world's most popular games and lifestyle sites to substantially increase our reach," said Peter Blacklow, president of WorldWinner. "Providing WorldWinner cash competitions on iWin will allow hundreds of thousands of iWin players to discover a new way to experience their favorite casual games."

"WorldWinner has a reputation for offering superior tournament games and we're pleased to deliver that experience to iWin players," said CJ Wolf, CEO of iWin. "iWin players can choose from hundreds of popular casual games available for free or download, and now they can test their skill level in dozens of games by competing for cash and prizes."

Chinese internet portal leads USD11m funding in US games firm, Outspark

US-based casual online multiplayer games company Outspark is receiving USD11m in Series B funding, led by Chinese internet portal firm Tencent Holdings. Previous investors Altos Ventures and DCM also participated. The funding will be used to help Outspark convert Asian online multiplayer games for access by US customers, with Tencent providing consultative and technical support at the Asian end of the process. The company says it will also use the investment to enhance existing titles such as Fiesta and Secret of the Solstice as well as building up its repertoire of new titles through co-operation with international games developers and marketers.

Online Publisher Geosign Splits Up; Investor Getting Cash Back: Report

Here’s something you don’t see very often: a VC investor getting some cash back after a deal gone sour. In March, we reported on the $160 million funding at Ontario, Canada-based online publisher Geosign. A report from TheStreet.com explains that things haven’t gone so well. Soon after the deal, reports claimed that the company laid off a big chunk of its 230 person workforce and recently the company split into two. Several blogs, see here and here, have been talking about the story for awhile. The split hasn’t been officially announced, which is obviously odd, though TheStreet (NSDQ: TSCM) claims confirmation of it. It appears the company had a Google (NSDQ: GOOG) arbitrage strategy that got hurt when the search engine tweaked its algorithm in an unfavorable manner. Not surprisingly, the company didn’t describe its strategy this way.

The split up has created two companies: eMedia Interactive, which is run by founder Tim Nye, owns the domain names. The advertising business has gone to Moxy Media, which is owned by American Capital—with the deal, the company is getting a “substantial” chunk of its cash back. Moxy Media is now focusing on the lead gen space.

What’s not clear is how much of this crack up was due to something unique at Geosign or if there’s a broader warning for the other well-capitalized domain media plays.

Global media acquisition deals worth USD110bn in 2007

There were 838 media M&A deals across the world in 2007, which, in total, were worth USD110bn, according to the Jordan, Edmiston Group.

The research firm estimates that the number of deals increased 32% on 2006, and that the total amount involved in the transactions grew 79% on the year before. In the first half of the year , transactions worth USD75bn in total were announced. The research firm says there were fewer large deals in the second half of the year, due to the crisis in the credit markets. The online media market accounted for USD43bn worth of deals done in 2007.

There were 555 M&A deals involving online media or marketing companies during the year, with nearly all of the internet giants doing substantial deals. AOL, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft all bought ad networks or ad delivery firms during the last year.

Microsoft bought aQuantive for USD5.7bn, while Google announced its acquisition of DoubleClick for USD3.1bn. AOL and Yahoo! did smaller deals with ad networks: AOL bought Tacoda for USD275m, and the US search giant acquired Blue Lithium for USD300m.