- WoW-NoW -

Peter C. Beller and Evan Hessel report that a crop of videogames that let people play online together are getting ready to launch.

 LOS ANGELES -- In the 1950s, people bowled together. Now, we play videogames together. As people spend more time online on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, gaming giants and fledgling developers are rushing to shift their focus from single players to crowds. So far, the genre's undisputed champion is "World of Warcraft," devised by Activision Blizzard ( ATVI - news - people ). It boasts 11.5 million subscribers worldwide.

But hold tight, gamers--many more games that will let you do everything from wield a light saber to ran a car are on the way.
Joining the biggest games publishers are a host of new companies hoping to break into the MMO space with fresh ideas. Some of these games, like the cheeky battle game "League of Legends," will require a more casual level of involvement than the several hours a week that Warcraft members average. "Battlefield Heroes" from reigning giant Electronic Arts ( ERTS - news - people ), will be free to play but offer virtual materiel and upgraded equipment for real-world money. Disney ( DIS - news - people ) is targeting younger gamers by turning its most popular movies into safe online environments that are full of whimsical things for kids to do.

Of course, hardcore gamers still worship awesome graphics, epic storylines and the satisfaction of cutting your opponent down with a glowing lightsaber. Among the blockbusters coming out soon is a heavily anticipated Star Wars game, titles based on superheroes from DC and Marvel comics, and a secret project from private-equity-backed Zenimax. Competition is heating up, though. Investors poured $700 million into this genre in the last two years. Electronic Arts, Sony Online Entertainment and Disney are all releasing online worlds in the next two years.

Recently it's been announced that China has banned the selling of virtual goods for real money, putting hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity at risk, Thomas Claburn from InformationWeek's wrote that According to China's Ministries of Culture and Commerce, "The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services." The Chinese government estimates that trade in virtual currency exceeded several billion yuan last year. One billion yuan is currently about $146 million.

The ruling could have a massive affect on the virtual currency trading industry, which in the context of online role-playing games like World of Warcraft is often called gold farming. The government justified the ban on virtual currency trading as a way to combat gambling and other illegal online activities.

However, it's not certain exactly how the new rule will apply to online role playing games. For example, a report in China Daily claims that in-game gear is not considered virtual currency, so selling items that have actual value inside games may be allowed to continue.

According to a 2008 survey conducted by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester, the trading of virtual currency for real cash employs hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and generates between $200 million and $1 billion annually. Heeks estimates that between 80% and 85% of gold farmers are based in China.
Read the whole story at InformationWeek.

 You've most likely spotted some WoW bottles of Mountain Dew at a local stores checkout lane, but believe you me its nothing like in this video. This is a part of Mountain Dews "Level Up or Die" ad, and it was a collaberation between Tarsem Singh (a legendary director) and Zoic Creative Director/VFX Supervisor Les Ekker.

Great news for World of Warcraft players: Blizzard announced today through official World of Warcraft forums, its intention to implement a faction-switching service down the line. In other words, this means that a player who is currently maintaining an Alliance characters will be able to switch over to a Horde character (and vice-versa) of roughly the same stature. They are still in the planning stages, as it'll obviously going to take a while to nail down exactly how all the in-game variables, faction-specific reputations, mounts, titles, and in-game items among them -- will be handled.

"We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward." from the official World of Warcraft forums

Start blogging by creating a new post. You can edit or delete me by clicking under the comments. You can also customize your sidebar by dragging in elements from the top bar.