multiverse

Making movie games more faithful than ever

Thanks to a new technology that allowed people to drive a rover across the world of Pandora from the smash hit film "Avatar," we might soon see a wide range of games or other projects that use the exact same 3D models as the films they're based on.

In December, McDonald's launched a game called PandoraRovr, in which anyone could explore James Cameron's fantastical moon. While an otherwise normal Flash-based promotion put together on behalf of one of the film's corporate partners, what made the game unusual is that the imagery in it was … Read more

Enabling interaction between 2D and 3D games

Developers of 3D virtual worlds and multiplayer games may soon have access to tools that would allow them to build connected, promotional 2D, Flash versions of the same games.

These new tools are at the heart of Battle, a simple Flash game being released Thursday by the Multiverse Network, a virtual worlds middleware company.

A simple Flash game that runs on Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, and Kongregate, Battle is really the showpiece behind new Multiverse technology that could, for the first time, make it possible for developers using its platform to build full-scale downloadable, virtual worlds or online games to create … Read more

Multiverse touts extensible virtual-world effort

The Multiverse Network, a developer of virtual world platform software, announced Wednesday that it was unveiling what it calls Places, two related social elements that tie Multiverse users together.

Essentially connective tissue for users of the Multiverse platform, Places has two separate components.

The first is a social networks application that automatically connects people using Multiverse virtual worlds together with others who are also friends in social networks like Facebook.

The second part of Places is a new virtual world centered around a digital representation of Manhattan's Times Square. Now anyone who installs Multiverse's World Browser--the basic Multiverse … Read more

Multiverse shows off its virtual Times Square

I spent part of Friday afternoon in New York's Times Square, but something wasn't quite right.

On the one hand, things looked very realistic, with the many digital video screens blaring high-fidelity but inane content out at me. On the other, there was only one person in evidence.

So, OK, this wasn't really Times Square. Rather, it was a new technology demo from Multiverse Network, a leading virtual-world platform developer.

In general, Multiverse just makes its platform available to any development team that wants to use it to create a new virtual world. But in this case, … Read more

The future is here: Google Earth meets virtual worlds

When Google first announced in 2006 that it had purchased @Last Software, and its Sketchup 3D modeling tool, there were few people more excited than Jerry Paffendorf.

Paffendorf was at that time the futurist-in-residence at The Electric Sheep Co., as well as one of the people behind the Accelerating Studies Foundation's Metaverse Roadmap project.

And he saw, even early last year, that folding Sketchup into Google could mean magic for virtual world developers, since it meant there was a high probability of a 3D, social virtual environment built around Google Earth.

As a futurist, Paffendorf was spot on: Virtual … Read more

Huge amounts of venture capital rushing to virtual world companies

For the last couple of weeks, I've been researching the fact that a lot of venture capital has been flowing into companies building virtual worlds or the technologies behind them.

On just a quick survey of things I'd seen recently, I found several examples of significant investments by either VCs or angels: CBS and Gladwyne Partners putting $7 million into The Electric Sheep Company; Charles River Ventures putting $2 million into Areae and $5.5 million in Conduit; Gladwyne's investment into Anshe Chung Studios; Sterling Stamos Capital Management's $4 million into Multiverse; and others.

Well, just … Read more

Multiverse to launch version 1.0 of its virtual world platform

For people wanting to design their own 3D virtual world, or online game, doing so just got a little bit closer to reality.

That's because the Multiverse Network has announced version 1.0 of its development platform, a system that allows anyone to create a fully functional massively multiplayer online game based on a common set of tools.

Until now, the platform had been in beta, but over the last year or so, more than 11,000 teams of designers have begun using it.

Multiverse's model provides the platform free of charge to anyone who wants it. The … Read more

Virtual worlds at UTR: social networks, or experiments?

Wrapping up the group presentations at Under the Radar's Entertainment & Media conference is the virtual worlds group. Only two of these companies (Doppleganger and Kaneva) offer what most would consider "virtual worlds" or a replacement for real life interaction with others. The other two consist of user avatars, and a video gaming platform.

Doppleganger is a 3-D world similar to Second Life. It survives through a mix of micropayments, and partnerships with various companies who want branded areas and appearances for celebrities, movies, and music. We checked it out a few weeks ago and came away … Read more