Filed under: Business models

There's a been talk going around among users that a Linden Dollar bonus made to users that sign up for Second Life premium accounts is not paid to users who are upgrading an account from basic to premium. That is, it was said that only users creating a new premium account got the bonus and users who upgraded did not, despite Linden Lab's advertising material apparently promoting it for both.

A number of you wrote in asking us about that yesterday, and we contacted Linden Lab for you to get an answer one way or another. That line of questioning bore some definitive fruit.

Looking for a way to stock up on some Runes of Magic diamonds, but a bit short on cash? Well, the folks at Frogster Interactive have taken a page from things like Facebook games, and are offering a method to trade a bit of your time for some diamonds.

Through their new partnership with Sponsorpay, Runes of Magic players are able to take surveys and check out products and score a certain amount of free diamonds per offer. All you have to do is to log in to the RoM site, go to the diamond purchase page, select your server, and then select the free diamonds option. From there, you'll be taken to a page that will offer several different surveys or trial offers you can check out. With that said, as with any 'lead generation for in game cash' scenario you run across on the Internet, always make sure you read the fine print. The last thing players will want is those free diamonds hitting them in the wallet later because they didn't.

In a move that will no doubt perplex, flummox and befuddle many media commentators and technology columnists who erroneously believed that Second Life was a Web 2.0 social networking tool, Linden Lab has acquired social networking site, Avatars United (and developers of same, Enemy Unknown AB). This also has the side-effect of shooting down any semblance of Wallace Linden's identity piece last week being an overture of a conversation, instead making it look like the usual introduction to a Linden Lab fait accompli.

We've written about Avatars United on a couple of previous occasions, but never really had much call to get involved ourselves. The social networking tool includes a large number of MMOGs and non-game virtual environments, being best known for it's strong application support of open-ended space-based MMOG, EVE Online.

Let's face it. In these harder economic times, there are a lot of people cutting back on subscriptions. Folks that may have carried multiple MMOs are now choosing more carefully. Those who probably wouldn't have taken a look at a free-to-play game before are now at least reading up on them in case anything they might like shows up. Companies like Turbine, EA/Mythic and others are starting to look towards models that turn the old "14-days to try it, then either buy it or sod off" on their ears.

Our question this morning is what game (or games) do you think need a F2P overhaul? Would you use something like what Turbine has done with Dungeons & Dragons Online, offering free play and an item mall that sells adventure packs? Do you think the Warhammer Online unlimited trial/velvet-rope model is better? Grab your morning caffeine and let your thoughts flow in the comments below!

We know Korean developer Blueside for Kingdom Under Fire, as well as the hush-hush project they've been working on for a while, an MMO known by the name of "Project T."

Given that Kingdom Under Fire is a sequel to the 2001 Xbox title Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders, it should come as no surprise that Blueside is taking a similar approach with the mysterious Project T. Not only will Project T be released for the PC, but we've also gotten word that an Xbox360 version is coming as well.

A recent Korean job listing specified that the company needs people with experience on commercial MMOs, and specifies that the MMO is in development for both platforms.

Details on Project T are still very scarce, and confirmation that Blueside is planning to join the emerging trend of console MMOs is the most we've heard for a while. We'll keep an eye out for more details!

It's an awkward time for Champions Online. After the last State of the Game post by Chronomancer, things were looking up. The latest patch was slated to fix Lemuria (colloquially known as Lagmuria, due to the extreme system hiccups), add more power to various power frameworks, nemesis changes, the addition of team looting, and changes to the crafting system. Furthermore, the same State of the Game post announced that Champions would be getting its first expansion -- Vibora Bay.

However, with the deployment of the "kitchen sink" patch, most gamers have experienced more lag in all zones, some characters are locked in Lemuria, unable to log in, and there are issues with the crafting systems. If all of that wasn't bad enough, Cryptic Daeke has confirmed that Vibora Bay will be a "paid expansion" which will add more content for levels 37 to 40 -- a move which has sent many members of the community into what can only be described as "a frothing rage."

Come February, Linden Lab is having yet another attempt at enforcing the existing rules for event posting in Second Life. In the past, the Lab's gone at the process in a rather determined fashion on a number of occasions, but its energy each time ran out after only a few weeks of vetting events listings.

One of the matters of concern would be how event rules are actually applied this time around. If we were to divide events listings into quality events and spammy junk, quite a large number of the quality events don't actually comply with the posting rules – usually due to the number of events being held, and limits on the number of listings (or of listing changes) that the events system will tolerate.

This week Linden Lab published a set of economic data for Q4 2009, and for 2009 as a whole. After going through the data in detail, and discovering at least one important typo and one important calculation error, it looked like we were going to have to recheck every figure before presenting them.

That's a lot of work, especially as the data published in the quarterly/annual reports doesn't follow the same definitions as the ongoing statistical feeds or is not represented in them.

So we thought, well sod that for a game of soldiers. Instead, let's talk about the report's claim that the Second Life economy has grown 65% in 2009 over 2008, and why that's just rubbish.

We might fight a lot of enemies in our MMOs, but a number of players will agree that there's one enemy that is bigger than anything else: the company that makes the game. Blizzard, Square-Enix, Funcom, Bioware -- according to this branch of the playerbase, they don't care at all about the people playing their game. All they're concerned about is making money. They just want to get your money by any means necessary.

However, the people who claim that say that like it's a bad thing.

Nobody ever smiles and says "boy, I'm sure glad Sony Online Entertainment is in this for the money." Oddly enough, when you start to think about it, the fact of the matter is that it's not only transparent that these companies are in it for the money, it's a good thing. We should be happy that most of these companies are there to get our money by any means necessary.

CrimeCraft may have launched with a bang, but that bang appeared to be less of a gunshot and more of a car backfiring. Vogster Entertainment's MMOFPS was met with somewhat mixed reviews, moved to a free-to-play model, and found itself banned in Australia. But the game persists, and executive producer Matt McEnerney recently sat down with Warcry to discuss issues ranging from the Australia ban to the game's focus.

In a rather refreshing moment, McEnerney flatly states that the game is not for everyone, going on to state that those players who fall under Bartle's classification of Explorer or Socializer will be less likely to enjoy the game. It's a positive mark of candor, and certainly helps strengthen McEnerney's points on what the gae is trying to do and what it's best at. The interview also covers the current endgame option, whiich focus heavily on PvP amidst the game's warring families of gangs.

On the Australia ban, the producer's statement is essentially one that the government can ban the game from shelves but not hard drives -- which strikes us as a little criminal, but when you're talking about a game called CrimeCraft, do you really expect much different? Those interested in the game should take a look at the full interview, which is a bit more honest in places than we've come to expect from the genre.

So, as you may recall last week Linden Lab responded about what appeared to be Second Life advertisements that capitalized on the recently-released James Cameron film, Avatar.

Linden Lab implied (though didn't actually state plainly) that the advertisements were not intended to cause confusion between Second Life and Avatar.

Since about Christmas (just after previews showing the blue-skinned Na'vi began to become available to the general public) IMVU started running some blue-skinned ads of its own.

It was when we saw the blue-avatared IMVU advertisement that sprung up during the same period that we inevitably started thinking about Sea Monkeys.

There's more similarities going on here than just the visible, so let's rummage around and see if we can't find one of the old advertisements in our files.

With only a month to go before the release of the newest EverQuest II expansion, Sentinel's Fate, many members of the international community were up in arms in the forums over the expansion's pre-order bonuses. Why? Because only the boxed editions of Sentinel's Fate were eligible for the exclusive one week headstart to the expansion.

In order to give retail distributors incentive to carry the boxed version of the game, Sony Online Entertainment made the decision to only provide the head-start access to those who picked up the physical box from retail distributors, while the digital download version of the game would not offer the seven day access and would be available for purchase only when the expansion was officially "live" on February 23rd. Problems began to arise when international community members noticed that they could either not import the game from the US, or importing would take too much time and cost them almost double of what the expansion was worth.

After contacting SOE for a statement on this situation after the many tips we've received from the EQII community, the company has revealed to us that there is now a plan in place for international community members to participate in the retail headstart via a digital download system. Follow after the break to view SOE's plan to get Sentinel's Fate into the hands of their international members.

Back in June of 2008, we first heard about a neat little idea from SyFy -- then the Sci-Fi channel -- involving a combination MMO and television show. The project is still going strong as a collaboration between SyFy and Trion World Network, and now has the intriguing working title of One Earth.

One Earth has since received financial backing from Peacock Equity, a global fund from NBC Universal and GE dedicated to investing in digital media companies (among other ventures).

New video -- featuring Lars Buttler, CEO of Trion and President of SyFy David Howe -- delves deeper into the project. "...we are making this game now with a lot of support from every side," Buttler says. "we can, in this unique setup, do things that other people would never even dare before: create a video game world, a television show, they're based on the same universe, they take place at the same location in the future. They not only promote each other, they literally depend on each other and co-evolve."

For the full story and video, take a look here.

The holidays are over -- everyone can breathe a collective sigh of relief now -- but there are some gifts that keep on giving. Charitable donations always go up during the holidays, and with the rise of microtransaction stores, games are better able to get in on the generosity. Wizard101 was one of the many offering an in-game carrot for donating to charity, the tiger-striped Meowmodon mount. Aside from having an adorable name, it inspired enough players to purchase it that raised $126,000 for charity.

The total amount received will be split evenly between Child's Play and the Austin Children's Shelter, to suppport both the worldwide community and the area surrounding the KingsIsle headquarters. The company seems quite pleased with the results, and it's a testament to both the community and the game that a free-to-play game could raise such a substantial sum for two excellent causes. The offiicial announcement can be found on the official Wizard101 site, to no great surprise. Congratulations to the players who took part, and we can only hope this effort will be repeated in the coming months -- free-to-play item malls donating to charity have certainly made an impact this holiday season, certain hiccups notwithstanding.