Best Of WorldsInMotion: From Branded Lively Spaces To Kingdom Of Loathing

Every week, we feature the top stories from the surging online/virtual world space from Gamasutra sister site WorldsInMotion.biz. This week's notable items in the space include branded spaces under development for Google's new Lively service, IMVU pointing out Lively's familiar features, and our in-depth tour of browser-based RPG Kingdom of Loathing. Millions Of Us, Rivers Run Red Developing Branded Spaces For Lively "Millions of Us has partnered with the National Geographic Channel to deliver branded content for the network's L.A. Hard Hats series. As part of its agreement, Millions of Us will set up a virtual building in Lively's National Geographic center. The skyscraper will be under intense construction and will evolve with the TV series' episodes. Visitors can explore the building, its features, and the complex work required to build the tower." IMVU On Lively: Virtual World Space Is Big Enough For Both Platforms To Succeed "[IMVU CEO Cary Rosenzwieg] noted that the similarities between IMVU and Lively are predictable considering that Lively's head of 3D, Mel Guymon, was one of IMVU's five co-founders. According to Rosenzwieg, Google offered to buy IMVU in October 2005, right about when development on Lively started. All of the co-founders rejected the offer except for Guymon, who later left the company to work at Google." Worlds In Motion's Online World Atlas: Kingdom of Loathing "Kingdom of Loathing probably isn't the kind of game you'd plan to look at if you were trying to work out how to build a community in your MMO, but it only take a short time playing to realize such an assumption is dead wrong. Kingdom of Loathing might be more of a "game" than an "MMO" but as either, it easily outclasses many of the competition." The9, T3 Entertainment Establish Joint Venture "Shanghai-based online game operator The9 Limited has announced an agreement with Korean online game developer T3 Entertainment (Audition series) to establish a joint venture, further strengthening their game development and publishing partnerships." Habbo, Conduit Release Community Toolbar "Built on the Conduit Website Syndication Platform, the toolbar enables Habbo users to see their friends, messages, and community news from anywhere online. The customizable tool also accomomodates a variety of applications for accessing chat, forums, feeds, and My Habbo homepages." Q&A: Eric Hayashi And Steve Hoffman Talk Rocketon "Rocketon is a new online avatar service currently in closed alpha, which intends to allow users the ability to treat the web as "a parallel virtual world" with each site an interactive destination on which users can meet, socialize and play." Worlds Developing DMC World With Run-D.M.C. Artist "Worlds CEO Thom Kidrin hopes to open up 3D virtual communities to a new market of rap fans with the partnership. He believes that drawing and maintaining an online community won't be tricky at all with D.M.C.'s 'street cred' and creative vision for developing the 3D world." Interested parties can read daily news on the online/virtual worlds space at the WorldsInMotion.biz weblog, with a second Worlds In Motion Summit planned for September's Austin GDC event.