Best Of WorldsInMotion: From Audition to Papermint

Regularly we feature the top stories from the surging online/virtual world space from Gamasutra sister site WorldsInMotion.biz. Recent notables in the space include an Online World Atlas entry for dance battle MMO Audition, and coverage of the launch of innovative new social virtual world Papermint. Online World Atlas: Audition "Is Audition good? I think at one point it really was. By now it feels incredibly dated, and anyone who really wanted to offer a better dancing MMO—and when I say "wanted to offer" I really mean "believes in and wants to make" a better one—could easily blow it out of the water. But it's another example of how concentrating on one concept and making that interaction fun is a way to have a successful MMO." Interview: Paul Thind, CBO, Outspark "Outspark is perfectly positioned in the gaming space to become the first vertically integrated casual games platform. We are not only a publisher of games, but we also offer our audience, which happens to be predominantly North American, a playground for socializing, interacting and sharing." Interview: Simutronics' Harris On HeroEngine's Place In The Old Republic "We've known the people at Bioware Austin for many years, and they also had two employees at the time who were former employees of ours. As a result they understood the unique philosophy that informs how we developed our engines and how they facilitates online game development, so they were very enthusiastic when they heard that we had build a graphical MMO engine in the same style of engines we had built in year past. They actually started knocking on our door before we thought we were ready to enter the engine licensing business... you could say they kind of forced us into it." Street Fighter Characters Licensed For GoAnimate "GoAnimate, a "web 2.0" user-generated animation site, has announced a a licensing partnership with Capcom Entertainment allowing Street Fighter characters to be used on the site." Papermint Enters Open Beta "Papermint is a free-to-play, browser-based 3D MMO that combines casual gaming and social networking. Players create an avatar from 'paper cut-outs' and can then play mini-games, design objects and decorate their personal space, and get involved in family networks, roughly described as 'a web of fictional family relationships between players'—which can include the possibility of getting married and having children, which are in turn new players in the world. Topps To Create Free Realms Physical Trading Card Game "Sony Online Entertainment has announced a long-term licensing agreement to allow the Topps Company to create a physical trading card game based on their upcoming free-to-play MMO Free Realms. '" Interested? Read daily news on the online/virtual worlds space at the WorldsInMotion.biz weblog, with the next Worlds In Motion Summit planned for GDC 2009 in March 2009.