Three Canadian Firms Form Virtual Universe Consortium

MMO community management services provider Alchemic Dream announced a partnership with localization/quality assurance firms Laboratoires Bug-Tracker and Monde Media Solutions to form the Virtual Universe Consortium, an association sharing resources and knowledge for serving online game developers and publishers. The consortium looks to provide a one-stop-shop for services like "cultural adaption, localization and translation, improved community management, increased customer retention through outstanding customer support, and role-playing events and community entertainment." The three Canadian companies also hope to allow design teams to concentrate on their development cycle while the consortium handles matters such as "monetization implantation and analysis, deep game-play and focus group analysis, robust load & stress testing, functionality and compatibility testing, and automation testing." "We are re-inventing the B2B service model by supporting and representing multicultural e-communities for the publishers and developers," says Alchemic Dream president and CEO Aurelien Merville. His firm, which counts MMO publishers like Cryptic Studios and Codemasters Online among its clients, says that online game companies will benefit from the consortium's multicultural localization and quality management setup.