Company
The Directors of Auran have announced the formation of N3VRF4IL Publishing, and will be scouring E3 to secure titles to provide marketing and distribution for. Two Auran games to be published through N3VRF4IL will be Trainz Railroad Simulator and Hive...
?N3VRF4IL will be releasing original titles aimed at audiences of 100,000-1,000,000 players, which is just below the threshold to gain the attention of the major publishers,? added Graham Edelsten, N3VRF41L Director of Global Publishing. ?We will offer users thriving online communities built around their game of choice. In addition to titles from publishers such as Jowood, Paradox and Monte Cristo, we have initially licensed two key titles from Auran Games to fulfill this aim: Trainz Railroad Simulator and Hive.?
Hive, planned for 2007, is described as "an online socialization environment that allows users to occupy a 3D avatar and interact with other users online. Participants will be able to host parties in their own self styled virtual apartment, chat, flirt, listen to music and buy the both virtual and real products." Read more at Gamasutra.
I've always been interested in online socialization environments, such as "There" and "Second Life". If Auran can do a decent job of this, and provide the friend/social networking service ideas from places like Myspace, I'm sure they'll be on to a winner. Sadly, "There" seems to have been rather neglected over the years and I think the users have left in droves. It doesn't get maintained that much and pretty much has been the same program for years with hardly any new additions or ideas. I really think they had the potential to do much more, beyond what Second Life are doing, but it seems the company behind "There" is focussing on other things related to the military. Second Life looks like an eye sore of a program. To use Myspace as an example again, if you let the users create, most of them will put up horrible, horrible junk. ;)
The founder of "There" (who has since left the company) said something on the lines that the key to profitting from virtual envronment/avatars etc like "There" isn't to just provide and sell virtual items, but to let the users create them and sell or auction them themselves in the program, while you, the company, charge a small fee for the service. So you have a lot more people creating content, and a market in the game.
Anyway, I'll definately be keeping a keen eye on Hive :)
Read about this on Gamasutra this morning, sounds interesting and I'll have to have a look into further information on this.
I think it sounds like a great idea, providing a publishing house for non-blockbuster games and games and/or genres that appeal to a more niche market. I with them the best of luck in this endeavor and look forward to seeing what games come out of it.
Though I'm afraid I cant quite accept the name, at least not the spelling of it anyway :?
Hideous name. Maybe they found out that Wii was already taken?
Quite a few local companies have been wanting to make the jump at one stage or another into the publishing game. IR Gurus and Microforte come to mind.
I have to agree the name is horrid..
Images of a mod team full of 15 year old kids remaking a furry version of half life 2 flashed before my eyes when I first read the name... right before they were poked out by the ultra-l33t spelling.
I hope they come through with some stellar titles..