The Virtual Gold Rush!

[Steve Cropper]

As more and more people switch off their TVs and migrate to Virtual Worlds, a growing number of companies are setting up Virtual Shop online. And it’s not just for grown-ups. Increasingly, kids are the target market – a very lucrative target market.
All parents know it. The big spenders in our house are not Mum and Dad – it’s the kids! And marketers know it very well too. That’s why companies like Lego, Viacom, Disney and Nickelodeon are investing big time into marketing to the ‘Tweenies’ (not quite teenagers, no longer kids). They’ve already exhausted TV and video, merchandise, video games and action figures. The new battleground is Virtual Worlds.

Spend any time at all in places like Second Life, Entropia of Kaneva and you get this overwhelming sense that you are playing with photonic Ken and Barbie dolls. At the very least, your avatar is like an idealistic self-image in ‘doll form’. But who among us did not build virtual worlds in our imagination, assisted only by little lumps of colourful squares of plastic with knobs on top?

We’re talking Lego here! It was a feature of everyone’s bedroom and the source of much aggravation for parents who would step barefoot of the sharp little bastard pieces in the dark. Unbelievable where those little Lego bits end up.

Danish Lego has build miniature towns, has marketed a never-ending stream of build-it-yourself toys – everything from houses to space stations. And who can forget those peculiar little squared-off Lego people that we just accepted at being somehow life-life. It’s a million miles from Virtual Worlds, right? Wrong! Lego is poised to take its next evolutionary step by exploring into the digital world with “Lego Universe”, its new MMORG – an internet-based computer game with multiple users.

The new game will be launched next year aimed primarily at Lego fans between the ages of 8 to 12, who will be able to build virtual Lego societies with fairy castles, cabins and bridges.

“This is a way for children to interact online. They will be able to create something that they dream about. As the interest for both children's games and MMORG is increasing, Lego Universe is a natural step to take,” says Mark William Hansen, head of business development at Lego Universe.

According to Hansen this is a development of the physical Lego. He does not expect the traditional way of playing with Lego to disappear, just to develop with a further dimension.

“Our biggest challenge is to give children a positive user experience. Furthermore, we have to persuade the parents, who pay for the game that Lego Universe does not put their children in contact with any negative experiences,” says Mark William Hansen.

Lego is trying out its Universe ideas on 29 people made up of children and their parents, who get to test the latest ideas each week and give their feedback on the game experience and what they consider looks good, and not so good. Lego has a further 50 'partners' which have given feedback on what should, and should not, be included in the game.

As with traditional Lego, the game consists of building various things. Players can created their own personal Lego avatar and interact with other Lego figures in the game.

A particularly interesting feature of the Lego offering, which is singularly absent from other Virtual Worlds, is the ability to turn your virtual creations into reality. Lego plans to introduce a unique feature allowing users to basically 'print out' the structures they build online and arrange for Lego to mail them a bag with the Lego pieces so you can build your Virtual World masterpiece in the real world in the flesh (well, in the plastic anyway).

“I have been working with this since 1999, so this is also my dream being realised at the same time,” says Mark William Hansen.

Development of Lego Universe is still underway and the virtual version of Lego is not scheduled to launch until the end of 2009. However, this lumpy Danish virtual world is only one of a string of Lego products about to launch. In June Lego Indiana Jones will be released and in September, the world meets Lego Batman.

Nor is Lego Universe the first computer game that Lego has produced. Many parents will recognise Lego games such as Lego Star Wars and the very popular ‘Bionicle’.

There’s GOLD in them thar kids! Across the Atlantic in North America, it’s like the 1850s all over again. The race to corner the virtual kids market is hotting up. Tween-centric marketing companies like TV network Nickelodeon are joining in the stampede to get into the metaverse. The company is developing a virtual world modeled in its own image, involving games, avatars and a strong social-networking component, based on its flagship product “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

Market watchers are also anxiously awaiting an announcement about the all-new Monkey World, a social-networking and massive multiplayer game based on an original concept and not tied to any of its existing franchises.

This is not the first foray into the metaverse by ‘Nick’. The network is believed to be planning a steep increase in the interactivity on its Neopets site through a new virtual world called ‘World of Neopia’, and will add a paid tier to ‘Nicktropolis’, the overarching virtual world that is divided into sections based on Nick television shows and other properties. SpongeBob, Monkey World and Neopia also will have paid tiers when they launch next year.

Nicktropolis averages about 1.5 million visitors per month and executives believe that the paid tier will preserve that traffic by charging only for additional features like personalisation. Pricing details for the new tier remain under wraps but it is believed that pay tiers could be a key part of its revenue strategy. Moreover, Nick hopes to use these worlds not just as a marketing platform but as a separate business, generating revenue from subscriptions as well as in-world advertising.

Nick is in a do-or-die race with yet another key player in this category, arch-rival Disney, which through acquisition Club Penguin and assets like Toontown Online also targets youngsters in virtual worlds. Penguin charges for subscriptions as well.

Neopets, which Viacom acquired several years ago, has been one of the Web’s biggest success stories with the Tween market, boasting 45 million registered users.

Another Viacom division, Paramount Digital Entertainment (PDE), also is expanding its presence in virtual worlds, announcing deals to bring its VooZoo application — which are short clips from its vast film library — to MTV’s own vMTV and Makena Technologies’ There.com.

There.com and vMTV members will now be able to send each other three- to five-second video clips called “voohoos” from films including “The Godfather,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Footloose.”

Each clip will cost about $1. There will be an icon on each clip that will allow users to click through to a site to actually buy the DVD of the film.

Paramount Digital Entertainment also plans to launch VooZoo Mobile, bringing voohoos to cell phones.