Multiverse Network

The Multiverse Network, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Online Games
Founded	July 2004
Headquarters	Mountain View, California, USA
Key people	Bill Turpin, Co-founder & CEO Rafhael Cedeno, Co-founder & CTO Corey Bridges, Co-founder, Executive Producer and Marketing Director Robin McCollum, Co-founder & Principal Engineer, Client Technology
Website	www.multiverse.net

The Multiverse Network, Inc. was an American startup company creating a network and platform for Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and 3D virtual worlds. Multiverse's stated aim was to lower the barrier of entry for development teams by providing a low-cost software platform for online game and virtual world development.

In 2009, the company extended its development platform to support Flash and built a series of real-time multiplayer games to demo the technology. As part of the worldwide marketing effort behind James Cameron's AVATAR film, Multiverse built two Flash-based games, one with McDonald's and another with Coca-Cola Zero. Both games allow players to explore Pandora, where much of the film takes place.

In late 2011, Multiverse closed from lack of profits, releasing the source code to a non-profit group.

Technology

Multiverse provided technology known as MMOG middleware (Multiverse used the term platform). It included the client software Multiverse World Browser (for Microsoft Windows only), a server suite, development tools, sample assets, documentation, and a developer community. The goal was to provide consumers/users with a single client program that let them visit all of the virtual worlds built on the Multiverse Platform. From the consumer point of view, this enabled a de facto network of virtual worlds.

Like RealmForge, the Multiverse World Browser was written in C#, and based on the Axiom Engine. The Multiverse server suite was written in Java and used a publish/subscribe messaging system to provide reliability and scalability. The server also provided a plug-in API. The Windows-based tools used the COLLADA data interchange format, to enable artists to import 3D assets from popular tools such as Maya, 3D Studio Max, and Google SketchUp.

Business model

Multiverse provided its technology platform cost-free for development and deployment. Income came through revenue-sharing; Multiverse took a share of any payments made by consumers/users to the world developer. If a developer provided a world for free (or free for a period of time), Multiverse did not charge anything. When a developer started charging consumers/users, Multiverse took a share (10 percent), and also handled the financial transaction processing. Development teams hosted their own servers and retained 100 percent of their world's IP.

James Cameron joined the company's board of advisors, and Red Herring magazine selected it as one of the "Red Herring 100" privately held companies that play a leading role in innovating the technology business.

In December, 2006, Multiverse announced that it had optioned the rights to develop an MMOG based on Firefly, the science fiction television series [1]. In 2008, a Buffy and Titanic MMO were announced [2]. None of them ever came to fruition.

References

• VentureBeat (December 17, 2009) - Multiverse's Remix Makes it Easy to Create AVATAR Spinoff Games
• GAMASUTRA (September 10, 2009) - Multiverse Bridges Talks 'New Frontier'
• The Wall Street Journal (April 3, 2008) - Virtual World Gets Another Life
• The Economist (March 19, 2008) - Break down these walls
• Technology Review (October 29, 2007) - Moving Freely between Virtual Worlds
• The Financial Times (October 26, 2007) - Real life intrudes on the virtual world
• The Financial Times (October 15, 2007) - Will the web go 3D?
• CNET News.com (October 9, 2007) - Google tools to power virtual worlds
• Technology Review (July/August 2007) - Second Earth
• The Wall Street Journal (June 18, 2007) - What's New: Fueling Fantasies
• The Economist (June 7, 2007) - Online gaming's Netscape moment
• Red Herring (May 31, 2007) - Multiverse Snares $4M
• BusinessWeek (April 16, 2007) - The Coming Virtual Web
• Wired (December 7, 2006) - Firefly Reborn as Online Universe
• TCSDaily (October 2006) - The Next Big Thing
• BusinessWeek (February 13, 2006) - James Cameron's Game Theory
• BusinessWeek (February 13, 2006) - Syncing Hollywood and Gamers
• Gamasutra (December 6, 2005) - Multiverse Launches Multiverse Platform for MMOG Development
• Red Herring (December 6, 2005) - Multiverse seeks to help independent game developers
• Kent, Steven (September 23, 2003). "Alternate Reality: The history of massively multiplayer online games". GameSpy.

External links

• Wikipedia: Virtual World
• The Multiverse Network, Inc.
• Firefly MMO News - News about Multiverse's Firefly MMO