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Ankh

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Posted: Wed, 13th Dec 2006 10:27 Post subject: Red 5 Talks MMOs, $18.5M Investment

Quote:

Red 5, a young indie studio formed by key World of Warcraft dev team members, has raised $18.5 million in VC funding. Next-Gen spoke with CEO Mark Kern about the deal and Red 5’s vision of the MMO.
When World of Warcraft team lead Kern, art director William Petras, Blizzard Korea founder Taewon Yun and other talented game developers gathered to found Red 5 in September 2005, interest was certainly piqued. After all, Red 5 is home to some of the guys that worked on blockbusters like World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Warcraft III and Diablo II. You familiar?

So now Red 5 appears to be the most recent indie to benefit from a good chunk of VC funding. Kern said that the money is not actually for title development, but to build Red 5’s platform. “We’re not really a PC company or a PlayStation or 360 company,” he said. “We’re really about building an MMO as a platform. Because you’ve got essentially what’s a supercomputer on the backend, the question for us as game makers is what to do with that. We’ve barely scratched the surface.”

He added that the investors, Benchmark Capital and Sierra Ventures, have relevant experience in the tech area. Benchmark has invested in companies including JAMDAT, Linden Lab (online game Second Life) and eBay, while Sierra invests across a wide range of sectors.

"“Making an MMO is about 10 times harder than making a boxed game"
“Sierra’s got the operational experience in network and database companies, and Benchmark has the experience in consumer services from the Web perspective, which I think is going to have a lot of analogies in the MMO space in the coming years,” Kern explained.

He elaborated, “Our goal is to continue to build our team, and this funding allows us to do that while building that technology base that can be used across multiple games, too. …It’s very hard for indies in a non-online setting to be sustainable as a business because of the inherent problems with the box business model. … Once you talk about online games and a revenue stream that lasts several years, that makes the dream possible.”

Still mum on first game

Red 5 is currently working on an MMO that it’s keeping under tight wraps. The game, which has been in development since the company went operational in January, is set to be distributed by Korean online game company Webzen.

Kern couldn’t go into specifics, but said, “We’re really happy with the way things are shaping up with the server, and we licensed the Offset Engine, which we’re highly customizing for our needs.”

The new game’s focus will be global from the get-go. “I think you have to be [globally focused]. These games are so complicated and expensive to make that you need to be successful globally to achieve critical mass,” Kern said.

The WoW benchmark

As Red 5 was founded by key members of the WoW team, one might wonder if this new company thinks about matching WoW’s seemingly insurmountable success. “We’re not trying to go head-to-head with World of Warcraft,” Kern said. “We’re trying to expand the genre into other areas and other possibilities. Will that result in commercial success the size of WoW? That’s really hard to say. That’d be wonderful if it did, but matching WoW dollar-for-dollar is not the focus here. Creating new experience and entertainment for the gamer is the focus.”

He added, “We want to take it past the fantasy-based RPG genre. I think World of Warcraft and Blizzard have shown that you can appeal not just to the niche gamer, but to the entire spectrum of gamers out there and show them why it’s cool to be in this huge, persistent world, and the value you get for your subscription dollar. … That’s where we’re headed.”

A huge learning curve

Perhaps the obvious edge that played a large role in helping Red 5 land the new $18.5 million investment is experience. Kern said that the investment wasn’t made in the company per se, but in the people that run the firm and their track records. But experience has more than just monetary benefits.

“You know, Blizzard had never done an MMO prior to World of Warcraft, and it was an immense learning experience for everyone involved,” Kern said. “Making an MMO is about 10 times harder than making a boxed game, and I think that companies that are trying to just get into this or look into it are in for a huge learning curve. So one of the benefits that we enjoy is we’ve got that learning curve under our belts.”

Source:
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4379&Itemid=2

Dunno how fun reading this is, but I thought I might share it still (it's from the 13th)

shitloads of new stuff in my pc. Cant keep track of it all.

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