Trion World Network: New Online Game Startup Surfaces In The Shadow Of Electronic Arts
Monday, September 25, 2006
Lars Buttler likes to point out that his new online games startup, Trion World Network, is witihin sight of the
It's already pretty far along. Buttler started the company with Jon Van Caneghem, founder of New World Computing and creator of the Might and Magic series, in January of this year. The firm has 20 people dedicated to the creation of a next-generation online platform.
"With ubiquitous broadband, online means leisure," says Buttler, CEO of Trion. "People express themselves in social networks and experience interactive entertainment and games in massively connected worlds. We started Trion to leverage all the inherent capabilities of broadband, provide original entertainment, and define the future of media in the global broadband area."
But don't ask him what the company is going to do. He's not ready to say just yet. I tried that a few times and Buttler politely declined.
Buttler and Caneghem, Trion's chief creative officer, aren't up to something small. Before he was at EA, Buttler was vice president for leveraged buyouts at the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm that tried to buy Universal Studios. Caneghem founded New World Studios, created the Might and Magic series, and sold his company to 3DO in 1996. He stayed at 3DO as president and lead visionary through 2003. In 20 years at New World Computing, he oversaw the publishing of 250 games that generated $1 billion in sales. In 2004, he was inducted into the Computer Gaming World Hall of Fame.
"My first idea was the hire Jon," said Buttler. "We share a view of the broadband era. We have a single-minded focus on broadband and we assembled a team to make it happen."
Again, don't ask Buttler what "it" is. But it has something to do with games, broadband, self-expression, Youtube, traditional media storytelling, episodic content, and MySpace. Games, he says, should be "always on, always connected to the consumer."
Caneghem elaborates on this vagueness, noting that games have never been designed as quick-turnaround projects. He thinks that games can be built to be more dynamic, to take advantage of the changing world around us. He believes the development of a game can begin at its release, not a couple of years before that. The phrase that captures this paradigm, he says, is "What's On Tonight?"
More cryptically, Buttler says, "We'll be a publisher and developer and a platform. We'll invite big media companies to develop content for our platform." Buttler says the company is looking into business models such as subscriptions, micro-transactions, and dynamic advertising. Just to make it more mysterious, Buttler says, "Ours will be a different experience, a persistent world that is always there."
The company's development office is in
"It proves the case and you can go far beyond that," he says.
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