Multiverse Network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Multiverse Network, Inc.
Type Private
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
Industry Online Games
Website www.multiverse.net

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

Contents

[edit] Technology

Multiverse provides technology known as MMOG middleware (Multiverse uses the term platform). It includes the Multiverse Client (for Microsoft Windows only at this point), a server suite, development tools, sample assets, documentation, and a developer community. The goal is to provide consumers/users with a single client program that lets them visit all of the virtual worlds built on the Multiverse Platform. From the consumer point of view, this enables a de facto network of virtual worlds.

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

[edit] Business model

Multiverse provides its technology platform cost-free for development and deployment. Income comes through revenue-sharing; Multiverse takes a share of any payments made by consumers/users to the world developer. If a developer provides a world for free (or free for a period of time), Multiverse does not charge anything. When a developer starts charging consumers/users, Multiverse takes a share (10 percent), and also handles the financial transaction processing. Development teams host their own servers and retain 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].

[edit] Competitors

Most of the competition differs in one way or another from Multiverse's technology and approach, but these are the other companies that compete in the MMOG Middleware space:

[edit] References

[edit] External links