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Empire of Sports Goes Giant for Greater China

Empire of Sports, the sports-based MMORPG, is being spearheaded into China by Giant Interactive Group.

Developed in Switzerland, Empire of Sports is a virtual sports world. In it players assume the role of a single character throughout the game. They are able to compete in virtual international events as part of a team and currently they can play basketball and tennis, go skiing and participate in  a series of fitness and training games.

Wei Liu, Giant’s President believes that, “With the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games nearing, interest in sports-related games is poised to increase.”

Giant has signed an exclusive license that expires in September 2011.

Social game mechanics and alternate reality gaming

Anyone interested in the social aspects of game mechanics would do well to read this excellent piece on ZT Online, Giant Interactive’s flagship MMO.

This game has taken China by storm with huge user growth and real revenue generation. Thanks to Jeremy Liew for bringing it to my attention.

You might also want to take a read through Giant’s prospectus – the pic above is an extract from it. A key take away for me is this line:

We believe that our success is largely attributable to our ability to internally develop, operate and market a high quality MMO game tailored to China’s core game player audience.

While ZT Online may have a psychological and economic effect on its players, it is also fascinating to consider the effect of alternate reality game arena – where immersive games are played out in part online and in part in the real world.

Wired has a fun piece on some of the more well known arg protagonists.

At what point do these worlds cross over? At what point would a gamer be able to open a treasure box in game and win a real life luxury item – a Ferrari logo’d box that delivers a real  life 612 P4/5 to the player’s front door?

Game developers should start to consider such mechanisms for synchronicity – such actions would go a long way to making players feel less used by the ‘system’ as Lu Yang eventually felt in the ZT Online article.