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MTV’s virtual hillscape

January 18th, 2007

Lest anyone doubt that major media companies are serious about the virtual space, I have to point out that MTV’s announcement of ‘Virtual Hills’ means that they will shortly have more MMO titles launched than Cryptic or Blizzard (well, unless you count CoV as a full game). Disney’s at three, which puts it ahead of much of the pack and tied with Turbine. EA has launched four and SOE five. In NC’s case, it depends whether you count the Korean ones and the “casual” games…

More importantly, this is MTV’s second one in six months. At this rate, you do the math.

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3 Responses to “MTV’s virtual hillscape”

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    1. magicback (frank) said on

      In time, all teen TV shows will have an MMO attachment.

      Once a critical mass has been reached (say 5-10 virtual environments), they will start connecting them in the same way DC and Marvel linked universes in the comic book world.

      Interesting developments….MTV is really moving into this space.

    2. Mike Rozak said on

      MTV’s sounds like a chat room. A few years ago the norm was a text chat-room built into a web page, then 2D like habbo-hotel, and now 3D.

      The others are more signfiicant. How many diku-mmorpgs can the world support?

    3. Lost said on

      magicback said:

      Once a critical mass has been reached (say 5-10 virtual environments), they will start connecting them in the same way DC and Marvel linked universes in the comic book world.

      It appears that they are already plan on linking them together.

      … And in an interesting twist, fans of another hit MTV show and its virtual counterpart can teleport right in.

      One thing that’s noteworthy about the launch of Virtual Hills is that users can teleport between it and Virtual Laguna Beach.

      Given that users will be able to switch between the two with the same character, I’m not sure if Virtual Hills should be counted as a separate game. At least to me, it sounds more like an expansion in sheep’s clothing.

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