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Start-up aims to take video games to the next level
2006-09-25
Silicon Valley upstart Trion World Network Inc. wants to take the nearly $30 billion video game industry to the next level by combining the best of high-speed Internet with traditional gaming and media. Trion intends to take advantage of the growing number of broadband-connected homes and to deliver online games in "episodes" that change in real time as the game unfolds. Or as it might be pitched in Hollywood: Think MySpace.com meets "World of Warcraft" and interactive reality TV shows like "Survivor." "Games are well-positioned to move into an online world and to become a deep entertainment experience," Trion founder Lars Buttler, a former vice president at Electronic Arts Inc. (Nasdaq:ERTS), the world's biggest video game publisher, told Reuters. The company, based in Redwood City, California, has an undisclosed amount of funding from Doll Capital Management and Trinity Ventures and plans to have its new network up and running within 12 months. Trion will offer a new kind gaming experience to the tech-savvy consumers who flock to sites like MySpace and YouTube, said Buttler, who added that the company will get revenue from subscriptions, paid downloads and in-game advertising rather than from retail game sales. "We have to accept the fact that broadband is going to be the biggest entertainment platform of all time," Buttler said. Gus Tai, general partner at Trinity Ventures who handled his firm's investment in Trion early this year, said entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have keen and broad interest in delivering entertainment and video games via high-speed Internet connections. "When you have broadband to the home, you can deliver a form of interactive entertainment that is very different," he said
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