Child's play? (page 1 of 3)

Norrath has a population of about 12,000 people - although up to 60,000 can be there at any given time. The nominal hourly wage is set at about US~$3.42 an hour. Each day the population grows. People come from all around the world. The Norrath-project is called EverQuest.

WELCOME TO A NEW TWEEN REALITY

Like the tidy town in The Truman Show, Norrath is not real. A group of software engineers in San Diego began building a vast, virtual world with the vision of creating a place people would prefer to live in. Inspired by the popular role play game Dungeons and Dragons, their plan was to build an environment large enough to accommodate nearly 500,000 visitors a year. They named their world Norrath and floated it off the California coast.

But why bother? Norrath could be perceived as a silly game similar to the science fiction worlds created in movies like The Matrix and Total Recall. Perhaps not. Professor Edward Castronova from the Economics Department at the University of California, Fullerton estimates that revenue from online gaming alone will grow to over US~$1.5 billion in 2004.

In short, EverQuest represents an entire world with its own diverse species, economic systems, alliances and politics. It's possible to choose from a variety of races and classes, customize the character, and begin the quest in any number of cities or villages on a number of continents.

Shortly after the launch of EverQuest its players began trading the game's internal currency, the platinum piece or PP as they call it, for real dollars on Internet auction sites. The problem got so bad that Sony requested these sites stop trading. However, as in the real world, the trading simply relocated. Today there is still an official exchange rate between EverQuest's platinum piece and the US dollar, and the deals are steadily growing.

A MARKETER'S DREAM?

It's important that marketers pay attention to the virtual-world phenomenon, because virtual worlds may soon become one of the most important forums for human interaction, alongside the telephone and e-mail. It's also possible that virtual worlds will introduce many changes in the way organizations communicate in the real world Virtual worlds are flourishing and their growth seems likely to continue. They already represent an area of Internet commerce that is booming while other sectors are faltering. The attraction of virtual worlds lies in their ability to replicate the physical and economic world of earth - with slight but significant changes in the rules. These changes, such as granting people the freedom customize their appearance and take on whatever skills they desire, are sufficient to generate a society that is hugely attractive to thousands of people. About 22 per cent of Norrath's citizens express the desire to spend all their time there. More and more are signing up.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF VIRTUEL BRANDING

Already now 24 per cent of all tweens globally use the Internet as their primary tool to communicate with their friends - ahead of face-to-face communication and the telephone. And 21 per cent state that the Net is the easiest way to find new friends. But the most surprising statistic to emerge in our survey showed that it was the Chinese tweens (44 per cent) who considered the Internet the easiest way to make new friends, compared to 11 per cent of tweens in the United States. So it's not unusual for tweens to have more than 40 Net friends in their address book.

THREE GUIDELINES FOR TARGETING TWEENS

1.