Have joystick, will surf: gaming partnerships heighten on-line play

Discount Store News, May 5, 1997 by Robert Scally

Commerce and entertainment on line are spawning new enterprises that may change the way vide game software is sold and played.

One example of this trend is NetPlay Inc., a San Diego-based start-up company. NetPlay has partnered with computer game giant Broderbund to market the NetPlay Game Club, a new on-line game service.

Using Broderbund's marketing and merchandising muscle, NetPlay hopes to work its way into mass market retail stores this summer. Its $19.99 CD-ROM will allow consumers with a PC and an Internet account to have six months of unlimited access to NetPlay's multiplayer cyberspace game "community," said Leland Ancier, NetPlay's founder and ceo.

The games offered at NetPlay Game Club (www.netplay.com) hold back on the blood-and-guts of the average video game.

"We're trying to attract the mainstream computer user who isn't interested in violence," Ancier said.

Club members can play a number of easy-to-learn classic games such as poker and crazy 8s or several other games including a game-show style trivia game. Members compete for prizes, enter tournaments and arrange for private games with invited guests only.

Gamers, also knows as live, on-line "angels," work at PCs located in NetPlay's offices and observe what players are doing. Besides monitoring the games, angels stand ready to lend a hand or play a game with a member.

Direct interaction is one of the factors that will help set NetPlay apart from its competitors, Ancier said. An advanced on-line chat feature will enable players to easily start text conversations.

Club members will be strongly encouraged to submit photographs of themselves for display on line while they are playing, and to use real names, Ancier said

In multiple-player situations, players will be grouped by age. Ancier said he hopes to build a community around the games. That community will provide NetPlay with a valuable audience that can be sent highly targeted advertising.

The club has been in beta testing since January. In four months, NetPlay attracted about 5,000 regular players through a few low-profile Web links, Ancier said.

NetPlay's business is based upon a television network model, Ancier said. He hopes to attract sponsors for various games and other future programming that might be included in the service.

NetPlay isn't the first company to create on-line gaming environments.

Game publishers such as 7th Level, Hasbro Interactive and Disney Interactive are building on-line components into their games.

Disney recently purchased Starwave's Corp.'s family-oriented web programming and merged it with its Family.com operation.

Other on-line services such as Mpath and Engage are also building on-line game-playing services with multiple-player features.

What NetPlay is really after are mass-market gamers--the same folks who subscribe to America Online, Ancier said.

"AOL has eight million subscribers, and eventually they're going to have to figure out what to do with all of them," Ancier said. AOL has games but doesn't make them easy to find, he said.

Can a small player such as NetPlay use the mass market to capture enough players to be profitable and grow?

"Absolutely," said David Cole, president of DFC Intelligence, a market research firm that tracks the video game business.

"NetPlay is fairly far along with this. They're been working on it for two years and they have a strong partner," Cole said.

Broderbund is the publisher of best-selling titles such as "Myst" and the "Carmen Sandiego" series.

"NetPlay's game are fun and engaging and fit well with our education and productivity products," said Michael Murray, managing director of Broderbund's on-line ventures.

AOL and the other on-line services are vulnerable to competitors such as Netplay, but it will be a long time before retailers lose all software sales to the Web, Cole said.

"Mass retailers will be selling you the CD-ROM that you need (for on-line games)," Cole said.

Furthermore, Ancier said the mass market is the best way to win customers to his cyber arcade.

"I wouldn't want anyone to have to download our software from the Internet," he said. "It would take too long."