Massively Me, a stealth gaming company, has announced the upcoming launch of it’s MMOG for kids and young teenagers, Kiwi Heroes.
Scheduled for release later this year, Kiwi Heroes will be a Flash-based game that attempts to strike a balance between a virtual world and a traditional MMOG (like WOW). Massively Me claims that the intention behind Kiwi Heroes is to promote social awareness and responsibility to children by addressing environmental issues and global concerns in the game. It also plans on establishing the “Every Kid’s A Hero Foundation,” to support charitable global causes.
Kids’ virtual worlds and online games have a proven track record of major success. TechCrunch analyzed several of the most popular virtual worlds last August. Club Penguin sold to Disney for $350 million and Neopets sold to Viacom for $160 million. The space is potentially very profitable, with a lot of user attention ripe for the right kind of monetization.
With so many potential users and advertising attention, the space is heavily competitive with many competitors, and even some major media corporations. Mattel has their Barbie Girls site, Disney has Club Penguin, and Ganz has Webkinz. Webkinz is the current leader with almost 7 million monthly U.S. uniques, up 148% from last year (via Compete).
Another challenge that children’s online gaming networks run into is finding an effective way to advertise. Neopets used immersive advertising by selling advertising on various aspects of gameplay. For example, players could earn “Neopoints” by playing advergames and taking part in marketing surveys. Similar businesses have monetized through providing offline goods like toys, DVDs, video game partnerships, TV programs, and clothing.
Massively Me has been completely self-funded so far, and claims to be currently pursuing several partnerships and offline tie-ins. If these offline attempts prove successful, Kiwi Heroes may have what it takes to be a contender.
Has anyone taken a look at http://www.woldme.com they have a full 3D virtual world that is going live in a couple of months
Kiwi Hero’s
Hmm so what are the All Blacks or Peter Jackson going to be in this game?
And then there is http://www.stardoll.com with +18M members and financial backing from Sequoia and Index.
Massively Me claims that the intention behind Kiwi Heroes is to promote social awareness and responsibility to children by addressing environmental issues and global concerns in the game.
Kiwi Heroes will promote laziness in children. It kills their creativity in joining Kiwi Heroes since their purpose for them in joining is to explore (perhaps for curiosity), rather than for educational. Another useless/time-wasting application for the naives/suckers out there. Kids should better use their valuable time in joining educational discussion forums which there are many that are available on the net (high school science forums, maths forums, etc…). Kids will learn real knowledge rather than wasting their time in useless social networking sites.
EA has a new flash company for kids games company in LA. I interviewed there a couple months ago.
That should have read EA has a new company specializing in flash games for kids in LA. I interviewed there a couple months ago.
As a New Zealander I will look to register Maple Leaf Heroes or Moose Heroes. Good luck and all in promoting social awareness for Canadian children and all, but I question the appropriateness of borrowing our national bird – it’s a key national symbol of NZ, and a big part of our national identity – we call ourselves “Kiwis” – we name our businesses things like Kiwibank etc. I think the term All Blacks is trademarked. Sir Edmund Hillary, the dude who was first to climb Mt Everest, was a kiwi hero – he wasn’t Canadian. Good luck with the venture – unlike the kiwi, I hope this flys.
I believe advertisers have yet to understand the true power of in-game advetising.
Hands off our symbol! Call it DodoHeroes instead.
Actually, kiwi bird is flightless, almost blind and is lacking intelligence. Not much of a hero.
Beeh-beeh-baah-bah-baaaaaaaaah
Can this site PLEASE stop reporting on over-hyped sites that arent even in beta???
http://www.PLANETCAZMO.com has been live since Dec 07 in beta, has 1000’s of users and is growing everyday. Its in a partnership with AOL and has a lot more in the works. This site should cover virtual worlds with traction and real users – enough hype please!
Hi all, thanks for the feedback so far. My name is Mark Wadden and I’m one of the co-founders of Massively Me.
We’ve been getting a lot of questions as to why we chose a Kiwi, so I thought I’d set the record straight.
We chose the Kiwi as the main character because it is somewhat obscure to most kids in Canada (and many other countries) and education is as important to Kiwi Heroes as is its entertainment value.
We also chose the Kiwi because it is an endangered bird that can’t fly; this makes it appear as an unlikely candidate to be a hero. However, as kids play Kiwi Heroes, they will discover that their kiwis can be empowered (and super-powered!) to make a real difference. We hope to teach kids that they too can make a difference in the world and that big or small, true heroes are defined by their actions.
Having pride in your national symbol is a fantastic thing, and we are definitely aware of how important the Kiwi is to New Zealand and its culture. That’s why we’ll be working closely with different New Zealand based organizations to bring quality educational material to kids across the globe. And while New Zealand is certainly the undisputed home of the Kiwi, this planet is home to us all. We believe that teaching children to have a global awareness (instead of being solely concerned with their own back-yards) is incredibly important to foster an attitude that we’re all in this together.
As I’ve said before, fun and games are one thing, but the world could really use a few more heroes.
Thanks again for the feedback and keep those questions coming.
I don’t think that enticing children to play “advergames” is “social responsible”.
The reference to “advergames” was for Neopets. There is no advertising in Kiwi Heroes at all.
Hi,
I was surfing through the techcrunch site and came upon this page. While I have not seen the KiwiHeros game (although I did visit the site because of all the comments), I think I “get” what it is about. I’m a mum and work in the tech industry and I can tell you, my 4 year old girls play interactive games (although not skilled enough to play MMOG’s yet) and there is nothing wrong with that. They are learning a skill that’s different than their outdoor or imaginary play and it will help them since computers are required at schools. If there is a higher reason in that there is strong social and environmental reasons to play a game such as this-how can we complain? As parents we are striving to teach our kids about optimism, respect for the environment and looking out for others less fortunate, so having something interactive that assists us (without our nagging of “eat this-do know how many kids don’t have food in the world? comments) is great. Again, I haven’t even tried the game out, but if there is no advertising, it teaches my kids respect for their global world and uses a fun character (regardless of whatever silly comments were above), then I think someone has done a good job. Let’s see how it unfolds-perhaps without the self serving competitor comments.
A stealth gaming company? What is so stealth about being one of 20+ wannabes who are all in this ridiculous space.
All we need is to get our kids hooked to the virtual game worlds now so that the few hours of break they get from playing WII or PS is filled with more brain damaging activities.
By the way, are there any serious business models out there or are they all hoping for the same luck Club Penguin had? Can you even imagine ads targeted at kids? “Trade your piggy bank if you want to access the park scene”
There’s also this virtual world – http://www.binweevils.com.
It’s actually fully 3D with a camera so you can spin it around and get a 360 degree view of your avatar.
Nicole Whittle said…
I’m a mum and work in the tech industry and I can tell you, my 4 year old girls play interactive games (although not skilled enough to play MMOG’s yet) and there is nothing wrong with that.
Yes, it makes kids lazy. Their creativity is being killed. Kids with no creative ability will always rely on adults to guide them or show them things or do things on their behalf most of the time because they get used to be someone is always serving them. Such children tend not take personal responsibility.
Nicole Whittle said…
They are learning a skill that’s different than their outdoor or imaginary play and it will help them since computers are required at schools.
Anyone can learn a computer at any time and there has never been any evidence at all to show that kids who learn to use computers earlier are more successful than those who don’t.
Nicole Whittle said…
If there is a higher reason in that there is strong social and environmental reasons to play a game such as this-how can we complain?
The reason is simply that kids are wasting their useful time in something so useless. Outdoor activity is always encouraged and when they’re not doing that, then readings, numeracy games, science stories and many other activities should be encouraged. This stimulates their brain. Playing games doesn’t.
Nicole Whittle said…
As parents we are striving to teach our kids about optimism, respect for the environment and looking out for others less fortunate, so having something interactive that assists us (without our nagging of “eat this-do know how many kids don’t have food in the world? comments) is great.
This shows that you have no confidence in your ability to guide and teach your kids. Do you think that someone else (game vendor) knows better than you of how to raise or teach your kids? C’mon, stop being naive.
Nicole Whittle said…
it teaches my kids respect for their global world and uses a fun character (regardless of whatever silly comments were above), then I think someone has done a good job. Let’s see how it unfolds-perhaps without the self serving competitor comments.
No, it teaches them to be lazy which affects their creativity.
Look, you’re in IT as you said. Give your kids some math programs, science programs. There are even math games available out there with the aim of stimulating kids in their understanding of numeracy and such. These are useful activities, playing games and social networkings is useless and time-wasting.
I coached children of relatives and some children of family friends in the evening twice a week in maths. These kids are 7, 8 and 9. These kids know algebra the level of a 15 years old. They can plot linear graphs such as : y = 3*x – 2 , they can solve for solution of ‘x’ from the linear equation just quoted. Their parents bought copies of the student version of the popular Maple symbolic math software on my advise. The kids love exploring the Maple software for things I never taught them. They’re creating and they love it. These are the important things that kids should be doing and don’t allow them to participate in useless/time-wasting social networking sites or gaming sites.
You have stolen our “precious” kiwis.
NZ News Update: “Hobbits and elves seen heading towards Canada to retrieve national symbol and steal the Common Loon”.
Wow, there are a lot of haters on this thread. So a couple of guys decide to create a safe world for children to play on, and that’s a bad thing? Let’s recap quickly.
- The company is educating children on endangered species
- Kiwi Heroes will give money to local charities
- The game will teach kids the value of protecting our environment and the various endangered animals we share the planet with
- The game will provide a safe place for kids to play while on the computer
- There are no advergames
That doesn’t sound like a terrible place to me.
Falafulu Fisi, I have a question for you. Wouldn’t it be better to have your children acquainted with a computer in this manner, rather than with a game that’s selling them something, or even worse a game that has content in it that is inappropriate? You keep mentioning is that it will make the kids lazy and kill their creativity, but those comments assume that you are letting the computer function as a parent. You would have to agree that most parents will encourage a balance of indoor and outdoor activities for their children. You also say that we should give our kids math problems instead. You’re assuming that there won’t be any in the game.
I plan on having kids soon, and I would like them to learn about animals and the environment while having fun at the same time. If a game can help support what I will be teaching them myself, then this sounds like a game I would want them to play. Falafulu Fisi on the other hand will be teaching his 4 year old long division, and encouraging them to chat on science forums. That type of education takes time. Let kids be kids, and let them learn at a pace and manner that will make sense to them.
“The company is educating children on endangered species”
That’s what we have schools, libraries, and parents for. Research shows that staring at a screen with moving images does not provide the same type of brain stimulation that reading or interacting with a person does.
“Kiwi Heroes will give money to local charities”
Oh get real. I’ll take a portion of one of the non profit charitable organization’s exec salaries and feed millions of starving kids in Ethiopia.
“The game will teach kids the value of protecting our environment and the various endangered animals we share the planet with”
No it won’t. It will teach them how kill time when their parent’s are too busy to pay attention to them.
“The game will provide a safe place for kids to play while on the computer”
Social networks for kids are not safe. They have no secure way of verifying the age of the users and therefore are opening a door to pedophiles and other sickos.
“There are no advergames”
In version 1.0
The marketplace for this type of kids game is over saturated. Unless they offer some great innovation over Club Penguin or Webkinz World I cannot see how they could be successful.
Please?
Actually, the opposite is true. Research shows that learning and retention is best achieved through interaction (doing, not just reading). In such a game the child is reading, interacting, and doing so with NPCs (non-player characters) and real people.
Strong words about charity when you have no idea what amount will be donated or what the executives get paid.
There are tons of absoultly safe online environments for children, and they achive this in many and various ways. My son plays several, what are you basing your wild theories on?
Kiwi Heroes is stating that it is an MMOG for children online, this makes it unique and unlike Club Penguin or Webkinz as they are simply virtual worlds.