New startup Ohai has been getting big cocktail party buzz over the last few months. The company won’t disclose much about what they’re doing, except that they’re building a Flash-based massively multiplayer online game (MMOG). And they certainly have the team to do it.
Susan Wu, the founder and CEO, is a former principal at Charles River Ventures and the former CMO of the Apache Software Foundation, and has experience with MMOGs. She’s also a self-confessed World Of Warcraft addict. Her team includes Blake Commagere (CTO), a cofounder of Mogad (acquired by iSkoot); Don Neufeld (VP Engineering), the former technical director at Sony Online Entertainment where he shipped Everquest II, Planetside and 13 other products; and Scott Harsman (VP Production), the former executive producer and creative director at Sony Online Entertainment where he led development of Everquest II, Everquest and other projects.
Neufeld and Harsman both worked at Sony Online Entertainment and brought a team with them. Wu says via email “There are very few teams that have shipped multiple MMOs across different generations of products. We are very fortunate to have Scott, Don and the team they brought over from Sony. There is a significant amount of learning that comes from having gone through dozens of MMO launches that we are applying to our products. Also, while at Sony, our team was involved in the design and implementation of their virtual goods platform.”
The company won’t yet give details on what type of game or platform they’re building, but they’ve convinced the venture capitalists that the idea and technology is sound. In the Fall of 2008 the company raised an undisclosed round of financing with August Capital and Rustic Canyon Partners, rumored to be in the $6 million range.
That’s really cool that Flash is being used for more than banners and web videos. But, my only question is: How do you pronounce Ohai … O-hey?
After YoVille, which became too slow after too many bells and whistles, flash MMOG has long way to go..
Again, robustness in http request matters here, that it should send request again intelligently if it fails once.
Probably more like “o-hi!”.
Not sure where they got the name from….. possibly a lolcats reference (”o, hai!” is a common phrase you see there)?
Now this is news! I wonder whether anybody would really like to engage in a Flash-MMOG. Definitely not in one that mimics WOW or Everquest. I predict that they aim at micro-payment schemes, however.
http://www.dofus.com
Artistically impressive Flash based MMORPG that’s been around for years.
@Alex Yup. They’re probably going to go that. I hope this one has good graphics, yet.
@Chris Heard of Adventure Quest, DragonFable, MechQuest, etc? Flash RPG games.
Oh and I think ohai should be pronounced as… Oh… Hai! (Oh hi!)
Cool! I’m sure thousands will be waiting for this.
Interesting. The Flash Player is getting more mature every year. Hopefully it will be able to handle large scale efforts like these.
Way to go Susan! Great company name too.
Bring on the lolcats!
I wonder if you can get a technical lowdown on what they will be using for this venture (probably not), http://away3d.com/ for example.
I think for the future it would add value to the articles you present if you can question the companies with some technical queries as well as the financial and people aspects.
But I suppose they will not want to let on what their system architecture is and only want the good news (read minimal) put into the blogosphere.
Michael, if you do not already have a tech head on your staff, maybe it would be worth considering.
PS, I am not looking for work THX :0)
heh nice it would be very challenging developing this , scaling a flash app ehm. the http request servers that are behind this woul be really fun , its always fun when you can only pull requests and not push them , you need to scale , cache , synchronize , “yeah the easy things in life ”
good luck though
I’m not totally familiar with it all, however, I thought Live Cycle Data Services did push requests. Why would this not be available for a venture of this sort?
thought 2009 was the year of the showdown between Adobe AIR and MS SilverLight. FLASH refuses to die………
http://spraveen...ro.blogspot.com
Flash will not die soon.
Adobe AIR is part of the Flash Plateform (as Adobe call it now), and also it’s for desktop use, where Flash/Flex target the web, so don’t count on the death of Flash until something bigger comes….
MS Silverlight will die – just another example of MS trying to play catch up. They fail to recognise that most MS centric developers are generally not the visually creative type ( as are most Adobe users ).
i don’t understand how this is an all-star team. it’s the chief marketer of the apache foundation (what marketing?), a man whose company developed little more than a pidgin plugin, and two leads that claim two failed MMO’s as their most reknown achievements. don’t even get me started on the technical inadequacies of their achievements.
this is the new clownco
Actually Scott Hartsman is very well respected amongst his team members and the industry for what he did with EverQuest 2. Scott was able to lead his team to successfully turn around a rough MMOG launch to a fairly successful product with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Can’t knock him for that
he turned it around? wasn’t he there from the beginning?
@ru: Yes, MMOs that still have hundreds of thousands of players and that still make tens of millions of dollars each year should definitely be classified as “failed”. Almost like the epic fail that is your screech of a post – an axe loudly and energetically ground with all the fanatical fervor of the terminally jealous.
In this case, clownco is obviously spelled “ruco”.
Big deal.. look at dofus? It’s already proven that Flash can handle the overhead of an MMO. and with AS3 introducing the Socket class, it’s easier than ever to transmit zlib compressed byte data.
I’ve been developing a rather sexy looking flash based MMORPG for the past half-year, and it’s definitely fully capable, and definitely a good idea
Hmm, will have to see how this goes.
By the way, I do believe it’s spelled Hartsman
Wow! These types do get coverage here at TC. No technology, no business model (on a whim revenue play, wonder how they show revenue projections to their board). What a fantastic CEO, no experience whatsoever in building a business ever.
-S-
go Blake!
I think Susan was a principal at CRV, not a partner, though I could be wrong.
I cannot wait to see what their game looks like. If they have WoW addicts and Everquest people in charge, then hopefully they will release some baller stuff.
Gaia Online (http://www.gaiaonline.com) released a full-fledged Flash-based MMOG late last year named zOMG (http://www.zomg.com).
I can’t wait to see their game!
Ankama with Dofus has proven that Flash can fully handle the load of an MMOG, and it was in ActionScript 2 with the old VM and they currently redoing the client of Dofus in AS3.
I wish them good luck and hope they will success!
Can’t wait to see Ohai. And as for business model – let’s not forget Club Penguin, sold to Disney for $700 mil. – founded by a dad looking for a safe mmog for his kids. Yes, CP is a little simplistic but that hasn’t stopped parents from paying the $60 yearly subscription fee.
Blake and team are awesome. I look forward to checking out there game when launched. I’m sure it will include great viral gaming functions. Congrats!
This should prove to be an interesting offering, for as the incredible success of WOW and others have proven there is a substantial audience enjoying this genre, and there is money to be made in this business of virtual online multiplayer worlds….
What kind of company name is that? I hear the name on the street, then I go to my computer and type in what? Ohi? Ohigh? OhHi? Ohai? OhHigh?
Something to look forward, I want to see it and see the difference. As far as I know flash is being used to a small games only.
Casual games and MMORPGs are opposite poles on the spectrum in terms of level of required engagement, attention, commitment, etc. They’re antithetical. The far greater market opportunity is in casual games (e.g., witness Wii, Scrabulous, etc.) and the research shows people prefer to play casual games with their family & closest friends, not strangers (which MMORPGs must play to, of course, given the way they’re designed). XBox Live has supported several casual titles where users can challenge strangers online but these have not been very successful.
Also, of course games are a Hollywood, hits-driven business. The reason Blake was successful on Facebook was that he was able to quickly iterate & modify game engines (witness Vampires begets Zombies). Analogy: small, indie films. Putting all their wood behind just one massive game environment sounds a very risky business model and strange that the normally conservative August Capital would bite at this.
Note, Susan was indeed a Principal from Charles River Ventures, not a Partner there, but why didn’t they choose to invest? Kinda concerning…
Their progress should prove interesting to watch – best of luck, guys!