Three Rings Announces Whirled(TM)

The Online Social World for Chat, Games and Player-Created Content

News by GamesIndustry International Contributor

Published on March 8, 2007

San Francisco, CA - March 8, 2007 - Three Rings, a leading independent developer of massively multi-player games, today announced Whirled, a web-based virtual world based on games and player-created content. The follow-up to Puzzle Pirates TM and Bang! Howdy TM , Whirled will be unveiled today at the Game Developers Conference by Three Rings' founders, Daniel James and Michael Bayne. Whirled has commenced private alpha testing with a limited invited audience, with public launch later this year. A public glimpse can be found at whirled.com

In Whirled players chat, change avatars, decorate rooms, play games and make things, all via the web. Easy navigation based on your friend network and in-world activity lets you find popular rooms, group lounges and party games. At every point, players are encouraged to create and upload their own content: avatars and furniture, pets, and Flash games, all using Whirled's easy creation and 'remixing' tools. Successful creators stand to profit handsomely in U.S. dollars from sales of their work.

"Whirled is about having fun -- and making fun!" said Daniel James, CEO of Three Rings. "We've made a tremendously easy place for people to hang out, play games and then create their own stuff, from avatars and furniture to complex multi-player games. Using Flash opens up Whirled creation to the vast number of skilled Flash artists and developers. We're excited to see what in the Whirled people make!"

Whirled continues Three Rings' innovation with the business model of free play with sales of virtual currency and items. Players upload their creations to the Whirled catalog and can earn in-game money, which can be translated to U.S. dollars. This follows the success of Puzzle Pirates and Bang! Howdy, which allow unlimited free play with an open player market between virtual currency and attention.

Three Rings is seeding Whirled with multi-player games such as "Chiyogami Dance Battle," a dance-off game played with Whirled avatars, "Underwhirled Drift," a kart racing game, and classic word, arcade and puzzle games. Three Rings will be releasing the source code for its own games and other creations in the hope that players will further customize the Whirled. Three Rings pioneered this open-source approach to empower game creators at Game Gardens, where over seventy games made with the Three Rings toolkit can be played. Game Gardens games will also be available from Whirled.

"We hope that our players make Whirled their home, and are inspired to contribute and create at whatever level they wish. Peas," said Michael Bayne, Three Rings CTO.

About Three Rings

Three Rings is a leading developer and operator in the rapidly growing casual massively multi-player online games space. The company launched Puzzle Pirates, the first casual massively multi-player game, in 2003, and its second game Bang! Howdy in 2007. Puzzle Pirates and Bang! Howdy are free to play, with optional micro-currency purchases of virtual items and content. Founded in 2001 in San Francisco, Three Rings has over 30 employees, open source code platforms, and its games are played by over 250,000 players every month. Read more about Three Rings at http://threerings.net/

Contact:

Daniel James

CEO

Three Rings

daniel@threerings.net

415 615 9596

FAQ Sheet

About Whirled

Whirled is a social network for online identity, chat, and multiplayer games, powered by player-created content.

Features:

Each player has a room of their own to decorate and hang out chatting with friends. You can build out additional rooms. The geography of the world is based on the social network: Your neighborhood is dynamically generated from your friends list and your group affiliations. Popular Places gives you an at-a-glance view of activity in Whirled and lets you hop straight to the action. Groups allow collaboration with other players around shared interests, with a shared group space akin to a virtual wiki page. Any player can easily upload and begin playing with avatars, furniture, games, music and more. Creators can post their offerings to the catalog where they are rated and tagged, then offered for sale to the global Whirled audience.

Business model:

Creators receive a share of all sales in in-game currency, which can be converted into U.S. dollars. Whirled is free to play. Content is purchased with a mix of the two in-game currencies. A market exchange exists between "attention currency," earned by time investment, and "hard currency," bought with cash. This allows players with any budget to enjoy the full spread of content in Whirled. Three Rings is developing a range of advertising and sponsorship opportunities that do not negatively impact the player experience.

Technical:

Built in Flash 9 and Ajax, using Google's web toolkit (GWT), Whirled runs entirely in the web browser and has no download and install requirements. Whirled has been tested to run on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. Whirled extends Three Rings' proven server-side architecture used for Puzzle Pirates and Bang! Howdy.

Roll-out Plans:

Currently in private alpha with an invitation-only audience of a few hundred. Growth through alpha and beta will be metered by the release of invitations. Public launch estimated mid-2007.