MMO distributor and middleware developer BigWorld has announced that it will implement MMOG and virtual world learning resources and support services for 2009. The company has appointed Adam Shaw as its education program manager to lead the initiative.

The company argues that tertiary institutions and specialist educators have been teaching their game courses using traditional peer-to-peer game engines which are unsuited for demonstrating "how true MMOG’s and virtual worlds are created."

BigWorld's planned resources and services are designed to enable educators to work with their students on "world-class middleware technology" allowing hundreds of thousands of players to interact simultaneously, rather than on engines restricted by the number of players.

Based in Australia, the company recently announced that it had expanded its global presence to both Japan and South Korea with new offices, bringing in former Online Game Services Inc. (OGSi) founder and CEO James Hursthouse as its director of business development and Yoshikazu Furuhata as its new account executive.

Said CEO John De Margheriti: “We have many months of hard work ahead with educational partners to get this initiative off the ground. The industry as a whole needs to make it easier for motivated young talent to gain experience in using today’s industry standard middleware technology. These games are much more complex to develop for and this is a pro-active approach to prevent an industry shortage of experienced MMOG developers, particularly game programmers and game designers.”