Late last year MMO publisher and operator Outspark announced its latest MMORPG, Wind Slayer, and they've now announced the dates for a brief closed beta, open between January 7th and 14th.

The testing period is to "provide Outspark with valuable feedback that will be used to further refine the game before its wider release later this year."

Set on the continent of Beuritania, Wind Slayer is a 2D side-scrolling MMO that features six classes, character customization and player-versus-player modes. The title is to enter open beta in February.

“Outspark offers rides for every type of thrill seeker coming to play in our virtual playground,” stated Susan Choe, CEO and founder of Outspark. “Wind Slayer’s character customization and multiplayer options combined with its side scrolling style and simple controls make the game a perfect fit for all gamers wanting to enjoy a fun-filled crusade with friends they meet in the Outspark community.”

Vancouver-based web startup Leap In Entertainment has announced that its new "3D social media site" Just Leap In has entered public beta. The goal of the world is to "broaden the appeal of web-based 3D for a mainstream social media audience," particularly concentrating on the 18-34 demographic.

The world offers a RSSable newsfeed that syndicates events within the 3D world, and asynchronous browsing to allow the world to work akin to a YouTube video embed on blogs or webpages.

In addition, the world currently doesn't feature any advertising and is currently cross-platform across Mac and PC.

"Teens are already well served by entrenched players like IMVU and Gaia and Habbo," explained creative director Michael Griffin in a launch statement. "Most our users are over 18, have never spent much time in a virtual world before, but are avid users of Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube who are totally interested in swapping to a 3D environment. If you listen to those kinds of users, they want to do stuff like browse for friends and share photos and videos online. Other virtual worlds don't actually make that stuff easy to do. So we've grown organically to make those key activities as simple as possible."

MMO publisher Aeria Games has announced the launch of the open beta of their latest free-to-play title, Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online.

The first MMO in the popular and critically-acclaimed Shin Megami Tensei franchise (including titles such as Persona 4) SMT: Imagine Online features a real-time battle system, character customization and "demon fusing"—the process of combining multiple demons to create new breeds which help the player in "restoring order to a post-apocalyptic Tokyo."

In addition, the game features the usual MMO social features, such as friends lists.

"The game, already highly successful in Japan, proved to be popular amongst English speakers during the closed beta test," said an Aeria Games representative. "For open beta, everyone is invited to play the game for free without download or subscription fees."

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

We've been filling in a lot of the surprising blanks in our Online World Atlas recently, such Audition and NeoPets, so here’s the latest blank we're going to fill—Travian, one of the most popular browser-based civilization building games.

CCP's PC online space trading/combat game EVE Online has reached a milestone, reporting a record peak of 45,186 concurrent users on its single-shard server.

"It is truly a testament to our loyal fans that 5 years into EVE's existence we are still breaking records and more people are flying in New Eden than ever before," said the company, announcing the record via EVE's official blog.

EVE Online, which launched in 2003, exceeded 240,000 active subscribers earlier in 2008 as it celebrated its fifth anniversary with year-over-year gains in its userbase.

The game now features a player-driven democratic society via its elected Council of Stellar Management, and an elaborate in-game economy watched over by former real-world economist Dr. Eyjolfur Gudmundsson.

In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Gudmundsson said the EVE's single-shard server is essential to the nature of the game, likening it to a "nation state, with all the institutions that come along with that."

[The preceding article by Leigh Alexander also appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

China's booming online games industry may reach sales of RMB 18.21 billion ($2.67 billion) in 2010, says a report from business news organization and research group Interfax China.

Current online game operators are generating increasing revenues, the study says, and new entrants are joining the market every year. The new report, titled "China Online and Mobile Gaming 2008-2010," found online game operators saw revenues totaling to RMB 10.57 billion ($1.5 billion) in 2007, and are expected to have brought in RMB 12.67 billion ($1.86 billion) in 2008.

Interfax says that there are currently some 120 gaming operators running approximately 200 online games in China. Among these, the four biggest companies in terms of revenues are Shanda, Giant Interactive, NetEase, and The9, the last of which manages World of Warcraft's operations in the country.

While most of China's online game revenues is generated by massively multiplayer online games, the group says that casual and web games are becoming increasing popular and "are considered to offer great potential for in-game advertising due to the strong purchasing power of its user group." Local web game companies have been attracting venture capital investments as a result.

"In-game advertising is a hot spot for generating revenue, which is especially true for the free-to-play online gaming model that has gained popularity among many Chinese gamers," says Interfax China in its release on the report.

The group continues, "Leading game operators such as Shanda are paying increasing attention to the in-game advertising market. Mergers and acquisitions are commonplace among in-game advertising companies while Focus Media and Bihu Technology are gearing to dominate the market. However, technology still poses a key problem in China's in-game advertising industry."

The report overview also talks about new demographic trends in China, explaining: "Not only has the market seen a huge transformation, but the profile of the country's gamers has also evolved since the sector was in its initial stages of growth. The proportion of female gamers is on the rise, and online gaming is now not just the preserve of urban residents. New games are being launched at a fast pace, while the loyalty of gamers to particular titles is a rare commodity."

Finally, Chinese government policy is discussed, with the authors noting: "The government is concerned over the content of the games enjoyed by large numbers of China's youth, which may contain violence, gambling and pornography, and policy making decisions will likely focus around these issues."

They conclude: "It is also possible that China will put a cap on the number of overseas games released in the country where around 70 percent of new online games are from overseas. The positive news for Hong Kong online game developers is that the government will likely relax restrictions on Hong Kong-developed games entering the mainland as economic ties between the two regions strengthen."

[The preceding article by Eric Caoili also appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

GSR Ventures has announced the closing of a $383 million new fund, "dedicated to investing in technology companies with operations in China," with the first investment to be placed in iLemon, the Shanghai-based developer of the (previously mentioned) Music Mogul.

The new fund, GSR Ventures III, was apparently "over-subscribed," and GSR Ventures was formed in 2004 with the mission to "build the next generation of world class technology companies in China."

GSR invested 9 companies in China in 2008, and had 26 portfolios as of the end of 2008.

“With the new fund in place we will continue to actively seeking talented entrepreneurs and help them to build great companies,” said Sonny Wu, one of GSR’s founding Managing Directors. “We are building on our early success in the first two funds and are expanding into new sectors like green technology.”

It seems like the current "hot" concept in kids virtual worlds is creativity, and on that topic Webcarzz has pre-launched its "CarStructor"—a 3D vehicle creation tool for its upcoming virtual world specifically targeted at boys, which is currently in closed beta.

Users can create vehicles—such as cars, trucks, planes or motorcycles—by starting with a basic canvas consisting of two cubes and a set of wheels. By clicking and dragging users can pull or shorten the cubes into chosen shapes before customizing their vehicle with colors and textures.

Once finalized and saved, every custom car can be posted in the Webcarzz Gallery, where it can be voted on, shared and used for racing and exploring in the Webcarzz world once it has been launched.

“CarStructor provides a simplified introduction to modeling and modifying 3D shapes and also provides children with the basics of geometry,” said Nique Fajors, Executive Vice President of Webcarzz. “Children’s minds are full of imagination, and CarStructor opens up more roads for them to explore.”

Aeria Games has announced that its free-to-play MMORPG Last Chaos is to feature major revisions in the coming months, with new content for both old and new players.

The first content expansion, to be released during January, is to feature an alternate character advancement system called the "Phoenix System" which gives characters extra statistic points; new armour and weapons for all classes; new dungeons and monsters; and a new crafting system, allowing players to create "some of the most powerful weapons in-game."

The announcement follows previous improvements to Last Chaos, including interface upgrades and new pet classes.

"This content expansion marks the first phase of a massive overhaul of the game, targeting major game systems," said a Aeria Games representative, "including improvements that the community has asked for since the launch of the game in 2007."

MindArk, developer of Entropia Universe, now a virtual world platform, has announced the creation of a new subsidiary, First Planet, to operate, develop and market a new MMORPG, Planet Calypso, built on the Entropia Universe platform.

According to the release, the creation of First Planet allows MindArk to "solely focus on platform development suitable for a wide range of industries interested in utilizing the opportunities of the 3D internet."

Marco Behrmann, former Chief Information Officer at MindArk, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and Creative Director for First Planet Company.

Behrmann, began with MindArk in 2002 as concept writer, game designer, community director and information officer, and was previously lead designer and PR manager for game developer Computer House and founder of pen-and-paper RPG publisher Neogames.

"My vision is to supply the resources needed to allow the creative team the freedom and time to create interesting short- and long-term storylines, enhance and polish game-play, add role-playing aspects, and cater to events," said Marco Behrmann. "My role and objective is to bring and maintain a coherency to the Planet Calypso history and storyline. We are dedicated to achieving our over-arching goal of making Planet Calypso a truly outstanding Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game."

CCP has announced the launch date of the tenth expansion for its MMOG Eve Online. Eve Online: Apocrypha is to be "the most ambitious EVE expansion in the game’s over five year history" and is to coincide with the March 10th release of Eve Online as a boxed product in partnership with Atari.

Though this probably won't make a whole lot of sense to any players who aren't already very familiar with Eve Online's lore, the plot of Apocrypha is that " vast, unpredictable wormholes" have opened in the universe, and players who choose to explore them can find new technology within which will allow them to produce new "Tech 3 modular ships" with heightened customizability.

In addition, NPCs will be able to assign "Epic Mission Arcs" to players, which are "full of meaningful stories and more intelligent and deadly adversaries," possibly offering more to the kinds of players who like a more "scripted" MMOG experience rather than the vast and (daunting!) player versus player possibilities traditionally offered by the game.

Finally, for players who find the whole thing daunting anyway, they are also offering an entirely new "New Player Experience" for players joining the game.

“Just this past week we broke our concurrent user record with 45,186 people flying unbound in the same game world at the same time—a huge percentage of our quarter of a million current subscribers and a true testament to EVE in our sixth year of operation,” said EVE Online Senior Producer Torfi Frans Olafsson. “Today is an unprecedented time to start playing, as you can get ahead of the curve before Apocrypha releases in stores and our hard work hits the server cluster. It’ll be easier than ever to get ‘lost in the wormhole’ that is EVE with what we have planned for the future of our expanding universe.”

In this round-up, Gamasutra highlights some of the notable jobs posted in its industry-leading game jobs section, including positions from Activision, True Games Interactive, EA Redwood Shores, and InWorld Studios.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

If you watch Cartoon Network (and you should, with tip-top content like 6Teen and Flapjack) you probably can't have failed to have seen the blanket advertising they've been doing for their upcoming browser-based MMOG FusionFall.

It's been in open beta for a while now and is to officially launch on January 14th, and Cartoon Network have now announced that the game—while including free-to-play content—is to use a subscription-based payment method which is to be priced at $5.95 a month.

Unusually for a free-to-play game the title is to also be launched in a retail box (from Majesco) which will include 4 months of subscription, exclusive in-game items and a game guide.

We'll be sure to take a look at the game after launch as part of our Online World Atlas—if only to fulfil our dreams of fighting alongside the Powerpuff Girls!

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

For this Online World Atlas entry, I thought we'd talk a look at one of the browser-based strategy titles that has been receiving the most buzz in the "mainstream" press—eRepublik, an intriguing mix between social network and an entirely player-driven global simulation.

Name: eRepublik

Company: eRepublik

Established: October 2008

How it Works: eRepublik is browser based and runs in HTML and Javascript. Navigation and gameplay are accomplished via mouse and keyboard input.

Overview: In eRepublik, users become the citizen of a nation, based on those in the real world, and take part in a simulation of the real world's economic and political spheres. Players can take jobs, working their way up to own companies and corporations, get involved in wars between citizen-run countries, and even become president.

Payment Method: eRepublik is free to play, and earns revenue via the purchase of "Gold" which allows players to purchase extra functionality.

Key Features:
- Massively multiplayer social network/global simulation/strategy game
- Every event is player driven—every president is a real player, and every company is player owned
- A real, democratic political system
- "Educational" quiz-based challenges

Useful Links:
Official Wiki
Official Blog