Online casual game publisher iWin has announced the launch of Hotel iWin, a virtual world based around downloadable casual games.

Within the world, players can create an avatar with a public profile, expressing their interests and hobbies, and create friends lists, and can also decorate their own "hotel room" using items purchased from shops within the world, and the developers have stated that since the beta launch over 50,000 rooms have been created and 100,000 virtual items have been purchased using the Hotel Win virtual currency Opals.

Players earn Opals by playing games, and earning enough Opals can unlock new floors in the hotel. Games on offer include ad-supported, free-to-play titles, but also time limited titles, and multiplayer "online party" games such as Family Feud Online Party.

"Playing casual games today is a fairly solitary experience, especially for our guests who typically download single-player PC casual games," Nathan Fahrenthold, Senior Producer for Hotel iWin said. "Hotel iWin creates a riveting social and community experience around these single-player games which is unlike anything else in the market today."

Germany-based MMO publisher eFusion MMOG has announced that they have launched a new server and the latest patch for their intriguing Navy combat/strategy simulator Navy Field Europe.

The server launch is being celebrated with events including double experience, credits and points for a month, plus in-game events for players to participate in, where players can win premium items like "Navy Field Crystals".

The patch includes a new third generation of submarines, new weapons and additional functionality for submarine captains, plus a new "night battle" mode, with another patch to include special game modes for light and heavy cruisers.

A further patch has been announced to balance battleships.

Nexon America, the MapleStory developer's U.S. arm, says Pando will be providing content delivery services for its game downloads.

Pando uses a cloud platform, and Nexon says the partnership will accelerate download speeds for its users and lower its own operations costs.

Pando says its Content Delivery Cloud optimizes data delivery from both CDN servers and peer nodes, and claims it's more scaleable than a stand-alone CDN delivery service, since capacity expands with demand to increase speed.

"This is especially important for online game distribution as new releases of popular games frequently result in a sudden surge in download demand that can degrade CDN performance and the end user experience," says Pando.

"With quicker completed downloads, it is now even easier for Nexon players to experience our free-to-play games and allows Nexon to expand our reach even further in the North American market," says Nexon vice president of game operations Soo Min Park.

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

We mentioned Uforia, a new online game publisher earlier this year and they've got in touch to say that they've launched a beta for a new free-to-play MMO, Three Kingdoms: The Battle Begins.

Based on a period of ancient Chinese history—because there clearly aren't enough localized Asian MMOs featuring that as a topic—the title was developed by G-rex Soft and "chronicles the tragic last reign of the Han dynasty."

In the beta, players can select from one of four character classes, experience quests , player versus player modes and use the in-game cash shop. Intriguingly, they can even "reshape the story by carefully planning and executing political assassinations."

"The opportunity to bring Three Kingdoms to North American gamers is something we are very proud of," said JK Kim, CEO of Uforia. "This story is one of history and vying for power and for the first time it is truly coming to life from the pages of the famous novel to an interactive online experience."

MMO publisher Aeria Games has announced that a closed beta for Turf Battles, a new free-to-play MMORPG is now underway, offering 50,000 closed beta early access keys in conjunction with FileFront.

In Turf Battles, players select from a customized class (such as mage or "blade warrior") and can establish a tribe, working to capture land and promoting/demoting recruits within the tribe, while working with other players to explore dungeons and defeat monsters.

An open beta has been announced to follow the closed beta shortly after it closes.

The news follows other announcements from Aeria games, such as the announcement of Twelve Sky 2 and the addition of Player vs. Player to Cronous.

Lord of the Rings Online developer has hired a new VP of operations in Ken Surdan, who'll now head up the company's worldwide operations.

His areas of responsibility will include network operations, project management and customer service and support. Although Surdan has a background in online businesses, this appears to be his first games industry position, as his previous roles include senior VP of Technology at TripAdvisor Media Network, and COO at SmartBargains.com.

"I’ve had the good fortune to work with some of the best online organizations in the business," Surdan says. "Yet Turbine really brings something unique to the table in terms of its proven ability to operate massive online games, as well as manage the complex online customer ecosystems which surround each of their multiple titles."

"We’re really excited to bring Ken’s strong record of accomplishment and his passion for the customer to bear on our rapidly growing business," says Turbine president and CEO Jim Crowley. This powers up the senior management unit at Turbine significantly."

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

Sulake's online world Habbo recently partnered with American Idol, and at the Gamasutra-attended Engage! Expo in New York City, brand manager David Luner of Fremantle Media said it's a great fit. Next, Sulake EVP of marketing and business development Teemu Huuhtanen presented the developer point of view.

American Idol is the #1 ranked TV show in the U.S. while Habbo is the largest virtual world for teens. With overlapping demographics, Luner said of the combination: "It’s a great formula for success." American Idol has had successful co-branding partnerships in the past with Disney, Barbie, McDonalds, Dreyers, iTunes, and Konami, makers of Karaoke Revolution.

However, Luner warned: "There’s a myth out there that two successful brands automatically equals runaway success." There are a number of companies and people involved, from on-air and off-air sponsors, licensing agents and managers to other divisions of FremantleMedia that need to be coordinated in order to work with the American Idol brand.

In addition, because other people own the rights, a developer wouldn’t be able to use animations of judges, current and past contestants or use show and theme music without further wrangling.

"We did honestly put this on the table from the get-go so you can know the landmines and work around them," said Luner.

Warhammer Online developer Mythic is to close a total of 63 servers for the massively multiplayer online game, with 43 to go in North America and Oceania and another 20 in Europe.

The closures are part of an ongoing effort to consolidate the game’s online population, which started some months ago with a free transfer offer to more popular servers. The now-compulsory moves have been completed this week and the empty servers are set to close.

Mythic was recently forced to confirm layoffs in its customer support and QA teams, although the developer insisted this was not unusual for a post-launch massively multiplayer online game.

Although Warhammer Online attracted 500,000 registrations in its launch week, current subscriber levels are now at 300,000. Both Mythic and publisher Electronic Arts have indicated they remain committed to the game.

Although the main Warhammer Online Herald news site is offline at time of writing, specific details of server closures and character migration routes should be available later.

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

The upcoming 2.0 release of BigWorld's Technology suite will include web capability alongside its client/server game tech and world-building tools, the company announced today.

BigWorld says its new "Web Content Anywhere" capability lets developers implement "browser-like" functionality including Flash, Javascript/CSS or HTML on any 2D or 3D surface in-game.

The company says licensees will also be able to integrate social networking service and instant messages into their games to complement BigWorld Technology's existing mobile functionality.

"The overlap between games and virtual worlds and social networks is not looming – it’s been here for some time," says BigWorld VP Gavin Longhurst.

"We have looked at pioneering efforts in the space – including those from our own customer base with virtual worlds like Metaversum’s ‘Twinity’ built on our core technology, and see the possibilities and flexibility to enable greater social connectivity and content injections into future games and virtual worlds."

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

MMO publisher True Games Interactive has announced that it has hired Dilek Ilboga as the manager of International Business for True Games. In the role, Ilboga is to be responsible for "building and managing all distribution and merchant relationships on a global level, with a focus on Eastern Europe and South American territories."

Prior to joining True Games, Ilboga held the position of Merchant Center manager at K2 Network.

Prior to her post at K2 Network, Ilboga served in several marketing, advertising and sales roles at top companies throughout Turkey, including one of the country’s largest groups, the Tepe Group. Ilboga is a native of Turkey and is fluent in both Turkish and English.

“Dilek can communicate and build relationships with people on a global level and that is exactly what we need,” said Jeff Lujan, Founder and Chairman of True Games. “When you have a game that is available online, your business does not end at the US border. We are an International company and Dilek brings not only a global attitude to the table, but a true global background.”

MMO publisher OGPlanet has announced new content for its 2D side-scrolling MMORPG La Tale, with six new zones—" including the high-tech, mythical realms of Midgard, Valhalla, and Bifrost"—new enemies and new weapons.

The new content features the MMO's heroine, Iris, in battle with her rival Chonpalm.

In addition, players can wear costumes based on "La Tale's resident superheroes, the Abio Rangers" with a chance to win prizes in a contest for capturing heroic or unique poses while wearing the costumes.

"Up to this point, La Tale has been mostly light-hearted and carefree," said Ross Park, La Tale's producer. "This new chapter is the first time that we see the darkness of the game's world. I feel that players will really love the new developments for the characters in Iris's party and the plot twists that we will be releasing in the coming months."

Movie star Vin Diesel has revealed that new Tigon Studios project Barca BC is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO), and he describes it as his dream project.

Diesel is known to be an avid video games and tabletop role-playing fan, with a particular fondness for MMO World of WarCraft. He founded Tigon Studios in 2002, and although the company has not developed any of its own titles, it has overseen the Starbreeze-developed The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and the soon to be published Wheelman.

Although Barca BC has been referenced before, Tigon has previously described the game as an action real-time strategy game. Speaking to consumer website Destructoid though, Diesel described the game as a more traditional massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

"My dream game is something we’ve been working on in-house. We haven’t talked about it much because we’ve been mulling over how to do it just right. My dream game is a game that we’re developing called Barca BC," said Diesel.

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Capcom, Volition, Monolith and more.

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:

Wizard101 publisher KingsIsle Entertainment has announced that the first two worlds in the MMO Wizard101—which recently reached over one million accounts—are to feature voiceovers in all quests, cinematics, and boss encounters, with the rest of the MMO's worlds to follow.

In addition, players will be able to share in-game items they collect between all the characters on their account. Items can be stored in the player's dorm room and used by any characters the player has created, with each account able to create up to six characters.

Finally, Wizard City is to be "wearing green" in celebration of St. Patrick's Day, with special wands, staves, and a unique pet available from Pat O'Gold in the Shopping District.

"The voiceovers add an amazing amount of personality and richness to the world" said J. Todd Coleman, director of Wizard101. "In particular, the seasoned voice of Merle Ambrose is very entertaining and in line with our vision for the Headmaster of Ravenwood."

Fox Soccer Channel has announced that it has partnered with web game developer Power Challenge to launch Power Soccer, an "interactive online experience" that allows players to create their own football clubs and "emulate their real-world favorite players and teams".

The title is to be integrated on the co-branded Fox Sports "microsite" with the Fox Soccer Channel to run 30 second promotional spots to "drive viewer awareness."

Power Soccer includes live head-to-head matches with players across the globe, and by taking part in cups players can earn trophies for their teams.

“We are excited to work with Fox Soccer Channel and expand the total soccer experience for users around the globe,” said Johan Christenson, Power Challenge CEO. “In the months ahead, we will create unique game tournaments that tie-in with the real-world telecasts, giving users a unique possibility to follow the action on TV while simultaneously engaging on the web. The combination of our offerings truly brings a unique soccer experience.”