MMO publisher Gazillion Entertainment is partnering with Abu Dhabi Media Company to establish what it says is the first MMO development facility in the Arab Emirates region.

The joint venture aims to grow the Arabic online games business, create jobs in the region, share Western best practices with the region's developers, and use the tech infrastructure that has incubated in the rapidly-modernizing Abu Dhabi.

"Today, with the joint venture with Gazillion, our company is charting new growth in the creation of digital media content and technologies, which champions Abu Dhabi's sustainable development vision and transformation into a global digital media hub," says ADMC chairman H.E. Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazrouei.

According to the companies, the goal is to have the new studio fully under Emirati management within the next five years, as it pursues content creation in Arabic language for that specific gaming market.

Priority for jobs at the new studio goes to Emirati tech college students and grads. Students of Abu Dhabi's Higher Colleges of Technology will be offered on-the-job internships through a collaboration between HCT and ADMC. Beginning in 2010, those students will also have the opportunity to apply for training placements at San Mateo-headquartered Gazillion's offices.

Says Gazillion CEO Robert Hunter, "MMO games are becoming an increasingly significant part of the media landscape worldwide, and premium MMO experiences have the potential to command wide audiences in the Arabic gaming market in the years to come."

The new studio's first title will be an Arabic language MMO based on the Majid comic book serial, which the companies say "takes one of ADMC’s most famous and enduring brands in to the digital age and adds to the excitement at our overall efforts to develop the online gaming sector."

Adds Hunter: "We are highly pleased to have the chance to collaborate with ADMC on this joint venture, which will help ensure that the vision of exceptional online games for the region is fully realized."

Independent massively multiplayer game developer and publisher Turbine (Dungeons & Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online) has collected $6.6 million in series D funding as part of a planned $50 million investment round.

The news, as usual, comes by way of an SEC filing. It was first spotted by various online finance-oriented sites, including peHUB.

Westwood, Massachusetts-based Turbine, one of the few independently-operated Western producers of major massively multiplayer games, has raised tens of millions of dollars in venture capital over the last several years. In 2008, it raised $40 million, much of it from GGV Capital and Time Warner. Other past financiers of the company include Highland Capital Partners, Tudor Ventures, Columbia Capital, and Granite Global Ventures, all of which are mentioned in the filing.

The studio has made headlines recently for its plan to turn its Dungeons & Dragons Online into a free-to-play game later this year.

2009 GDC Austin organizers have announced a raft of new lectures as the August 13th early registration deadline nears, with Metaplace's Raph Koster and Zynga's Brandon Barber joining keynotes from Blizzard and SOE at the September 15th-18th conference.

As organizers note, the many notable sessions taking place at GDC Austin include BioWare technical director Bill Dalton's talk on the tech complexities and struggles of developing MMO titles and Cartoon Network's Richard Weil's co-presented session on the financial and regulatory complications of online games for younger children. Also added is best practices for creating 'sticky' game designs from Zynga's Brandon Barber.

Other topics include viral growth tactics, harnessing community feedback to improve game design, micro-transaction security, and developing recognizable IP that appeals to all generations of gamers.

Some of the other highlights of newly announced or existing 2009 GDC Austin lectures include:

With World of Warcraft dominating the high-end online market, many developers have begun to avoid the arena of high-end MMOs. But NCsoft is continuing to tackle the sector, and its next great hope is long-in-development fantasy MMO Aion.

When we spoke with NCsoft corporate relations director Jaesung Lee in Seoul after the Korean launch of Aion, the company was boasting concurrent users peaking at 150,000 just one day after opening, and by the end of 2008 was cornering 15 percent of the market in its native country.

In fact, as revealed in NCSoft's May 2009 results, the game managed quarterly revenues of $35 million from Asian operations, nearly as much as previous mainstays Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 made combined.

In Korea, the business model is time cards, something other subscription-based MMOs have done in Asian countries (a la WoW in China), but in the U.S. the game -- which was developed internally at NCSoft Korea -- will be a standard $14.99 monthly subscription.

NCsoft is generating buzz in North America with the game, which uses a modified version of Crytek's first iteration of CryEngine, primarily through small open beta tests that began in June of this year. According to recent reports, the title will officially debut this fall in the West.

In this interview, we talked to Lee about the decision to tackle the high-end MMO market, the difficulty of launching new titles, and how to meet the ever-changing expectations of new users.

South Korea-based Guild Wars house NCsoft reported a 451 percent profit rise for fiscal Q2, thanks in part to the release of the MMORPG Aion in Asia -- and the company has big expectations for the game once it launches in the West.

Profits for the quarter ended in June were 33.75 billion won ($27.12 million), way up from Q2 2008's 6.12 billion won ($4.92 million). Sales for the quarter were up 70 percent from the same quarter a year prior to 137.78 billion won ($110.96 million).

Sales and profits were up as royalties from Asian online game operator Shanda grew on the release of the MMORPG Aion and continued operation of Lineage 1 and Lineage 2.

Aion is NCsoft's next big game, and is currently up and running on around 225 servers across South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Japan. The game generated 40.6 billion won ($32.7 million) in revenues for the quarter, excluding royalties -- a strong start for the game.

Microtransaction and virtual trading platform PlaySpan will host "Monetization 2.0 - Show Me the Money", a half-day forum bringing industry luminaries together to discuss "the present and future of monetizing online games, virtual worlds, and social networks" at GDC Austin 2009.

The company will hold the forum on September 15th from 2:30pm to 7:00 pm at the Austin Convention Center. Though attendees won't need to pay any additional fees to join in, they must be registered for GDC Austin.

Some of the questions Monetization 2.0 looks to ask and answer with its panel discussions, case studies, and demos include the following:

• What are the best monetization examples on mobile, social networks, virtual worlds, casual games, and MMOs?
• Who are the big success stories and what are the pitfalls you need to avoid?
• How do you convert more free users to paying customers and drive higher revenue?
• How do you get your paying customers to spend more?
• How do you create and protect your most valuable customers?
• How do you protect from massive fraud and charge backs that could take your company down?

PlaySpan already has over a dozen notable figures from the online gaming, virtual worlds, and social networking industries scheduled to speak at Monetization 2.0:

The Booyah Society iPhone app hopes to overlay the thrill of gaming achievements onto real life; Gamasutra spoke with Booyah CEO and ex-Blizzard developer Keith Lee to find out about the company's success, plans, and app design.

The company launched the app a bit over two weeks ago; it has since climbed into the top 100 free apps on the iPhone. Chances are that if you use Facebook avidly, you've seen one of your friends hit the News Feed with a Booyah Society achievement.

The app features a customizable robot-like avatar which Lee says was inspired by Pixar's style. This avatar can be dressed in clothes awarded for reaching specific goals -- such as a ninja suit gained from visiting Kyoto, Japan, and getting the associated achievement, made possible by this week by the introduction of GPS tracking to the application.

In fact, Lee says that the company has the next four or five updates mapped out, to provide a consistent and appealing experience to its users.

But questions remain about the long term monetization of the project, its appeal, and how the company handles the design of achievements to make sure the meta-game it imposes on real life remains entertaining. There are also questions about spam, ideology, and more -- which Lee tackles below.

Beijing-based online game developer and operator Perfect World says its second quarter revenue for the April to June period to RMB 521.3 million ($76.3 million), up 22.6 percent percent over the previous quarter and 55.9 percent over Q2 2008.

An increase in active players in the company's recently launched MMORPG Battle of the Immortals (pictured) and in its existing MMOs such as Perfect World (assisted with expansions to some of those games) helped raise the company's online gaming revenues to RMB 475.1 million ($69.6 million), 26 percent over the first quarter and 58.7 percent over the same period in the previous year.

Perfect World quantified this growth in popularity for its MMOs by pointing out that on average, some 761,000 users were playing its games in China throughout the quarter, compared to 615,000 in Q1 2009 and 619,000 in Q2 2008.

The number of active paying customers for the company's games with item-based revenue models also increased to 1,877,000, compared to 1,464,000 in in Q1 2009 and 1,530,000 in Q2 2008. The average revenue per active paying customer, however, decreased slightly to RMB 237 ($34.68) from RMB 244 ($35.70) in Q1 2009 -- though ARPU was RMB 188 ($27.51) in Q2 2008.

The online game operator expects third quarter revenues for 2009 to continue upward to RMB 547 million ($80 million) and RMB 563 million ($82.4 million), a 5 to 8 percent quarter-over-quarter increase and a 43 to 47 percent year-over-year jump, crediting persisting popularity for Battle of the Immortals and its other MMORPGs.

Chinese web portal, IM firm and MMO operator Tencent reported RMB 2,878.4 million ($421.3 million) in total revenues for its second quarter ending June 30th, a 14.9 percent increase over the previous quarter and a 79.9 percent growth compared to the same period in 2008.

Gross profit for the firm, largely powered by instant messaging-related revenues alongside virtual items and currency, came to $284.5 million, up 13.1% from the first quarter of 2009 and 69.5% from the second quarter of 2008.

The company attributed part of this substantial increase to its online gaming revenues, which saw a 17 percent boost even over the previous quarter -- and an unspecified, much larger year on year increase -- to RMB 1,241 million ($183 million).

Popular PC MMOs such as Dungeon & Fighter and Cross Fire, as well as "organic growth" for multiplayer online games client QQ Game, helped bolster Tencent's profits in this sector.

The company, however, says decreased revenues for "more mature MMOs" such as QQ Fantasy, QQ SanGuo and QQ Huaxia offset that growth. It will also postpone the launch of two planned MMOs originally scheduled to release before the end of 2009 and the first of 2010.

Tencent believes the postponed launches will affect its gaming revenue in the short-term but will benefit the operator's long-term strategies, according to a report from Redline China. It also expects to see even more success from online games in the coming months.

"Looking ahead, we expect the third quarter to present stronger seasonality compared to the second quarter for our online games due to summer school holidays," Tencent's chairman and CEO Ma Huateng said in a statement published by The Wall Street Journal.

Roblox Corp. secured $2.2 million for Roblox, its virtual world and casual game emphasizing user-generated content, with Altos Ventures and First Round Capital participating in this recent round of funding, according to an SEC filing reported by PaidContent.

Still in its public alpha testing phase, Roblox invites children to create customizable avatars, construct virtual environments, and build and play games in the world of Robloxia.

Players can purchase and sell their creations for Robux, Roblox's in-game currency, and buy more Robux with real world money. The company takes a ten percent sales tax on all items sold through its catalog.

Though Roblox is free to play, the virtual world offers two tiers of paid membership, a Builder's Club for $6 a month and a Turbo Builder's Club for $12 a month, which give subscribers extra privileges, virtual gifts, and a daily Robux allowance.

In our latest employment-tastic 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 ArenaNet, BioWare Austin 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 our main market area this week include: