New MMOG uses entire Internet as gaming arena
All the web's a stage...
GAMELAYERS, a San Francisco startup, has developed a massively multiplayer online game, which uses ordinary Web browsing. The game’s aim is to “improve” the experience of navigating the Net, by adding guidance and companionship to surfing.
The game, called PMOG (passive multiplayer online game) takes place across the whole Web, around the clock. The concept is that players get points for their online surfing habits as opposed to fictional characters they create. Players collect points as they visit different sites and can take part in or set missions which will lead themselves and others through a variety of different websites. Along their way, players can send each other instant messages; leave link “gifts”, points, and various game equipment.
They can even detonate small virtual explosives which make the other players' browser windows temporarily and harmlessly shrink. Players can opt in or out of the game whenever they want and can leave notes for each other on the sites they visit, but these will be invisible to all non players. As in MMOGs, gamers pick up tools and skills along their way, in a game that is never-ending.
The game is basically one big instant chat, Wikipedia, bookmarking, social network, MMOG experience all rolled into one. CEO and cofounder Justin Hall reckons, “we're layering games on top of things that are already there".
To play, all a user has to do is install a special toolbar and log in. PMOG then starts to track the sites they visit, giving them points for each unique URL visited within 24 hours.
The company plans to generate revenue out of advertiser sponsored missions, for which players would earn bonus points. The game is currently being tested by about 6,000 registered players and will be open to others very soon. GameLayers also plans to develop a version of the game for mobile phones. µ
L'Inq
GameLayers
Comments
See?
It's all in the presentation. If only Phorm had made a game of it!glorified
Alot of MMOs get accused of being glorified chat-clients already. I'm not sure it's much to "play" if you just do everything you normally do.Can you score points (or whatever) by playing an actual MMORPG like WoW? is there a subscription? How do I know my browser hasn't just crashed and not been "hit" by another player?
What is the payoff
I am curious to know what the "player" gets out of this. In some games, it is getting better loot, in others it is being better than everyone else. They talk about points, but having higher points than someone without needing some skill won't work for many. Can the points be turned in for something? In the end, it sounds like a big piece of spyware.Business Model?
Seems like there would be an inverse relationship between the time available to the participant and money the participant has to spend.Oh, wait. How 20th Century of me! It's the same plan that's worked so many times before.
1) Get eyeballs.
2) ?
3) Make $
the endless hours of fun
searching for the enhancement adds as we are led through the pr0n sites...Hats off!!
This takes the cake, this has got to be the most transparent ad marketing tool to date. This is bloody retarded, I havent read anything more lame as an idea in a long while, and i read most articles here :PThe idea of creating competition based serfing will in the short run line the creators of this ahem game's pocket, but if this absurd crap actually attracts alot of people then guess who is going to get screwed, all the people out on the net who's website depend on ad revenue.
Do you really think if there are a couple million+ idiots out there hitting 500x the websites that a regular user would, that this couldnt be
1- manipulated to drive insane traffic at a ahem quest site for artificial hits? and therefore....
2- Used by ad companies like yahoo and google to justify cutting down payouts even more ( oh sry mr inquirer we have to cut your ad payoffs which is already a disgustingly small % of what we charge the advertiser even more so, because our mystical algorythmical sofware dooohicky has spotted a recient trend in gaming that alters the standard demographic-economic ratio based on habitual serfing habits)
The internet economy really is in a delicate balance when it comes to ad revenue, if no one sees what this idiotic idea's destructive potential has, well i do..... Comeon Google take these guys DOWN!!!
And before you say yay!! down with ads!! this site probably wouldnt even exist without ad revenue like a ton of other interesting sites out there, the ads usually wind up paying for the webhoster and monthly yearly traffic, they cut rates even more.... that would suck, no use kicking the bull in the nuts as they say... And this looks like a pointy boot.
self-torture
So... the idea is to play a game where one allow oneself to be subjected to ads and security risks, just to get the chance to exploit this security risk on some guy you never met dumb enough to play this game with you.......He probably deserves it.
Uh.... those people are insane if they think they have a business model.
It just goes to show that there's no end to high-tech companies with clueless executives who gets turned on by some random product proposal based on shoe-stringing recent buzzwords together into a random mess.
Um...no.
Dear 'Enterpreneur'Look here, sunshine. I've busted my hump creating my website. I have to pay for excess traffic, and after years of resistance have finally started running ads. Now you want to come along and get my ad account tossed and run up my bandwidth so a bunch of over-funded, under-employed mama's boys can work off their feelings of inadequacy and impotence in the real world by screwing with other idiots who volunteer to be screwed with...and it's all on my bandwidth, at risk to my site, while you line your pockets?
Screw that. If I find so much as a *hint* of something like this hitting my sites, I'll pull 'em all down and replace them with redirects to goatse and tubgirl, along with every malware-installing trojan horse craphole I can find a URL for.
I want people on my sites who are there because they want what's on my sites, not because they've been scammed into generating fast cash for some 'entrepreneur'.
When these clowns are paying my hosting bill, covering my lost ad revenue, and paying me a full-time salary to maintain my site for their abuse, then we'll talk. Salary offers start at 125K, and I'm not relocating.