Twentieth Century Fox and Multiverse Announce Buffy the Vampire Slayer Virtual World

Sep 03, 2008 11:08 AM EST

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Twentieth Century Fox and Multiverse Announce Buffy the Vampire Slayer Virtual World

CENTURY CITY, Calif., -- Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising and The Multiverse Network, Inc., a leading provider of virtual world development technology for Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), educational and social worlds, and business collaboration environments, today announced the development of an original "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" MMOG. The virtual world will be based on the mythology and iconography made popular by the Emmy(R) Award-winning series. The announcement was made by Academy Award(R) winning producer and member of the Multiverse Advisory Board, Jon Landau, during his keynote speech today at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo.

The ground-breaking MMOG will offer a new experience for gamers, allowing them to play it either as a fully immersive 3D environment or as a Flash-based 2D game, where both types of players can interact. The game will be launched within "Multiverse Places," a new social virtual world from Multiverse. Currently under development, "Buffy" will go into "beta" testing later this year.

Landau, a Multiverse Advisory Board member, who is in production on Avatar -- the widely anticipated Fox film from fellow Multiverse Advisor James Cameron -- commented, "Multiverse has the vision and expertise to create the type of rich environment needed for the best possible game based on the 'Buffy' series. The resources are in place to develop a great MMOG."

Created by sci-fi and comic book legend, Joss Whedon, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" racked up critical and popular acclaim during its seven seasons on television. The series also inspired a line of top-selling comic books and successful merchandising lines with an avid fan base at retail. Fox Licensing & Merchandising (Fox L&M) continues to develop the brand for a number of targeted programs that reach its core market.

"Every once in a while a show comes along that lives long after its run on television, and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' is that kind of show," commented Elie Dekel, Executive Vice President Licensing and Merchandising for Fox L&M. "We think that creating this virtual 'Buffy' world is the perfect extension of the brand and will attract both fans of the show and newcomers interested in a great experience online."

"As a brilliant storyteller and world-maker, Joss Whedon crafts stories that expand perfectly into the new medium of virtual worlds," said Corey Bridges, co-founder and Executive Producer, Multiverse. "Not to give away too much, but when the 'Buffy' team finished the television series, they created the perfect launching point for an MMOG where everyone will feel like they're an important character in the ongoing story."

In related news, Fox's plans for the development of the previously announced Firefly MMOG have been delayed, but Fox looks forward to continuing its collaboration with Multiverse on this endeavor.

Since Multiverse's launch over four years ago, more than 25,000 development teams -- ranging from garage developers to Fortune 100 companies to Hollywood legends -- have registered to use the company's platform technology. In addition, several hundred pre-qualified customers have already begun building MMOGs and non-game virtual worlds with the Multiverse Platform.

ABOUT TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX LICENSING & MERCHANDISING

A recognized industry leader, Twentieth Century Fox Licensing and Merchandising licenses and markets properties worldwide on behalf of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Twentieth Television and Fox Broadcasting Company, as well as third party lines. The division is aligned with Twentieth Century Fox Television, one of the top suppliers of primetime entertainment programming to the broadcast networks.

ABOUT MULTIVERSE

Multiverse is a leading provider of virtual world development technology. The company's technology platform has changed the economics of this medium by empowering development teams to create high-quality virtual worlds -- including Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), social and educational worlds, and business collaboration environments -- for less money and in less time than ever before. Multiverse solves the industry's prohibitive challenges by providing development teams with the Multiverse Platform, a comprehensive, pre-coded client-server infrastructure and tools, a wide range of free content -- including sample worlds for modification -- and a built-in market of consumers. The company gives consumers a single program -- the Multiverse World Browser -- that lets them enter all of the worlds built on the company's platform and available in the company's network. For more information about the company, please visit http://www.multiverse.net and http://www.mv-places.com.

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