It was way back in April that we took a trip around Whirled, the new user-created playground from Three Rings Design. Like so many virtual worlds before it, Whirled offers players the chance to explore a quirky landscape filled with the avatars, toys, and games of their creative peers, trading a little of their cash for the ability to decorate and customize their little corner of the MMOG. Unlike their predecessors, though, Whirled is flash-based and browser-operated, cleverly removing all barriers of entry, setting themselves up for a pre-existing contributor base, and providing an easy route for aspiring creators to start monetizing their work almost immediately. Also, it's from Three Rings, so the whole thing is delightful and strange. It's like Kongregate meets Puzzle Pirates, and it's up and running as of today.
What's more, Three Rings is sweetening the pot by providing $10,000 a month in revenue-sharing for popular game contributions, and is helping creators get started by offering the source code and assets from all of their own games. These people are insane and/or brilliant; either way, it should be fun to watch.
The revenue-generation system, something we had been very curious about during our initial visit, has now been explained in great detail via a press release and the game's wiki. Whirled is taking a very Kongregate-like approach to rewarding its creators with a portion of the game's revenue, which is an attitude we have praised on prior occasions, but Whirled seems to be taking it to the next level, offering cash rewards both for the actual sales of your in-game products, and for the subsequent use of those products. Behold, this very handy chart:
Three Rings' other games have already made interesting use of a dual-currency system, similar to those used by many of their Asian MMO counterparts: One currency is "free," generated by in-game activities, while a second currency must be purchased with actual currency in real life. What Whirled is doing, on the other hand, is presenting players with three forms of currency: Coins, Bars, and Bling.
As was the case in our beta preview, Coins are easy to come by: you get a giant heap of them just for showing up, and then you can earn more simply by playing Whirled's catalog of bizarre games, including puzzle-combat hybrids with shambling terrors, bingo for the well-dressed, and my personal favorite -- writing captions for other folks' photos. These Coins, once acquired, can be spent on avatars, home decor, and all manner of interactive flash toys, so long as the creator is accepting Coins for them. This allows first-time creators to experiment with their contributions, offering them at a risk-free price that nobody should balk at paying; Coins, after all, are easily replenished.
Somebody who's ready to present their work on a more professional level, however, or feels their stuff deserves a little compensation, can set their price in Bars. Bars, as explained earlier, must be purchased for actual money, but can then be subsequently spent on Whirled's "big ticket" items. Pricing, mind you, is at the discretion of the content creator, adding an element of the free market to Whirled, and forcing creators to carefully assess the worth of their goods. Bars can also be spent, one should note, to purchase goods that require Coins, and vice versa, exchanging the two currencies according to a fluctuating market rate. If you have the time to amass enough coins, in other words, you can still afford the game's "premium" content, which is quite handy for younger gamers with no major income but plenty of spare time.
Finally, should your goods be deemed worthy of purchase, whenever another player spends his Bars on your items, you will be paid back not in Bars, but in Bling -- a form of currency that Whirled will allow you to convert back into real-life cash. Once an account has amassed 500 Bling or more, a creator can opt to cash out his Bling via PayPal, or he can exchange it for more Bars of his own, should he wish to put that money right back into the Whirled economy. Whirled will currently only let you cash out Bling for bucks once a month, and if you happen to take home over $600 in a year, you need to get the tax man involved. Three Rings apparently does not mess around, despite the fact that they're also giving away $10,000 a month for game creators.
Based on today's press release and the game's wiki pages, that $10,000 ought to amount to some portion of $300 or so each day. The press release claims that "developers who create games using the Whirled APIs stand to participate in $25,000 of prizes each quarter, and share a monthly pool of $10,000 divided up each day according to hours of gameplay on the site." The wiki, supplementing this, informs us that "Every day, a 'Bling pool' will be created based on the total amount of time that Whirled players have spent playing games. This pool will be divided up among game creators proportionally based on the number of total hours their game was played." In other words, if you come up with the next Tower Defense mega-hit and host it on Whirled, you'll rack up a little bonus each day, which you can subsequently spend on other folks' creations, or you can just cash it out, take it home, and swim in it.
It's one thing to put together an enjoyable little environment where creative types can trade ideas and garner an audience for their work. It's quite another thing to give those creative types all of your money in order to foster new and exciting games for the rest of the world. We like that idea.
Whirled is officially open, right now, for all flash-enabled browsers. Here, have a press release!
SAN FRANCISCO -- Three Rings, a leading independent developer of casual massively multi-player games, has opened Whirled, its player-created virtual world, for business. A full suite of rich APIs, example code and a growing audience of players await monetization by skilled developers. Players can explore a rich catalog of games, customize social areas and begin uploading games and other content to www.whirled.com today.
“Whirled delivers a complete platform for Flash games and virtual worlds,” said Daniel James, CEO, Three Rings. “Our proven infrastructure is now officially open for business and developers are making money. Join them!”
Whirled is an in-browser virtual world that is open to player creations and customizations; anything can be uploaded to the Whirled, from simple image furniture to mini-MMO games. Sophisticated avatars, pets, toys and games are coded to Whirled’s Flash ActionScript APIs, which support multi-player games with arbitrary numbers of players driven by client or server-side code.
“Three Rings is taking a ‘ridiculously open’ approach to Whirled by publishing metrics, transparent business terms and a large part of the code-base as open-source,” said Michael Bayne, CTO and co-founder. “To kick-start creativity, Three Rings offers the source code and assets for all Three Rings’ original games and other content as examples for developers to explore and modify to their own nefarious ends.”
Whirled’s library of over 12 complete, multi-player example games includes the hit ‘Corpse Craft,’ described by Penny Arcade as “… f*cking banging, and may even bang off the hook.” To learn more, visit wiki.whirled.com.
Gamers play Whirled games to earn Coins, and may purchase a second currency, Bars for U.S. currency using credit cards, PayPal, SMS, Target pre-paid cards and other payment methods. Whirled emulates aspects of the success of Puzzle Pirates: part of the power of the business model is that it provides a seamless exchange between player’s time and this cash currency, thus effectively monetizing virtually the entire player base, rather than a small fraction. Creators’ sales in the Whirled Shop accumulate a third currency, Bling, which can be cashed out for real-world money. Three Rings’ Whirled infrastructure is fully operational today: creators are making money from avatars, interactive toys, game items and level packs.
“Not only can you make money selling virtual goods, but also Whirled offers a lifetime revenue share on new players referred to the game – you can simply embed a game or Whirled room into your blog or website, or tell a friend, and we’ll take care of the rest,” added James. He pointed out that “hit content will generate revenue not only from initial sales, but developers will also continue to earn from the players they bring to the party. And here at Three Rings, we like to party!”
Today, Three Rings is also rolling out its Flash Game Developer challenge and the Whirled Game Developer Bonus Bling Pool. Flash game developers who create games using the Whirled APIs stand to participate in $25,000 of prizes each quarter, and share a monthly pool of $10,000 divided up each day according to hours of gameplay on the site.
“Join premier game developers like Brad Borne of FancyPants Adventures, Skunk Studios of QBeez, and others who see the wisdom of getting on board early,” urged James.
Listen up! i work really fucking hard on my account! they banned me from my account because i'm 12! i want it back sooo bad i had over 25k coins and i was expecting gold bars for the first time! damn it i really just want my account back please, just let me hav it before August 12th (my birthday) okay, thanks. =)
Ok sorry for getting so mad but i find it ridiculous that you would do that because i'm 12, it's stupid. I just want my account back please because my gf on the game is still online and i really miss her and i'm level 22 and i was gonna get bars and everything so please, give it back
Dear Jeremy Johnson i can fix your account if you still need it or if its not yet fixed but i cannot fix it without your account E-mail and your password
Is there any ways to get free bars besides doing surveys? I'm not allowed to do surveys,and i can't buy bars. -_____- It's not fair. Or atleast change the rule so you can buy with coins & bars again... -________-
It was way back in April that we took a trip around Whirled, the new user-created playground from Three Rings Design. Like so many virtual worlds before it, Whirled offers players the chance to explore a quirky landscape filled with the avatars, toys, and games of their creative peers, trading a little of their cash for the ability to decorate and customize their little corner of the MMOG. Unlike their predecessors, though, Whirled is flash-based and browser-operated, cleverly removing all barriers of entry, setting themselves up for a pre-existing contributor base, and providing an easy route for aspiring creators to start monetizing their work almost immediately. Also, it's from Three Rings, so the whole thing is delightful and strange. It's like Kongregate meets Puzzle Pirates, and it's up and running as of today.
Three Rings' other games have already made interesting use of a dual-currency system, similar to those used by many of their Asian MMO counterparts: One currency is "free," generated by in-game activities, while a second currency must be purchased with actual currency in real life. What Whirled is doing, on the other hand, is presenting players with three forms of currency: Coins, Bars, and Bling.
Finally, should your goods be deemed worthy of purchase, whenever another player spends his Bars on your items, you will be paid back not in Bars, but in Bling -- a form of currency that Whirled will allow you to convert back into real-life cash. Once an account has amassed 500 Bling or more, a creator can opt to cash out his Bling via PayPal, or he can exchange it for more Bars of his own, should he wish to put that money right back into the Whirled economy. Whirled will currently only let you cash out Bling for bucks once a month, and if you happen to take home over $600 in a year, you need to get the tax man involved. Three Rings apparently does not mess around, despite the fact that they're also giving away $10,000 a month for game creators.
It's one thing to put together an enjoyable little environment where creative types can trade ideas and garner an audience for their work. It's quite another thing to give those creative types all of your money in order to foster new and exciting games for the rest of the world. We like that idea.
February 13th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Listen up! i work really fucking hard on my account! they banned me from my account because i'm 12! i want it back sooo bad i had over 25k coins and i was expecting gold bars for the first time! damn it i really just want my account back please, just let me hav it before August 12th (my birthday) okay, thanks. =)
February 13th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Ok sorry for getting so mad but i find it ridiculous that you would do that because i'm 12, it's stupid. I just want my account back please because my gf on the game is still online and i really miss her and i'm level 22 and i was gonna get bars and everything so please, give it back
March 13th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Dear Jeremy Johnson i can fix your account if you still need it or if its not yet fixed but i cannot fix it without your account E-mail and your password
July 18th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Is there any ways to get free bars besides doing surveys? I'm not allowed to do surveys,and i can't buy bars. -_____- It's not fair. Or atleast change the rule so you can buy with coins & bars again... -________-
July 24th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
ive been hacked and im trying to get my account back but they changed everything what do i do?