Nurien Software is now getting ready for full-scale launches in key international markets.
After several years in development, we are confident that we’ve created a new, innovative and fun way for people to interact and play online here and worldwide."
- Taehoon Kim, co-founder of Nurien Software.
Users will be able to create visually rich 3D avatars, message and chat with friends and family and upload self-created fashionable clothing items. Consumers can also utilize their avatars and items they have developed to play advanced casual games with real friends from Facebook or MySpace. Current games include MStar (a music dance game) and Runway (a fashion show application).
Advanced casual games have been a mega success story in Asia due to faster broadband connection, monolithic PC install base and PC room/Net-cafe infrastructure. One of the biggest barriers in the U.S. market is download distribution and client installation, as these games are often more than 1GB downloads and the client is heavily dependent on PC specifications.
Another barrier is that most casual gamers in the U.S. want to play with their real friends online rather than making new friends “in world.”
As part of its U.S. strategy, Nurien intends to solve these problems by making the service web browser-based with zero download utilizing the Unity 3D engine, while keeping high fidelity graphics such as NVIDIA PhysX, and keeping great game play as expected from advanced casual games.
This is a demo of NVIDIA PhysX. See the body of the monster, that has an outstanding realism:
Unity-made games can be played inside a web browser thanks to the Unity Web Player Plug-in. The plug-in download is small (about 3 MB), auto-installs without a browser restart, and already has a 8-digit distribution. It works on all modern browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and most Mozilla-based browsers.
And this is how Unity 3D looks:
Nurien is also retaining the virtual goods micro-transaction business model that has been successful in Asia and receiving rapid adoption in U.S., but adding a marketplace for user-created content that have been successful in services such as Second Life and IMVU.
http://corp.nurien.com/eng/main.html
© by Jordi R. Cardona. Link to this post without copying the text.
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4 comments
I read 2 contradicting sentences in this article:
1)"...web browser based with zero download..."
2) there is a "small" 3MB download
when a user CANNOT download from a restricted network or does not WANT a download, it does not matter if it is a 1kB download or 3MB or 300MB. It's just not going to work.
I don't understand why they claim zero download? It's a nice video with lots of special effects and animations, very rich actually, and there's a download, why hiding it?
Dear reader, you are right about that a download is a download. In fact, every system that says "zero download" means a download.
For example, 3DXplorer needs to download the sceneries, and assumes you have the Java JRE plugin installed (which almost everybody has).
The new "no download" version of Vivaty assumes that you have Flash installed (you probably do).
And Nurien assumes that you have Unity3D plugin installed.
What they mean is that you don't have to download another client application. I mean, you don't download a client for 3DXplorer, Vivaty Flash, or Nurien. You just download the third party plugin, and then the assets of the 3D world that you are visiting.
That means "no client download" or "no download", "zero download" for these companies. In fact, you do two downloads: the external plugin (developed by another company or organization) and the 3D world data.
In the case of Nurien, you download 3 mb instead of 1 gb, which is good.
I have my doubts that people really refuse to download a big client if it's worth, as you seem to suggest.
A visitor that just spends 30 seconds in a website won't be too long inside a virtual world.
In addition, downloading large clients today from an average DSL won't take too long, and if the software has high requirements, it's sure that the user will have a decent DSL connection.
People feel attracted or not to a technology by what they see in the website, and then download what they have to.
"Current games include MStar (a music dance game) and Runway (a fashion show application)."
Where are these games and when did they launch? Mstar looks to have only been launched as a beta last year, and Runway is only ever mentioned as a "concept".
The games that Nurien Software has announced are:
http://corp.nurien.com/eng/features_play.html
1. Mstar - rhythmic dance game
2. Runway – fashion runway game
3. Quizstar - fast-paced quiz game
I'm not sure if they're online already or not. I'll test Nurien these days and see how can I access them.
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