San Jose, Calif. – September 30, 2009
Last year, American audiences attending the visual computing mega-event, NVISION 08, received a sneak peak of the future of social networking – 3D. Nurien is the revolutionary 3D social networking service and online gaming platform developed by South Korea-based Nurien Software. The company will be announcing its strategy for the U.S. market and demoing its 3D interactive social network and advanced casual games at the 2009 Emerging Companies Summit (ECS) in San Jose, Calif. on October 1, 2009.
After successfully completing an open beta test in Korea, Nurien Software is now getting ready for full-scale launches in key international markets. There are different Internet and gaming preferences and characteristics across each of the markets. Nurien views the U.S., Japan and European markets as unique from Asian markets (particularly Korea and China) and will be taking a distinct approach for these audiences.
“With no client download, amazing animation and 3D graphics, and the ability to utilize existing social networks we’ve developed enhancements that are specifically tailored for U.S. audiences,” said Taehoon Kim, co-founder of Nurien Software. “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."
For instance, 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. 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.
Nurien’s avatar-based 3D interaction breaks away from the traditionally “flat” text-based social interactions on social network services, and will offer advanced casual games for the users to play with their avatars. 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).
Awarded the ECS Best Emerging Company Award in 2008, Nurien is establishing itself as a trendsetter in the online game and application development industry. Nurien has created waves in the industry for its 3D based social networking service and social applications applying Unreal 3.0 and NVIDIA PhysX.
