Online games to be delivered by episode

Silicon Valley upstart Trion World Network wants to take the nearly US$30 billion ($45 billion) video game industry to the next level by combining the best of high-speed internet with traditional gaming and media.

Trion intends to take advantage of the growing number of broadband-connected homes and to deliver online games in "episodes" that change in real time as the game unfolds.

Or as it might be pitched in Hollywood: think MySpace.com meets World of Warcraft and interactive reality TV shows such as Survivor.

"Games are well-positioned to move into an online world and to become a deep entertainment experience," said Trion founder Lars Buttler, a former vice-president at Electronic Arts, the world's biggest video game publisher.

The company, based in Redwood City, California, has an undisclosed amount of funding from Doll Capital Management and Trinity Ventures and plans to have its new network up and running within 12 months.

Trion would offer a new kind of gaming experience to the tech-savvy consumers who flocked to sites such as MySpace and YouTube, said Buttler, who added that the company would get revenue from subscriptions, paid downloads and in-game advertising rather than from retail game sales.

"We have to accept the fact that broadband is going to be the biggest entertainment platform of all time," Buttler said.

Gus Tai, general partner at Trinity Ventures who handled his firm's investment in Trion this year, said entrepreneurs and venture capitalists had a keen and broad interest in delivering entertainment and video games via high-speed internet connections which allowed delivery of a different form of interactive entertainment.

- REUTERS