Recently, it was announced that Turbine would be receiving $40 million in equity financing from two different companies, GGV Capital and media giant Time Warner. MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood caught up with Turbine president and CEO Jim Crowley to talk about what the announcement means and a little bit about the future of the company.

Recently Turbine, the company behind Asheron’s Call, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online, announced that they have raised $40 million in equity financing from two companies; the first is GGV Capital, a “leader in expansion-stage venture capital investments”. The second, and more recognizable new investor is media giant Time Warner.

“This is truly an exciting time for Turbine. The addition of Time Warner, one of the world’s largest media companies, and GGV Capital, one of the financial community’s most sophisticated investors, adds a level of access, perspective and experience to Turbine that is singularly unique in the global online entertainment space,” said Jim Crowley, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. in the announcement press release. “Turbine has an extraordinary team, incredible technology and a growing portfolio of games based on some of the most popular brands ever created. With this funding we are uniquely positioned to change the future of online entertainment as we bring new titles to market, expand the platforms we support and introduce new technologies to sustain self-evolving game worlds.”

Read the whole article here.

I'm not getting the link?

NM :)

Wow, its pretty obvious this CEO is a little bit better then the last one.

So now that they are rich they suddenly have all these new ideas. That's funny. I like that they stress that they will still focus on pc even if they open up to consoles, not sure if I believe it, but I am a pc fan and a console fan so it would be cool if they could support both strongly. The user generated content is alright, but it sounds more like they want users to be gms and make the game for them rather than the kind of user generated content I would like. We'll see what they have to say in a few months when they are supposedly done just thinking about how to spend $$$...

The overlap of IPs is really fascinating to me.  There are many many things that Turbine has said they can not do because they would infringe on New Line Cinema (the Time Warner unit that did the Peter Jackson LOTR movies).  On the other hand, New Line *screwed* the Tolkien estate on royalties, and has been in court with them involving a lot of rancor, and then Turbine just signed a lengthy extension with the Tolkien estate for MMO rights.

So the licensing politics of this may be interesting.  Tolkien estate politics and court cases aside, we could see the movie soundtrack and cutscenes in the game, which I personally think would be sweet. 

And then, New Line is struggling to get out the prequel movie (that little book called The Hobbit), and the game implications of them trying to tie in LOTRO might be very complicated, considering that's well in the past by the MMO timeline.  Will Time Warner place pressure?

On the other hand, now Time Warner, with their vast empire (start checking out the top level of the heirarchy here) could start pushing the marketing for LOTRO.  And that could make for some great growth -- and growing pains!

The curious questions go on and on.  We'll see in time.  Just another sign of how the game industry is starting to properly (or at least inevitably) converge with the "mainstream" entertainment markets.

Shava

former entertainment licensing professional...:)

I've said it before and I've said it again, DDO will eventually allow for player made modules.

The company that made AC2 and DDO is somehow swindling investors into taking huge risks.

Geez, why can't I find idiots to give me money so I can waste it?

Originally posted by brostyn

The company that made AC2 and DDO is somehow swindling investors into taking huge risks.

 

Geez, why can't I find idiots to give me money so I can waste it?

Lack of a business plan and/or existing revenue, too much snark, and too many comments like this on the public record? :)

Yrs,

Shava

/* currently writing a business plan for a game-related business */

Originally posted by shava

The overlap of IPs is really fascinating to me.  There are many many things that Turbine has said they can not do because they would infringe on New Line Cinema (the Time Warner unit that did the Peter Jackson LOTR movies).  On the other hand, New Line *screwed* the Tolkien estate on royalties, and has been in court with them involving a lot of rancor, and then Turbine just signed a lengthy extension with the Tolkien estate for MMO rights.

So the licensing politics of this may be interesting.  Tolkien estate politics and court cases aside, we could see the movie soundtrack and cutscenes in the game, which I personally think would be sweet. 

And then, New Line is struggling to get out the prequel movie (that little book called The Hobbit), and the game implications of them trying to tie in LOTRO might be very complicated, considering that's well in the past by the MMO timeline.  Will Time Warner place pressure?

On the other hand, now Time Warner, with their vast empire (start checking out the top level of the heirarchy here) could start pushing the marketing for LOTRO.  And that could make for some great growth -- and growing pains!

The curious questions go on and on.  We'll see in time.  Just another sign of how the game industry is starting to properly (or at least inevitably) converge with the "mainstream" entertainment markets.

 

Shava

former entertainment licensing professional...:)

Very very interesting!

This should give some reassurance to players that the company will continue to have the resources to continue operations and content.

What I am wondering is whether they will continue to focus on geographical expansion, or whether they will try to find a way to engage more of the old player base that left because they felt blah.

I have mixed feelings about this.  But one thing it sort of infers is that LotRO isn't a financial success to the point of  being able to fund other initiatives, and Turbine still requires outside capitol to fund new ventures.  (not really news I think).

Well, its a start, lets see what they do with the money.  I suspect the references to the asian market, being able to play shortly after visiting a web page and spreading out to consoles bodes for a bit different future for Turbine.

In fact, it sounds a lot like the road SOE recently announced for their future plans.

If only LOTRO would be worth playing.....  Then next 5 years would be great... But I hate the game.  I hate the UI - I hate the classes - I soooo hate the animations (can't even draw weapon while out of combat).   Kinda funnny Turbine is then talking about cusimasation in this article !!

 I use Time Warner and I play LOTRO. Turbine loves that Jestor!

Originally posted by Kyleran  

I have mixed feelings about this.  But one thing it sort of infers is that LotRO isn't a financial success to the point of  being able to fund other initiatives, and Turbine still requires outside capitol to fund new ventures.  (not really news I think).

heh the money that LoTRO has made and is making is going to pay off the investors that loaned them the money to make LoTRO and DDO. It is all just a big cycle. The face that investors were willing to give them money again shows that the previous investors. I can remember 2 deals for a total of about 60 million in loans, made a tidy sum.

instead of making a new MMO they should pump that money into their existing ones.  particularly DnD and the other one (Anarchy online i think).

Originally posted by Death1942

instead of making a new MMO they should pump that money into their existing ones.  particularly DnD and the other one (Anarchy online i think).

its Asheron's Call.

And I do agree with you :)

Originally posted by shava

 

Originally posted by brostyn

The company that made AC2 and DDO is somehow swindling investors into taking huge risks.

 

Geez, why can't I find idiots to give me money so I can waste it?

 

Lack of a business plan and/or existing revenue, too much snark, and too many comments like this on the public record? :)

Yrs,

Shava

/* currently writing a business plan for a game-related business */

Well, my business plan is to copy WoW. A lot of people are flocking to those games. Then I will let my fanbois tell the trolls that my game isn't a carbon copy of WoW.

I guess I won't mention my handle is brostyn on MMORPG.com forums, and they'll never know I'm laughing all the way to Cancun.

interesting indeed .

I hope that they'll announce that they will start working on AC3 later this year. While I think DDO and LOTRO can become very good MMOs, they really need to leverage their own IP.

Thanks for the link in it's entirety:) They are guessing what this could mean on other forums too.

One cool idea someone had was TimeWarner owns the Sci-Fi channel and there's going to be a new Star Wars/Star Trek? series so maybe Turbine will develop a MMO for the new sci-fi series.

Or they are guessing a Harry Potter MMO:)

awesome, they can bring back AC2! or perhaps not... :(

Ambitious plans, will be interesting to see how they incorporate user-made content.

Asheron's call...Asheron's Call...

come on Turbine fuel that game with more love!

Has anyone else thought that maybe if Time Warner see LotRO as unprofitable, instead of trying to push for more promotion/marketing of the game, they may just encourage Turbine to develop a fresh new title (or titles) based on a different IP? I don't think it's necessarily a great thing for the playing customer.

Hmm... Warner brothers also pushes another successful IP called Harry Potter.. Now wouldn't that just suck! 'Hurray! I got to level 2 now I need to save money for my dust-buster 2000 flying broom, so I can fly to muggleland yay!!!!'     BARF!!!

i also hope their short term plan is to polish and expand DDO and LotRO before embarking on a new ip.

You know, there's literally Thousands of good commercial quality D&D / AD&D paper quests, scenarios and campaigns in existence already from the last several decades, including ones published in the various company and fan magazines that have come and gone.

Has anyone thought about converting all those pre-existing assets into computer form?  At the very least all the hit tables and loot tables and treasure tables and other tedious data crap has been done already. 

As for Harry Potter, now that J.K. R. is done with books maybe she'd consider creating content for a MMO !

Depending on where you stand Turbine either sucks or blows. The only thing they seem to be successful at is bilking investors.