Turbine - CEO Jim Crowley on New Investors
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.
advertisement “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.”
For those of you out there, like myself, who aren’t sure what equity financing is, Investopedia describes it as: “The act of raising money for company activities by selling common or preferred stock to individual or institutional investors. In return for the money paid, shareholders receive ownership interests in the corporation.”
In a conversation about the announcement, Crowley told MMORPG.com that the move is not much different from the way that any other company raises capital. They are simply selling equity, which is how they grow their business as they have “major initiatives” coming up.
In terms of their new backers, GGV, among other things, provides the company with more Asian market experience, as the company has what Crowley referred to as “feet on the ground” in Asia. The Asian marketplace may be more important than ever for Turbine as they prepare to launch Lord of the Rings Online in Korea in the second half of 2008 and a later Chinese launch late in the year or in 2009 and GGV provides, “an expertise that most Western companies don’t have organically.”
That brings us to talk a little bit about the more recognizable of the pair of companies in Time Warner. Now, just to give you a little bit of background on Time Warner, they are (obviously) a media giant and among the many projects that they have produced over the years was a little film trio directed by a guy named Peter Jackson. Of course, I’m talking about the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
Obviously, the partnership is one that makes sense for both parties. The overlap of IPs alone, without going into too much detail. With the announcement so new, Crowley was unable to give any specifics, but it stands to reason that there might be some cross-promotional work and maybe even a new Turbine IP (Though this is more speculative on my part than anything).
Said Crowley, “I think you can anticipate that over time, maybe not a long period of time, Turbine will be talking about new IPs and other things that will be coming down the line.”
I went on to ask Crowley how much input and control these new backers are going to have over Turbine and its processes:
“Turbine runs its business by doing what we think is right. We have our investors like any other company does, but they don’t control the company. There has been no change in the control of the company, we’ve just become a stronger company with more depth and more experience.”
So, what this really boils down to in the end is what this announcement will mean for the average Turbine customer:
“What it means in a nutshell is that there is tons of fun and entertainment coming down the pipe. Regardless of this announcement, one of the things that Turbine is focused on and wants to do is make sure that current and future players have an extraordinary experience.”
In the future, he said, they have Lord of the Rings Online mapped out on a five year plan so that players will be able to experience new content and / or expansions for the next five years (and beyond, but they do have a roadmap for the next five).
“It assures continuity. Turbine remains devoted and very passionate to insure a steady stream of content coming down in current game worlds and in future game worlds. That’s first and foremost. Secondly, it means that we’re growing in many different directions.”
In their original press release, Turbine said that they would “change the future of online entertainment”. This being a rather bold assertion, I asked Crowley if he could give us an idea of what exactly that means.
First, he told me that Turbine is investigating the world of cross-platform games, meaning consoles. “These worlds are so rich and robust, we do want them to be shared across platforms, both for existing and future worlds,” Crowley said. We should expect more details on the how and when “later on in the year”. He did make a point of clarifying that Turbine will remain dedicated to the PC, but want to make sure that people who want to enjoy the games (present and future) on the console will be able to do that.
Second, Turbine is going to look toward further empowering the user. They want to be able to incorporate user generated content into their worlds. “We think that’s really the next generation of MMOs,” he said. “Where the team is focused, is in the concepts of truly customizing environments… true freeform placement of objects and self-creation of dungeons and landscapes, even modelling and texture assets, etc.” He also talked about giving players more customization not only of their characters, but of the level caps, spells, attacks and other areas of the game. In short, Turbine is investigating ways to give the user more power over the games that they play. They plan to talk more about these concepts over the next few months.
While these ideas that were mentioned above would require a good deal of technological innovation as well, Crowley feels that Turbine is “uniquely situated to solve those technology challenges, just like I think we’re uniquely situated to solve the cross-platform MMO technology challenges. We’ve been here a long time. We’re really on our fifth generation of internal technology here so a lot of these efforts, while they are expensive and hard and require time and careful planning, they are well within our capabilities and we’re very excited about it.”
Third, they are working on issues of accessibility. Right now, with MMOs, it is often if not always the case that players will get their box or their download and then have to spend a great deal of time patching the game. This takes away from a player’s (and if you think about it possibly more importantly, a customer’s) experience with the game. It can also be intimidating to a lot of people who might be looking to try an MMO for the first time. Crowley feels that it doesn’t need to be that way and Turbine will be working toward solving the issue.
“One of our internal talking points is ‘you need to be in the world within a couple of minutes, from the time you click on a web ad (for example) to the time you’re in the world and that’s very do-able”.
When all is said and done, it seems as though the investment announcement from Turbine will mean changes for players, but changes that Turbine hopes will innovate and improve not only their existing titles, but also their future titles. We are told to sit tight for a while and in the coming weeks and months we will hear more about the specifics on how some of these ideas will come to fruition.
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?
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 */
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!
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).
its Asheron's Call.
And I do agree with you :)
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.
From a casual glance, it looks like Turbine has hit the magic jackpot.
Right now there are several huge media companies with tremendous power in the merging online media and entertainment arena. SONY/SOE, Vivendi/Activision-Blizzard and EA.
Time Warner is investing heavily in (and in all liklihood ultimately aquiring) content houses to stay competitive with these jugernauts. So turbine has done well enough, and has a large enough catalogue of games and IP to be a desireable partner or aquisition.
That's so lame. They won so many Game of the Year awards last year for LoTRO and LoTRO topped the charts here for highest rated game all last year. Till Age of Crap...I mean Conan came out.
Go back in your hole Troll.
I haven't played a turbine game yet that was entertaining or felt like anything other than a level grind. If they can come up with something that doesn't feel like a second job, I'd be willing to give them another shot. Hopefully they spend this forty million wisely, and by wisely, I mean I hope they don't rush to get another second-rate game out onto the market as fast as humanly possible.
And here is Troll #1's brother...Troll #2 who also talks out his butt.
LoTRO isn't a 2nd rate game. It took more awards than any other game last year. The critics gave it rave reviews.
It wasn't rushed to market. It had the smoothest and most successful launch of any games released in the last few years- if not the last decade.
LOTRO will impress me when they start adding servers. Maybe then Turbine can fund their own development.
Did I say that Lotr was rushed out? No, I didn't. Did I even mention LOTR in my post? Hmm, can't see that either. What I did say is that I hope Turbine doesn't rush to put out another second rate game. There's enough second-rate games out there right now that you should be able to see what I'm talking about.
If you're gonna accuse someone of being a troll, at least get your facts straight before you do, cause right now, I'm thinking that you're the one wearing the troll hat and talking out your butt.
Perhaps TW is doing this as a way to save/expand AOL...
In the beginning, AOL was the only way to play some games online [the original Neverwinter NIghts for example]. Perhaps they intend to make AOL a portal again - rather like a $OE Station pass - go through AOL and pay $5/month per title instead of the "normal" monthly fee, then sell advertising on the launch page?
Interesting development, we'll have to see how it pans out...
Asheron's Call 3 would be the only thing that would bring me back to the MMORPG community again!