Sun as MMOG Engine
Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOG) is not top of mind when one thinks of Sun Microsystems. But it turns out that the technology that makes massive online games go fast is virtually identical to what Wall Street and stock trading require.
For more texture, see this Business Week article.
[tease]
“People talk about cannibalization in the MMOG space in general, but I don’t believe that,” says [Sun's chief gaming officer, Chris] Melissinos.
“I believe there’s cannibalization of a genre within that space. The market for men-in-tights MMOGs is narrowing. I don’t believe cannibalization of something so broad as online multiplayer games is possible. It’s like saying television programming cannibalizes each other which is why we only had four television networks. Well cable came on the scene and we now have 250+ channels of programming that blew a hole right into the side of that market space. You could say that most of those channels are crap, but there’s an audience for every single one of those channels. I don’t think the people running Home & Garden Network are in any way cannibalizing the Sci Fi channel’s audience.
“We think this is going to be the kind of model that opens up broader content. There’s probably a market for a 5,000 person competitive needlepoint game for grandmothers. No one would build it today because the economics wouldn’t work. With our technology, you could. And you and I as EverQuest or WoW or even Halo 2 players, would never touch it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a channel of viewers waiting to get access to that content.”