Areae's cartoony logo.

　　The big money potential of massively multiplayer online games is apparent in the recent surfacing of Areae, the development studio founded by experienced MMO hand Raph Koster. Founded back in July (but only officialy announced last Friday), the company boasts its "venture-backed" roots on the company Web site--the big money coming from two venture capital firms vested in the global high-tech sector, Crescendo Ventures and Charles River Ventures.

　　The Areae roster is confined currently to its president, Koster, and vice president of production John Donham (who also hails from Sony Online, with a stint at Simutronics before that).

　　Whether Areae will focus on gameplay as its forte or something more closely tied to a technology application is unclear, the company Web site stating only that "we're working on some new tech that will literally change how virtual worlds are made."

　　A clue to what to expect from Koster and company are cleariy hinted at in this comment to GameSpot, conveyed at this year's Austin Game Conference. "The things I'm really interested in doing, and for that matter the things that the startup are going to be centered around," Koster said, "are essentially not really things that fit into the standard publisher model at all. So I'm interested in doing things that go more mass market--significantly more mass market than what we tend to even think of as mass-market games. And I'm just not really in the mindset of making MMORPGs anymore. I'm still interested in making online worlds, but I'm really interested in making very different kinds of worlds than just MMORPGs."

　　Advisors to the company include high-concept MUD creator Richard Bartle, advisor to The Sims Amy Jo Kim, social computing expert Randy Farmer, and writer Cory Doctorow. The company is currently advertising for a lead programmer, senior server programmer, and artist on its Web site.