barbiegirls

The rush to build virtual worlds for kids is on. With spaces like Webkinz and Habbo Hotel dominating, and Gaia Online coming up fast, Mattels Barbie Girls which launched in April has its work cut out. Barbie may just have a little more to worry about now though, as she chases the preteen girl market, as details on Sony's new "Free Realms" emerge in this NYT story. Free spaces filled with horses and puppies and no doubt princesses and pretty dresses as well.

Free Realms is basically aimed at children, especially girls. The game will be free to play in general, but will require paid membership for access to special zones and activities (hence the term “velvet rope”). In terms of microtransactions, players will be able to buy virtual in-game items like pets and clothing à la carte. And there may also be advertising inside the game.

Free Realms is due out this winter on the PC.

Though it freaked me out just a little bit registering for a kids world, I took a brief look at newly launched (mentioned in Barbie girl in a barbie world earlier on Metaversed) BarbieGirls.com today. The Flash based 2D "world" was almost impossible for me to use as my eyes are old and feeble and you can't adjust the damn font size on a Flash game, but even once in, I found it horribly difficult to use. I had vague plans to see if my 2yr old would like it if I did the controls for her, but it was just too damn tough. Maybe it's me being old, maybe im just not very bright, but just possibly, you have to really, really love Barbie to get it. Either way, I didn't.

If you don't get thrown at the first hurdle as I did, apparently you can shop at the mall (the picture is me visiting the pet shop..), decorate your room, chat with other kids and generally hang out. In July though, there'll be a 4 1/2 inch portable device that plays music and "unlocks" content in BarbieGirls.com -- No word on whether that device can actually function as the controller though.

I remember the girls in my street some 25 or more years back that liked Barbie, Sindy and similar things. Spiteful little horrors they were, im sure they'll have bags of fun blocking eachother and forming little preteen gangs in BarbieGirls :)