Virgin to deliver digital games service ‘A World of My Own’

Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 13 February 2007 08:18

Opinion and Analysis

Sir Richard Branson – Chairman of Virgin has announced a plan to enter the burgeoning world of digital game download services. 

Virgin Games together with Game Domain International (GDI) plan the service for later this year.  Titled ‘A World of My Own’ (AWOMO) the service is being described as a 3D ‘virtual world’ platform.

What that means is anybodies guess, but Sir Richard Branson is excited; "This is a really exciting development for us, as it gives us the opportunity to do for PC games what iTunes has done for music," said Branson.  "The GDI technology will revolutionise how the mass market will play games, and will give them more choice for less money."

UK based Koch Media (X3 Reunion and Blitzkrieg: Rolling Thunder) have already expressed interest in the new technology. 

Chris Gorman OBE, director of GDI, added: "The highly alluring combination of being able to download a game in minutes instead of the existing standard few hours and the promoted mega cash prize gaming tournaments will create a Mecca of opportunities for sponsors and promoters to target the vast gaming community."

AWOMO will launch later in 2007 with a promised large number of titles available for download.  Already there are many digital games services available, most notably Valves’ Steam, which can drip feed games to clients PC’s for activation within a short time frame.  AWOMO will need to provide content, pricing and technology that can rival this sort of distribution to succeed.