La compagnie suèdoise MindArk a créé une nouvelle société, MindArk PE, afin de s'occuper de la gestion de leur jeu de rôle online, Project Entropia. Le changement de propriétaire est donc plus un changement légal qu'un véritable changement d'équipe. C'est d'ailleurs l'ancien managing director de MindArk qui va diriger MindArk PE, et un certain nombre d'employés de la nouvelle société seront issus de l'ancienne.
Project Entropia Taken Over by MindArk PE AB
Gothenburg, Sweden – April 23, 2003 – Project Entropia, the world's only virtual universe incorporating a real economy with a convertible currency, has been taken over by MindArk PE AB. Project Entropia has had an excellent reception from its users, with market penetration surpassing expectations. The intense development phase, during which some 15 million USD was invested, has now been completed.
A new phase of Project Entropia has now been initiated, where efforts will be concentrated on marketing, operations, customer support and globalization of the server structure. This also includes the development of several new language clients, in cooperation with local partners around the world. New additional content, which can be downloaded and enjoyed free of charge once a month, also remains in focus.
To undertake these massive tasks a new company, MindArk PE AB has been formed. MindArk PE AB has a suitable structure and financial prospects to undertake the efforts necessary to reach more than 100,000 simultaneous users.
Project Entropia is a virtual universe, downloadable at no cost from the Internet. The virtual world is an infrastructure for interactive entertainment, auction systems, community building, and social interaction; supported by a patent pending economy system with a currency freely convertible with real world currencies.
Project Entropia has received very favorable reports in trade magazines and from users. To focus attention on marketing and customer support, a separate organization has been formed, MindArk PE AB, which will concentrate on the operations of Project Entropia and market adoption outside the 60,000 plus initial user group.
Other activities previously carried out by MindArk AB will remain in the latter company. The new organization, MindArk PE AB, will basically have the same ownership as MindArk AB, except for a few institutional investors who have elected not to participate in the new company.
MindArk PE AB will be lead by Jan Welter Timkrans, previously managing director of MindArk AB, which he will now leave. Initially the employees will be recruited from MindArk AB.
The purpose is to improve customer service, and to reach new groups of users.
Jan Welter Timkrans:
"Project Entropia has left the development stage, and will now be marketed to customer groups which have not previously been exposed to Project Entropia. We have at present around 60,000 users; the aim is to expand this to 300,000 users before the end of the year 2003. Mid-term, we aim for well above one million users."
The new set-up will be valid from April 24 2003, and will be implemented by separate web pages. Current no-cost download sites will remain. Relevant supplier relations have been transferred to the new organization. For the user, no immediate change will be seen. For the immediate future, increased marketing activities and improved customer support will be noticeable.
The company MindArk PE AB operates Project Entropia. MindArk PE is a dedicated operating organization, which will also ultimately take on the continued development of Project Entropia. MindArk PE is formed at a stage when the basic development of Project Entropia is finished, and the project development organization can be released for other tasks.
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