Alphanim and Virtual Fairground sign worldwide licensing agreement

First phase available to consumers April 2009 in North America and Europe 

Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Vincennes, France

Virtual worlds and MMO games production company Virtual Fairground (www.virtualfairground.com) and French animation house Alphanim, a Gaumont company (www.alphanim.com, www.gaumont.com), today announced that they will bring Alphanim’s animation hit series Galactik Football to the web in the form of a cutting-edge, Flash based virtual world and MMO game for kids and tweens.

The two companies signed a worldwide licensing agreement that will see a phased international roll-out of the game and service starting spring 2009 up until a full launch in 2010, the year of the FIFA World Cup. Virtual Fairground assumes full development and publishing duties. Devised and produced by French animation studio Alphanim, Galactik Football is a vibrant mix of 2D and toon-shaded 3D and follows the progress of the Snow Kids, a futuristic football team from the planet Akillian as they try to win the prestigious Galactik Football Cup. The show blends drama, action sports and magic in the form of the mysterious Flux force and is currently on air in over 100 countries.

"We’re looking forward to opening up the Galactik Football galaxy to kids”, says Maarten Brands of Virtual Fairground. “In a safe and extensive online world, kids will soon be able to create their own players and teams and compete for the Galactik Cup. Besides the overall quest, we’re creating numerous mini-games, fun distractions and socialization features for a kids and tween audience.”

The entire Flash-based world will run directly from the browser, without the need for a client or other plug-in. Ilja Goossens of Virtual Fairground: “We’re creating this high-end entertainment experience for the web, but accessibility is a key feature for us and our audience. That is why we have set this challenging development goal for ourselves: making everything run from the browser. We are extremely proud of the cutting-edge 2D and 3D graphical elements our team is producing at the moment. This game will be an eye-brow raiser when we launch its first phase in April.”

Cedric Petitpas, VP Marketing & Licensing for Alphanim: “We are extremely pleased with this new online project which is going to bring a new and exciting dimension to Galactik Football, giving kids the possibility to interact and finally take part in many fun ways in the ultimate competition.”

Last weekend we felt very proud to have been one of the sponsors of the worlds very first ever Global Game Jam. A Game Jam is an event where game developers and students get grouped together and work for 48 hours to create a concept or a demo for a game. Usually based on an assignment. We sat in on, and judged the finale of the Dutch chapter of the Game Jam. The qualilty of work that came from the 21 development teams (140 people!) was really very high and the amount of work done in just one long weekend was sometimes staggering. For some of us, the event also served as a reminder of what creatives can dream up free from commercial and other constraints. It was often inspiring to see these very pure game concepts in such an early phase.

Needless to say, we'll be there next time as well and we're sure that the developers that participated (a lot of them students or beginners in the industry) can look forward to a great career.

We're very pleased to announce two new additions to the Virtual Fairground management team.

Fulfilling the role of Head of Production is Ard Bonewald. Ard holds the responsibility over all our internal and external production and development. He brings a wealth of design and production experience to the company as he has worked in both online, console and PC game development on a number of successful titles. Previous to Virtual Fairground, Ard was game producer at Gamehouse and RealGames (both part of RealNetworks) and a designer at Playlogic. He also teaches Game Design at the Utrecht School of the Arts.

Duncan Sandt is our new Creative Director. Duncan has worked on a number of virtual worlds and games for children and youth, such as the prize winning Hello You, Tweens and Arbomasters. For the last 2 years Duncan was lead game designer at console and PC game developer W!Games.