AlienPants has in the past focussed its efforts on the Telecoms market, primarily being involved in the creation of Game Service Providers, places that provide collections of game servers as well as organised competitions to support Online Games after they are published. Now AlienPants is offering their depth of experience, market knowledge and Community Support expertise in Online Games and Community Management to Games Developers and Publishers.
This service aims to provide Publishers and Developers with immediate access to specific expertise in relation to online games and ways games can be targeted towards the growing market for online games players. Drawing on the vast experience available, as well as being able to call on an enormous array of talent from across Europe and the USA, AlienPants can provide an insight directly into the way online games players perceive games, and can assist in ensuring that new games get their message across properly. The members of the AlienPants Consultancy team are active members of the Online Games and MMORPG communities, and so can draw on not only their own experience but the opinions of community leaders to help avoid the problems companies have fallen prey to during the development, marketing and ongoing management of online games and their customer base.
"We are probably the only independent company in the world that has this much experience in the creation and management of very large communities of multi-platform and multi-game online games players." Said AlienPants CEO Tom Gordon. "We've been involved in online games almost since their inception, and we have worked quietly in the background driving many of the innovations in community management for online games taken for granted these days. We pioneered the use of IRC as a Community Management and Support medium, and continue to rely on this experience to provide a high level of Customer Support."
"We've now decided to offer our expertise directly to Publishers and Developers, to assist them in ensuring their online games will be well received, and provide the necessary flexibility and interactivity to allow for the natural growth of online communities." Tom continued. "In recent years there have been a number of promising online games that have unfortunately fallen by the wayside due to their complexity when trying to play them online, or because of the lack of information available to potential purchasers. Our experience in running Game Service Providers and knowing what online games players are interested in places us in a unique position to be able to help Publishers and Developers when it comes to positioning and marketing new online titles. And with the recent announcements regarding Xbox Live and PS2 Online, the online games market, along with the number of people getting online, is set to explode."
About AlienPants
Prior to the formation of AlienPants, Tom Gordon and Michael Large were part of the original group of people who founded BarrysWorld, the UK's largest Online Games community, and were part of the original team who sought funding to turn the volunteer-run BarrysWorld into a commercial entity. When BarrysWorld was sold to Electronics Boutique (now Game UK), they left to found AlienPants as a way of taking the experience gained at BarrysWorld and applying it for other companies.
AlienPants was contracted in 2001 to create an entire new Online Games Community for British Telecom, under the guide of their recently purchased Games Domain brand. During the year from November 2001 to October 2002, AlienPants, under Michael Large's guidance, created a whole new Game Service Provider and Online Games Community for British Telecom, building a service based on core technologies and business concepts originally devised for BarrysWorld, and a service that grew to rival the more established services in the UK. As an adjunct to this, Charlotte McCarron was brought to Games Domain to provide specific editorial control to the Multiplayer section of the Games Domain website, and to act as a liaison between the Games Domain Web brand and the users of the Games Domain Online Games service.
Tom Gordon has also been heavily involved in building and managing QuakeNet, the world's largest Internet Relay Chat (IRC) service, which recently recorded more than 153,000 concurrent users spread across Europe and the US. Tom Gordon has been an Operator on QuakeNet for more than a year, helping to guide Community Support and policy-making across the network. The non-commercial, volunteer-run QuakeNet itself is the home to the largest concentration of Online Games players in the world, providing an organised and safe chat environment for more than five times as many gamers as its nearest commercial rival. QuakeNet is now home to the chat-based online support services for most of the major Game Service Providers in Europe, including BarrysWorld, Tiscali Games Gmbh, Wireplay, Thrustworld, ShellEurope, Game Server Profis Gmbh and Games Domain.