Terra Lycos starts paid online gaming service

Reshma Kapadia

NEW YORK: Internet media giant Terra Lycos SA officials said it had started a

new subscription-based online gaming service beginning Tuesday that lets Web

surfers play PC games without having to buy the software.

The move comes at a time Internet media companies are looking to offset the

sharp downturn in advertising spending that has put a dent in revenue through

offering basic services that generate registration and paid services that

consumers are willing to pay for because of better features..

"As we have been looking at opportunities in the markets, one thing

popped out in terms of consumer demand. The explosive PC gaming market,"

said Meredith Hanrahan, vice president of entertainment at Terra Lycos in an

interview.

The company, created by the merger of Spain's Terra Networks and US search

engine Lycos Inc., aims to target the 50 percent of its users that connect to

the Web via broadband -- often through work. The service will make Terra Lycos

the first portal to come up with a subscription game portal and will offer Web

surfers a variety of games to rent such as Centipede and Roller Coaster Tycoon.

"We see that we have more than 47 million consumers playing online every

month. We see two pockets within our network -- young adults, and older more

broadly appealing mass market consumer on Gamesville," Hanrahan said.

Online gaming is a growing industry, with Electronic Arts Inc.'s EA.com

ranking as one of the most-visited and most-used sites on the Web. EA.com offers

both online components to its traditional retail PC games, as well as action,

card and puzzle games through its Pogo.com unit. Most of the Pogo titles in

particular are available for free.

RealNetworks Inc.'s RealArcade portal has a similar setup, with many smaller

games available for free, while larger and more detailed games can be downloaded

and played for varying fees.

In addition, both Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN offer game pages on

their portals, with free access to many types of games. "The current online

offerings are really a mish mash of individual solutions that haven't really

succeeded en masse," said Steven DeBenedictis, senior product manager for

multimedia and broadband at Terra Lycos.

A user will be get a choice of games from the company's offerings each time

they come to the service, which will have a revolving catalog of games each

cycle. The user will then register to play a particular game or a collection of

five in a certain theme and then parts of the game will be downloaded.

"We are taking the cable TV approach - subscribe to a channel and that

channel will be themed such as family or action," DeBenedictis said.

"New content will come in like it does in like HBO and Showtime and we will

present content people ask for and keep buying."

A five game package will cost nearly $8 a month while a 20-game pack that

allows access to all of Terra Lycos' titles will initially cost nearly $14 a

month.

"It's a different experience and content than free games. Richer content

and more comprehensive experience. Also, this is specific to broadband

consumers. You need a broadband connection otherwise the experience will be

nightmarish," DeBenedictis said. "Those people have been looking for

services like this because they have a stronger ability to get richer experience

on the Internet."

Terra Lycos hopes to get one percent of the $210 million revenue generated by

online games over the course of a year.