How One Startup Aims to Revolutionize Online Gaming [INVITES]

Credit:

The constantly evolving worlds that Trion is developing for its new platform have more advantages than being always fresh. Zion can change games in response to player activity.

“Just like companies like Zynga in the casual games are constantly measuring what people do and improving their games in the casual space, we can now do this for video games," Buttler says.

Being able to tweak the game also opens a more diverse range of opportunities for advertising within games or creating virtual goods. Trion plans to release games across every genre -- role playing, strategy, and action games are already in the works -- and every game will have a different business model.

Aiming to Be Zynga for Video Games

Credit:

Before people played casual games on Facebook, they downloaded them from sites like Yahoo Games. Before that, maybe they played them on their Game Boys. The genre evolved to become more social and dynamic.

"The same is happening to video games, and we are really leading this transition where we make games that have the quality of traditional games, that have very different genres like role playing strategy, action, but they are also completely dynamic and live and incredibly social," Buttler says.

Trion's games allow hundreds of players to collaborate at once, and encourage users to work together for higher rewards.

Unlike social games on Facebook, however, the market for video games is expected to bring in

"Imagine you could do something similar [to what Zynga has done with casual games] to the much bigger category of premium video games," Buttler says.

Working With TV

Credit:

Trion's third scheduled game release, currently going by the title Syfy Action MMO will have a television component produced by the SyFy Channel. The show will tell a character story within the game's world. If something happens in the show, it will be reflected within the game world. Likewise, if a player does something heroic during the game, they might find their feat being discussed on the show.

The partnership will help the SyFy channel connect with its audience in-between episodes and seasons. Trion's main motive in joining the partnership is to introduce the MMO genre and its game to geeks who might not otherwise be online gamers.

“we want to branch out," Buttler says. "We want people to have the opportunity to get familiar with it a little bit. For example, by watching the show and then jumping into the game and maybe being a little more of an observer at first."

If you'd like to be part of Trion's Rift beta testing event, follow @RIFTgame on Twitter and retweat this article. Trion will DM 50 Mashable readers with invite codes.