Game vets found Trion World Network

Former EA exec Lars Buttler, ex-New World prez Jon Van Caneghem form new California-based publisher/developer.

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With broadband Internet connections becoming more and more widespread, online gaming is connecting people for frantic fragfests, impromptu meet-and-greets, and online friendships. The success of massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft has the industry's bigwigs scampering to be prepared for the online gaming rush, and today they got one more competitor.

Lars Buttler, former vice president of Global Online at Electronic Arts, and Jon Van Caneghem, founder and president of New World Computing (the Might & Magic franchise), have formed a new company named Trion World Network, the company announced today. TWN is being financially backed by Doll Capital Management and Trinity Ventures, and will be headquartered in Redwood City, California.

"Broadband has created a new frontier in game development, similar to the first explosion of game development in the 1980s," said Caneghem. "Designers are free to be creative and explore concepts and designs that were previously impossible or unheard of."

Though the company hasn't formally announced any projects, it has revealed its strategy going forward.

"We started Trion to leverage all the inherent capabilities of broadband, provide original entertainment, and define the future of media in the global broadband era," said Buttler.

23 Comments

  • _Sam_

    Posted Sep 27, 2006 7:05 pm PT

    hopefully they do good things

  • jakeboudville

    Posted Sep 26, 2006 8:08 pm PT

    interesting

  • Murpheus007

    Posted Sep 26, 2006 1:01 pm PT

    While not everything that EA makes is not a gem, they do make some very solid games. Does Capcom make nothing but great games? I don't think so. Does SEGA make nothing but great games? I rest my case. I think the forming of a new publisher/developer regardless of their merits, is a good thing. For all of us. They might be the next big thing, or be part of the next big thing. I've always said. If you don't like it, don't play it. If all they (or EA for that matter) make is bad games, don't buy them and they will adapt or fail.

  • goddessakasha

    Posted Sep 26, 2006 10:56 am PT

    Uh... right.

    Hey, I got this idea to make this thing with this thing that you can run on the internet, and it does this stuff with this one thing, but you can do it with all kinds of other people, and it'll be fun!!!! Gimme money!

  • ajsheppard

    Posted Sep 26, 2006 10:05 am PT

    Buttler was at EA for like a year

  • metdevthegamer

    Posted Sep 26, 2006 9:40 am PT

    That's interesting. I wish them well in their pursuits.

  • LordAndrew

    Posted Sep 26, 2006 9:35 am PT

    Trion?

  • ldonyo

    Posted Sep 26, 2006 9:09 am PT

    A press release to announce the forming of a company with only a vague idea of what they are going to do, but firm in their belief that it will be online gaming of some sort. If that's how they pitch to the VC folks, they aren't going to get a lot of capital to get started, no matter how shining their credentials might be.

  • darkdaej

    Posted Sep 26, 2006 7:00 am PT

    given the fact that the dude behind new world computing is behind this, the games they end up developping have some promise. Might and Magic purely stole a couple years of my life as a teen in the 90s and early 2000s

    Besides, EA has become the bigwig. only normal that they throw crappy mainstream game after crappy mainstream game. But apparently, this is working for ea... people seem to like playing crappy mainstream games...

  • Fallout_red

    Posted Sep 26, 2006 12:08 am PT

    Hope they do not follow EA's path.

  • comthitnuong

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 5:47 pm PT

    well as long as they make a good game...

  • WolfSkill5544

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 4:34 pm PT

    Cool. Good luck to those guys and make an interesting and fun game.

  • mark_unix

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 4:01 pm PT

    i am going to expect as much from it as i did from that phantom console scheme.
    zero.

  • BelmontMaster

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 3:50 pm PT

    Lars I have got to say your a smart man for quitting EA good luck in the future with your company.

  • Monstromo

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 3:48 pm PT

    Trion announces its going forward strategy:

    "We started Trion to leverage all the inherent capabilities of broadband, provide original entertainment, and define the future of media in the global broadband era," said Buttler. And, I announce my going forward strategy:

    "I started my passenger vehicle to traverse all super highways accross the continental divide and to determine future routes available in this common era," said Monstromo.

    LOL. What a bunch of crap. Just say it in regular old English.

    Sphincter says what?

  • j_vega07

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 3:33 pm PT

    have you guys seen that some people got inside Ubisoft ___ftp:____ site and got a lot of information im not saying the link to it cuz some people might cause some damage to their website.

  • hemakm3

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 3:24 pm PT

    Got a strategy---that's a start.

  • EMAN2g

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 3:10 pm PT

    I can't tell if this is a good thing since they were from EA...oh well...only time will tell

  • drangel_jam

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 3:10 pm PT

    hunh!?

  • methedemon

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 3:07 pm PT

    nice..

  • DarthVaderNDS

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 3:07 pm PT

    Let's hope they make god console online games also .

  • jrlc1

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 2:54 pm PT

    lets hope they bring something new to the industry

  • lafigueroa

    Posted Sep 25, 2006 2:51 pm PT

    Cool, hope to see some good stuff from these guys

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