In the final piece of Square Enix news today before Siliconera becomes Squarera (sounds like some kind of level two magic spell…) they have a brand new mobile phone game called Ellark. Ellark ventures into the brave new territory of online games. Like many cash-op based MMOs, Ellark is free to play and download. Square Enix hopes to pay the bills through microtransactions governed by their new Mobicoin currency. These virtual tokens can be purchased with a credit card and used to purchase content.
Ellark, which comes out in June, will use Mobicoins for item purchases. Square Enix hasn’t discussed how the game works, but it will use mobile mail for communication between players. Ellark is being coined as a Mail Play Game, which sounds novel. Maybe not as headline catching as Final Fantasy IV: The After, but this is interesting on technological level. Also the concept art looks pretty nice.
Images courtesy of Square Enix.
Published: Apr 16, 2008 08:53 am