technology that lets players interact with each other through chatting in the game, negotiating trade deals for their virtual organizations, convincing other players to vote for them in political campaigns, and dividing up labor within virtual companies, for example.
Olson wouldn’t give any more specifics about the business simulations and virtual environments just yet. He did say, “Bringing simulations to the business world—that’s where our ‘change the world’ impact is going to come…It’s remarkably similar technology to the game technology.”
And although Novel’s main focus is on the game for now, it clearly has its eye on the larger business market—assuming it can make business processes more efficient through its simulations (which isn’t really clear yet). “Because of the money we can save customers, it’ll be a sizable amount of money compared to on the game side,” Olson says. “We’ll target Fortune 500 companies, and build our brand that way. We expect to help businesses save a lot of money because they can be much more efficient.”
As for the mechanics of raising venture capital in the current climate, Olson says he met with a Seattle investment group that seemed interested, but that deal stalled. “We went up to Vancouver, and it was shockingly fast,” Olson says. “We were looking for angel money, and got VC faster.” The deal took about four months to close.
Novel has doubled in size over the past year, and recently moved into a much larger office in Redmond (6,200 square feet instead of 700). Olson says he is still hiring for a couple of full-time engineering positions, and some part-time business positions.
The company will face some big hurdles with its business simulations, of course. One is branding, and getting companies to accept what is a “radical shift” in how they might use gaming technologies, Olson says. “We’ll have to prove the numbers and then get over some of the social expectations,” he says. Another hurdle will be getting the right distribution channels for its simulations, and adapting the products to what its corporate customers want. (It seems like no small feat to adapt MMO game mechanics to the world of business software.)
To that end, Novel is bringing on a few key strategic partners—big companies that are interested in using business simulations and virtual-reality technologies, and will help the startup test its products in return for a steep discount on using them. Olson declined to name any potential partners or customers yet, but he said large retail organizations are among them, because they spend a lot of time and money on human resources and recruiting. “We want to have businesses who see the potential of this, who want to get involved while we develop the product,” he says.
It might seem hard to believe, but if all goes well, your employer just might be using this kind of simulation technology in the coming years, either to help evaluate how well employees work together, or to hire new recruits—and there’s nothing virtual about that.
