The New Instant Messaging Battlefront
Anyone who was played a MMORPG while being
online (which is, you know, the whole freaking
point), knows that it's often a pain to IM while you're in the game. Either you have to
relentlessly alt-tab, or you have to just live in the game-world or the real(online)-world.
The new Matrix MMORPG seems to be addressing this by embedding a mechanism for interfacing with AOL IM right in the game. This is brilliant, and a master move for AOL. The more games they can get to "License" their technology, the more users they will get to switch to their platform.
The sticking point is this - If Microsoft were to pull this with PC versions of their X-Box live titles, every anti-trust watchdog would be crying foul, saying that their monopoly was allowing them to leverage games to drive users to their Messenger service. AOL can get away with it because they're just giving the game makers a way to build it in, not doing it themselves.
Genius
