Wait....huh?

Even if you’re not a gamer, as long as you aren’t living in an under-developed country like Canada, chances are good that you’ve either played an MMO game, know someone who has, or have heard the hubbub about them. It seems that every single game company out there at one point or another has investigated the feasibility and startup costs of creating their own MMO in an attempt to get some of the financial love that Blizzard enjoys from World of Warcraft. Setting up these game servers, in addition to game development, can be quite costly and finding investors for the venture is often difficult, since the number of people joining MMO’s is starting to level off.

In what is being considered as a bold, risky, and pretty much disturbing move, developer Mission Critical Studios has allied themselves with several non-industry companies to produce a new MMO that hopes to capture a largely un-tapped market: females 15-45.

“The working title for this project is Summer’s EVE Online, which will be on a non-PVP server and include the first three weeks for free. The activities we have planned for this world are engaging and entertaining, including various jobs with mini-games like cooking in the kitchen, cutting out coupons, adopting cute and cuddly pets, and lots of shopping, especially for collectible shoes. We’re putting more of an emphasis on clothing that you want your avatar to be seen in rather than having any practicality,” said a project manager, who wished to remain anonymous.

“With that in mind, the vast majority of the clothing is form-fitting, skimpy, and shows as much avatar skin as possible. People play MMO’s to escape reality and pretend. Chicks want people to look at them and think they’re hot.”

When asked about the odd-sounding three-week trial, my informant explained, “That’s just the first side of the server. The other week out of the month, we have a special PVP area we’re calling ‘World of Tampax’. It isn’t all straight-out battles with swords or guns, since broads haven’t shown as much interest in these areas in our testing.”

“While there are some PVP fights that involve moves like hair-pulling, fingernail-scratching, and rolling around in substances like mud once they’ve reached level 20, much of this area will be aimed at beating down male NPC’s with verbal attacks and ‘Jedi mind tricks,’ as well as ice cream eating contests.”

I remarked that it didn’t really sound violent, to which the manager replied, “Not crazy violent, sure, but I assure you that for at least that one week of the month, there will be blood.”

The reaction to this announcement seems to be evenly mixed.

“Women can play ‘normal’ games and don’t need something catered to us,” said Katie Thombuoy. “Give me a 360 and a copy of Modern Warfare and I will show you the meaning of pain. This is just another bulls*** corporate attempt to get our money. Activision would never do that.”

“Can guys sign up for the PVP server?” asked a male who only identified himself as S3xyBrian_94. “I just want to watch the lvl 20+ battles.”

The only other details released currently around this title is that it will drop “some time Q4 2010,” and boxed copies will ship with a bottle of Midol®.

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