At an event sponsored by Sony Online Entertainment Gamasutra was able to pin down company president John Smedley about future company plans and goals.

Part of their discussion involved a “free to play” MMO title called FreeRealms due out 4th Quarter 2007 for PC, and 1st Quarter 2008 on Playstation 3.

Initial access to the game will be free, no credit card required to download the client and jump in. However entering special areas of the game world, buying custom FreeRealms or player generated items may cost money (such as clothing) via micro-transactions. The game is also ad-supported which will subject you to an unspecified amount of interstitials or product tie in’s.

As far as the game world goes it will be a whimsical fantasy setting, think “Shrek” and won’t be taking itself very serious (which is good because anybody other than casual gamers won’t be taking it too seriously either).

Gameplay ideas currently seem to revolve around mini-games such as fighting monsters, racing around go-kart style racetracks, soccer matches, or playing chess games in a pub. Which all leads more to the look and feel of a Popcap or Yahoo games experience and demographic than the hardcore 18-35 MMO gamer bracket.

Smedly continued: “Our big goals with the game are whimsy and accessibility. User-generated content: I want to get it out of the space of buzzwords and into the game. Everybody talks about it, but it’s hard to pin down. I rather give people some lines, and say “color inside these any way you want.” Then you can’t just generate whatever you want, but you have users creating content themed towards our goals.”

With such a push for user-generated content similiar to Second Life we have to wonder what controls are being put in place to prevent the virtual red light disctricts and other content or services that are so popular in SL.

Yet he urged: “But those games don’t have that kind of mass level of accessibility, I think, even World of Warcraft notwithstanding. We’re not aiming for those kinds of numbers with FreeRealms, we’re aiming for a lot bigger. I think that bringing something that I can play with my kids to the market is a big deal.”

Depending on how SOE develops and monitors their new free MMO could completely redefine casual and kid friendly.

Source: GamaSutra