[Homerun]

Interview with Rebecca Newton (some of you may know her as Becs from Habbo Hotel). She now works for Mind Candy.

Can you give us a brief introduction about who you are, your community, and your position there?

I'm Rebecca Newton, Head of Community for Mind Candy Ltd, which is based in London, UK.

Favorite foods? Drinks? Movies? TV shows? Songs?
Fish, green beans, mexican food, diet coke, independent films, LOST and EastEnders (what can I say), and I like all kinds of music. Right now I listen to Rufus Wainwright and Jude Johnstone quite a bit. And Brandi Carlisle.

What would you consider your virtual world's accomplishments up to this point?

I have been in this business for a long time - back to the early 90s at AOL. We had the first Virtual World online but only about 20 people ever bothered with it. It was avatar-based and we had this cool hippie school bus and speech bubbles coming out of the avatars. But it never really caught on. The first official, successful VW I was involved in was Habbo, from its early days when it was London based. And now Moshi Monsters, which is growing like MAD every day. It's fabulous.

Any failures your chatting community has faced?

We have no chat yet at Moshi Monsters so luckily I can so "no" with confidence.

What led you to create Moshi Monsters? Where did you get the name from?

Michael Acton-Smith (CEO) created Moshi Monsters a few years ago in one of his famous notebooks, only it was called "Diablo" up until last summer. It started out as a much more complicated VW than what it has developed into now. It involved outer space and Kings and Lords and things like that. We've simplified it to Species of Monsters and Monstro
City. Though we are working on some complex game design that involves something we'll likely call "Moshlings." You'll have to stay tuned to the Community area of Moshi Monsters to learn about Moshlings and other features.

I'm not sure where the name came from. I'll find out and get back to you on that :)

What is your opinion on fan sites? Some tend to release classified information/graphics in order to promote themselves and gain traffic to their website. How will Moshi Monsters deal with these types of sites?

We welcome and love fansites and we'll likely have special graphics, sneak previews and lots of involvement from Moshi fansites. I don't have any problems with fansite owners getting special privs or promoting themselves for traffic. It's a great way to promote your brand online and the fansite owners are loyal fans who should be recognised, in my opinion. We've already got a fansite at Moshi. It's pretty exciting stuff. One of the designers and I are developing a Fansite Kit so we're pretty chuffed about the whole concept.

Moshi Monsters is a relatively new developing MMOCC, what are your plans to create a higher user base and grab new members to your community?

We're growing rapidly and haven't done any formal marketing so word of mouth is still the best form of advertising. We built the MySpace, Bebo, Facebook widget, which has really worked out well for us. We've got a 'Tell a Friend' scheme in the works as well, with a reward system. And the entire game concept is based on sharing your Monster with your friends and making new international friends, so I feel very confident we'll keep growing like mad. And growth is exponential, of course. The more players we have, the more will join.

We are working out deals with various folks in the industry, as well. There is quite a lot of interest in Moshi as there's really nothing like it at the moment. So, we're pretty excited about that of course.

What stage is Moshi Monsters at now in the developing process?

Public Beta stage. We're doing releases about every 2 weeks now with major upgrades and feature releases. We have a crack tech team, really brilliant. I call them "The London Brain Trust."

How will Moshi Monsters stand out from all the other MMOCCs out there?

Moshi is really a MMOSG (multi monster online social game). We already stand out because we have superb animation and graphics. There is nothing as clever as Moshi out there at this time. Check it out and you'll see what I mean.

There have been a large amount of hopeful chats starting up - many of which end up failing. How will Moshi Monsters try to avoid this stereotype of new virtual worlds failing within the first couple of months?

Moshi doesn't do chat at this time. Anyone can chat anywhere online now. We don't see any real benefit to creating yet another place for people to chat as usual. So, when we do chat, it will not be traditional free for all , spam at will, abuse people, chat. It'll be well thought out and have a twist to it :) watch and see.

Is there anything we should be looking out for or looking forward to?

Moshlings and other clever game design.

Any MMOCCs you regularly visit other than Moshi Monsters?

Michael spends a lot of time in all of them, especially 'Stardoll' - to see how things work. I spend some time in them but mostly my assistant does the research on them. I still go to Habbo now and then and I'm a major SL fan (Second Life). I'm actually a mentor in SL. I love the whole concept.

How would you describe your moderation style? Is there a strict moderation style that will be enforced upon your moderators when Moshi Monsters is released?

We have a unique and innovative style of moderation, which I'm very proud of. I've worked closely with some of the tech geniuses of "The London Brain Trust" at Mind Candy to develop a three-tiered moderation system. I won't go into details but it makes the player primarily responsible for moderating themselves. We have reporting throughout the system and a great back end system for dealing with the reports. Our system is so efficient, I haven't had to hire more than one Moderator to date.

I think having Moderators noticeable in a teen or kids site perpetuates problems. My experience (15 years of it), clearly supports my theory as well. It turns kids into tattle tales and Moderators spend their time on useless personal squabbles instead of what they're hired to do - keeping everyone's experience safe and positive and enjoyable.

Tell us something we don't already know about you.

Ha! I always wanted to tap dance. How's that? I also plan to learn Sign Language. I think it's fascinating.

If you were to add one feature to any MMOCC, what would it be? Why?

Facial expressions. That's the key to all VWs and MMO... Read "Snow Crash" and you'll know what I mean.


Any advice to those wanting to start their own virtual chat?

Yah, don't do it :) ha! Virtual chat is nothing but trouble and there are too many to compete with. Do something you really LOVE - that's what you should do. But the market is saturated with chats. I wouldn't bother starting a chat. I'd make it something unique and have chat as a feature.

Where do you see the MMOCC market in ten years?

Replacing TV, hopefully. But seriously, I think we'll be developing our own gaming experiences in real time. That's going to be pretty cool.

Where do you see Moshi Monsters in ten years?

The number one MMOSG. And the only MMOSG that actually requires brain power.

What does the future hold for Ms. Rebecca Newton?

Retirement, in the most fashionable and elegant sense of the word.

Thank you for your time! :)

Rebecca Newton
Head of Community at Mind Candy <http://mindcandy.com>