The Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group will be spending a total of US$ 100 million to develop new multi-player games, virtual worlds, and other similar services that will be targeting children. According to Cyma Zarghami, president of MTV Network's Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group, the network sees the potential for a previously untapped market composed mostly of kids aged 8 to 14 gaming online.

Nickelodeon's online services are designed to cater to the different age groups. Services like myNOGGIN are designed primarily for pre-schoolers; Nicktropolis and the Nick Gaming Club are for young children; and The-NGames.com for girls. These services all promised to provide safe online gaming environments, child-friendly content, and most importantly, protection against predators. These online services will be developed and released over the course of the next 2 years as part of the Networks' plans to be leaders in the casual gaming sector.

Nickelodeon has also announced its expansion of its currently existing sites such as AddictingGames, Shockwave.com, and Neopets.com. The network explains that while these sites will place emphasis on developing new virtual worlds and online games for release, they are striving to keep things very child-friendly.

"Across all of MTVN's online sites, gaming is an important original genre and we are committed to delivering fresh content to our audiences in all of our demos," said Ms. Zarghami. With Nickelodeon's current online casual games logging in almost a billion game plays a month, it's not too hard to imagine its efforts paying off.

While Nexon America's MMO dance title, Audition, just rolled out smoothly (it's now available for download at Nexon's official site), there's more good news for you bubblegum pop fans. It turns out that, on top of friendly dance competition face-offs among virtual friends, Hilary Duff of "Lizzie McGuire" fame signed up her latest single to be included in the dance title.

Duff's new song, "With Love" from her "Dignity" album, will be included in the continuously-growing library of hit songs in the game. As response to such a deal, the teenage idol couldn't contain her excitement. She had this to say:

One of the biggest ways I connect with my fans is online. And now with Audition, I have a cool new venue where I can share my music. Not to mention, I can't wait to see all the crazy and original dance competitions featuring "With Love."

Hilary Duff is one of the first artists to announce their contribution to the MMO title. And since she's the first, we're going to be hearing her song plugged in for the game's TV commercial, which is currently being aired on MTV, Nickelodeon, and other channels. As mentioned earlier, the game is already available. And we do have to stress that it's free for download and won't require any subscription fees. So, to get the ball rolling with your dance-athons, we dare you to click the play button below:

Call it the Chuck E. Cheese of the virtual worlds, if that moniker hasn't been taken by Neopets, Hello Kitty World, or whatever MMO Disney is cooking up now. It seems Nickelodeon's getting in on the action with Nicktropolis, a new virtual community they've created for Nick fans and kids everywhere to enjoy.

Now, the site isn't up yet, but the creators have promised that the place will allow for people to chat, make avatars based on Nickelodeon's rather extensive intellectual property, and play games with other members of the online metropolis.

They've also taken pains to ensure that the site is kid-friendly, with round-the-clock moderators watching for potential predators or trolls, as well as an automated dictionary to filter out profanity. They've also set up an option for parents to actually restrict kids from responding beyond pre-programmed answers. Not exactly something you'd see in an MMO, but it does seem like a very good idea for those folks who want to make sure their kids have a good place to play online.

Of course, given how the target demographic is a little younger than the folks over here, who are definitely either ready and able to play WoW or can at least enjoy "cooler" sounding games like Anarchy Online, at least we have an apt picture for you to enjoy thinking about.