One could argue, but it's difficult to nail down a title that offers an immersive baseball experience like Ultimate Baseball Online (UBO) does. 18 players, one field, free to play - can you ask for more? Some of your questions may be answered with Gamasutra's interview with Netamin Communication Corp. Event Marketing Manager Sean Mackay.

As a level-headed gamer would guess, this entry to the sports genre was a wild attempt to attract a rather small market. Sure, MMOGs are big, but only a handful like Freestyle actually enjoyed success. UBO, however, doesn't see this as a problem. In fact, here's what Mackay said:

Freestyle has done some great things with their video game. It is important that sports MMOs generate market share in the gaming industry and they are making a move to help spearhead that initiative. Our games differ greatly however and I think that our communities can coincide quite easily. Building market awareness and increasing its depth is the most important key to sports MMO success. We are all helping each other in this regard.

Such ambitious titles that aim to put a lot of people together come with plenty of obstacles in development. Netamin had its share in problems, especially in network issues. Fortunately, a patent "that allow for the connectivity of a specific group - the players on the field - to send and retrieve data at the same rates" made it work.

Interested in what else the guys behind the massive baseball online game have to say? Click on the Read link below.

Second Life's rapidly growing community is getting a power boost to enhance the user-created world, as creator Linden Lab acquired the graphics technology from Windward Mark Interactive.

Aside from getting the five founders of Windward in their Boston office, Linden Lab  will also earn:

• Windlight - an advanced atmospheric technology, uses patent-pending algorithms that simulates light affected by real-world factors like dust and moisture in real-time
  
• Nimble - a realistic 3D cloud simulator using advanced physics models
  
• Other intellectual properties

Windlight will be open source and available to PC users immediately, with a Mac version to follow. This time around, we'd probably see hotter babes that would eventually get awarded on male-oriented magazines.

Both sides are excited about the acquisition. Linden Lab Founder and CEO Philip Rosedale said "We're excited to bring this technology to Second Life and pleased to have such a talented team of developers join Linden Lab." Coming from Windward's president Asi Lang, "It will be exciting to see how the Second Life community will further advance our technology when it is open sourced.”

Rally up, it's time to create the ultimate Second Life utopia!