Over the past year, more than US$ 1 billion have been pumped into 35 virtual worlds companies by venture capital, technology and media firms. This information comes from Virtual World Management, a leading media company that tracks the virtual worlds industry.

The biggest chunk of the US$1 billion came from Disney's acquisition of Club Penguin, an online game from New Horizon Interactive where kids take control of cartoon penguin avatars to waddle around, play minigames and chat with their friends. This acquisition cost Disney US$ 700 million.

Intel's US$ 110-million acquisition of 3D virtual worlds graphics technology company Havok made up the second-biggest part of the figure. A total of US$ 196.8 million came from investments in 33 different companies. Investors included Intel, Redpoint ventures, Disney, CBS and Time Warner.

Time Warner Cable's (TWC) Road Runner Internet service in New York City may have taken a turn for the worse as complaints of one of its cable Internet service rose to a peak today. Blizzard received distressing feedback on Time Warner's Road Runner service, which reportedly ended in random pockets of lag in World of Warcraft.

 

All in all, the issues severely degraded the gameplay experience for a fraction of the U.S. realms' players. People were led to believe that the issues experienced could have something to do with TWC's shift to "packet shaping," although they were quickly denied by representatives of the company.

"We don't have a network management policy called packet shaping," spokespersion Alex Dudley told Shacknews. He remained firm in the belief that the company would not implement any changes that would affect gameplay in Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft.

In contrast, however, investigative Internet surfers identified a portion of a press release gathered from connection technology site Broadband Reports. The text definitely stated the term "packet shaping" and implicated the name of Time Warner and the announcement of the technology's release around the U.S.

According to posters in the forum where the partial press release was discovered, the text information was e-mailed to them by customer service representatives in light of the recent increase of service complaints. But in a final note, Dudley has assured that Time Warner Cable is looking into the issue and promises that the problems will be resolved as soon as possible.

Rumor has it SCi-Eidos, which made the widely popular Tomb Raider game franchise that eventually became a movie franchise, is doing it the other way around. The netvine was buzzing about a not-so secret meeting between the game developer and Time Warner. The agenda: produce a series of games based on New Line Cinema properties. According to Financial Times, the deal could see Time Warner acquiring a 10 per cent stake in SCi-Eidos.

If the rumor is true, Sci-Eidos will have a great variety of material  to turn into video games. There's "Austin Power", "Snakes on a Plane", and the classic "Nightmare on Elm Street". We would love to see the sexy British beast team up with Lady Lara!

A spokesperson for SCi-Eidos issued a statement saying "Eidos does not comment on speculation or rumour."