Uru Live to return from the dead

Spokane company Cyan Worlds announced Tuesday its groundbreaking game, Uru Live, will return from the dead and become available online by year’s end.

Cyan Worlds CEO Rand Miller said the game, meant to be introduced in 2003 but never launched online, will become part of the GameTap Network, a game portal operated by Turner Broadcasting System.

Miller said the game will be available for the holidays.

Cyan’s game developers and artists spent more than three years developing Uru Live. Along with releasing a CD-ROM version of that game, Cyan also expected an online version would attract thousands of paying subscribers. But original publisher Ubisoft Entertainment cancelled the project prior to launching the online version.

Miller said the original design of Uru Live remains the same, with 3-D environments and regularly changing components, including characters, atmosphere and locales.

The revival has boosted spirits at Cyan’s offices in Mead, north of Spokane, he added.

“We all feel Uru Live never got a chance to show what we were creating. Now with Turner, we feel like we have another shot.”

With his brother Robyn Miller, Rand Miller founded Cyan nearly 20 years ago. The privately held game company sold more than 12 million copies of its two CD-ROM games, Myst and Riven.

Beyond being more sophisticated than Myst, Uru Live is also a game played in the present, not the past, Miller said. “You play yourself, going through the Myst world as it would be now,” he said.

Requiring a broadband Internet connection, the game lets players exchange ideas, talk and interact with others from around the world.

Cyan’s job now is developing additional content that will be added to the Uru Live system, said Miller.

A spokesman for Turner Broadcasting said the company is confident Uru Live will gain traction due to wider acceptance of broadband technology and more efficient game delivery.

“Uru Live was ahead of its time, and now that technology has caught up with this visionary game, GameTap and Cyan are teaming up to bring it into the bold new world of broadband entertainment,” GameTap General Manager Stuart Snyder said in a press release.

After Ubisoft shut down the first version of Uru Live, Miller was forced in September 2005 to lay off about 40 Cyan workers. He said that decision was the most difficult one of his career.

Within a month, however, Turner Broadcasting had contacted Cyan to discuss a renewed commitment to the game, said Miller.

He’s since rehired about 30 workers at the company’s north Spokane offices. The work force could grow if the game succeeds and draws a large number of subscribers, he said.

Cyan has agreed to several revenue benchmarks with Turner, which Miller said he wasn’t able to disclose. He said his first obligation is to continue developing the game, while also keeping Cyan open to other possible future entertainment projects.

Uru Live subscribers will pay about $10 a month to play the game. Miller said Cyan has the option of developing a version that would be available to overseas users who didn’t want to use GameTap.