BT goes online with Ocean's covermounted flight sim

ONLINE GAMES

BT launched its online gaming service Wireplay last Friday by covermounting Ocean's Wire-play-only version of flight sim EF2000 on Future's PC Format and PC Gamer.

The game will also feature as part of Hayes Ultimate Challenge modem bundle which hits the shelves this month for u169.

BT is spending u1 million in marketing support between now and Easter.

According to BT's head of games, Colin Duffy, most of the cash will be channelled into a joint marketing venture with supportive publishers, along with instore events and competitions.

Duffy told CRN BT would be publishing its own games for the service, including Bridge, due to launch after Christmas.

Following covermounts in the specialist games press Wireplay will be bundled with Internet titles where BT can guarantee a high ownership of modems amongst readers. "One million copies will have gone out by February," said Duffy.

BT went public with Wireplay in June with the launch of Gremlin's Euro 96 with limited success. Duffy said the take-up through Euro 96 had been around 10%. "But we expect it to be considerably more this time," he said.

"Online gaming is definitely the next step, but I'm not sure it will be led by Wireplay," said Jeremy Wells, editor of PC Zone. "It's had a lot of teething problems and bad press. The games publishers themselves are getting involved who don't see why they should let BT make money out of their software."

According to research by Datamonitor online games will account for nearly 20% of electronic games in Europe by the year 2000.