Time Warner jump into Video Game industry through gaming network

Turner said GameTap would launch later this year with a library of more than 1,000 games from 17 different publishers, including Activision Inc. and Ubisoft

Turner executives look at GameTap in the same way as they do some of their cable TV networks — an outlet for older but still popular programming that might not be otherwise available anymore.

"We have a brand new network … but Turner's in the same business it's always been," Blake Lewin, creator of GameTap and a vice president for product development at Turner, said in a recent interview. "We want to program games as if they were TV shows."

While online distribution of games is nothing new, no one to date has created an online repository of games on the size and scale of GameTap, particularly for older games. In many cases, people have to resort to illegal downloads to get and play the older games they loved as kids but can no longer buy.

Just as Turner's networks largely confine themselves to older programming that has finished its first run, GameTap will not offer games from the current generation of consoles.

Using emulation software, it will let anyone with a PC and a broadband connection play classic games from older consoles like the NES and Genesis, as well as older arcade and PC games.

Lewin said publishers have largely been receptive to the idea, as have the console manufacturers, even though GameTap will essentially replicate their old retail hardware with new, free software.

"There's nothing illegal about our building the code to emulate," he said.

SECRET PROJECT

In an industry that thrives on rumor and speculation, Turner managed to keep GameTap a secret through more than two years of development and with a distributed team of more than 100 people on the project.

The GameTap servers will be hosted out of the same Atlanta operation that runs CNN.com and NASCAR.com, among other sites, and will leverage Time Warner's AOL network as well.

The games are securely downloaded to the user's hard drive through Turner's custom application. While they download, Turner will serve up streaming video clips with news, entertainment, and cross-promotions for movies and other properties.

"We're creating a home where all the great games come to live on," Dennis Quinn, executive vice president of business development for Turner, said in an interview.

Turner is planning on a long lead-up to GameTap, with months of advertising and promotions before its full launch in the fourth quarter.

"We are going to promote and launch it from the Time Warner family as if it were a new network," Quinn said.

Turner has not announced any pricing yet for the service. But publishers will get a straight licensing fee for giving their games to GameTap, as opposed to any share of sales.