Steve George, Game Producer for Free Realms was cool enough to head over to Leipzig and give us a demo of his latest work.

The game is an MMO aimed at the 8-14 year old demographic but has become wildly popular with its testers as a family activity. Adults are as interested in playing it as are children. Of course this could lead to child security issues.

Child Safety and Parental Control:
SOE knew this and has put into place a robust child safety system with parental controls that can lock down many facets of the game to keep their children safe but still allow them to have a good and fun game experience.

The parental control system not only locks down the account so that it cannot chat with others but it can also limit the amount of time per session and per day. A pretty cool feature considering the main target demographic is children that could lose themselves in the game and are too young to determine limits for themselves. As an example players under the age of 13 are not able to chat with any other players.

Coolest Feature:
This is not only one of the coolest features of Free Realms, but probably one of the coolest features ever in a game. When you head to the Sony Station site and begin creating the character you will use in the game the system begins streaming the client to you in the background. No more waiting hours for a 3GB client to download from a web page. This one does it while you’re busy doing something else. They say that when you are done with your character you should be able to instantly head into the world and play.