It s been cutting deals with major studios, such as New Line Cinema for the Lord of the Rings marketing arrangement and Working Title Films for a Bridget Jones tie-in. Riot-E, as the company calls itself, is working on services in more than a dozen countries. In each location, it partners with a local telecom company, sometimes state-owned. The up-front costs are high, and it s not clear when, or if, the venture will make money. It hopes to hit break-even early next year, says Pasi Marjanen, the company s executive vice president.
Customers get free access to the online hotels but pay for the virtual furniture.
Their willingness to do so initially surprised even the company, says Sampo Karjalainen, the company s creative director. It turned out that the teens who frequent the chat rooms use the furniture to show their personality, he says. The furniture becomes a form of currency within the site. Finnish entrepreneurs have felt the deflation of the Internet bubble as much as those U.S. entrepreneurs. Money is tight, and investors are demanding serious business plans, not the fantasies that captured billions in venture capital in the late 1990s.