April 30, it was (unofficially) announced via GamesIndustry.biz (who in turn referred to Private Equity Hub, who charges to read their content, so screw them) that Turbine has raised $40 million in venture capital funding. I say “unofficially” because if Turbine ever released this information themselves, I’m not finding it and am inclined to be skeptical of its validity. According to GamesIndustry.biz, however, that was Turbine’s third round of fund-raising and this alleged $40 million brings them to a total of $88 million in funding.
Yesterday, however, Turbine did officially announce that they have raised $40 million in equity financing. Time Warner, parent company of Warner Bros., was one of the heavy investors.
In a quote from a Time Warner representative:
“Our investment in Turbine is an important addition to Time Warner’s entertainment initiatives,” said Rachel Lam, Senior Vice President and Group Managing Director of Time Warner Investments. “Online interactive entertainment is a huge growth market and we are very excited about Turbine, its unique capabilities and the obvious opportunities that exist with our own broad portfolio of IP.”
The emphasis is mine. Now, just to speculate… yesterday rumors flare, sparked by a Warner Bros. quote, about a possible Harry Potter MMOG. Yesterday, Turbine receives financing from Time Warner, which as aforementioned, is the parent company of Warner Bros. I’ll also submit Turbine is keeping a single original IP alive, Asheron’s Call, while their later two titles involved licensed IP’s…
Consider this as creating the rumor “Is Turbine making a Harry Potter MMO?” 
The announcement also included vague language which could be interpreted that Turbine will be getting into the console MMOG market, so that’s an additional possibility. I can easily connect a few imaginary dots and point out the conception that console gamers are younger, and Harry Potter is a youth-oriented series…
I’m just sayin’… 
Update: (6/8/2008) Thought I’d add a few more thoughts to the rumor mill. In episode #118 of Virgin Worlds, Brent mentioned SOE’s John Smedley bring up researching ways to effectively include the younger crowd in their marketing demographics, specifically targeting young girls (and boys) for Free Realms. I made a semi-joking reference how console players are often associated as being the “younger crowd.” Thanks to Jerry at DDOcast for pointing out that Turbine is looking to hire a Senior Console Engineer (Xbox 360 or PS3)…
Tags: Harry Potter, MMO Gaming, MMORPG, Turbine, Xbox 360
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The Harry Potter IP could work well as an MMO if the setting could be divorced somewhat from the book’s main characters. Hogwarts and the rest of Rowling’s world of wizardry is an interesting and fun setting all in itself, so they could do it. But judging from how SOE abandoned the original vision for Star Wars: Galaxies, I doubt they would agree with me.
Oh! Here’s a new twist today! Joystiq just put up the rumor that Turbine might be taking DDO to the consoles. I will admit in recent dev interviews on DDOcast (apparently in the forums too, which I don’t frequent) Turbine has said they’ll be putting more focus and PR on the game. DDO already ships with the ability to use a console controller. The catch is the UI — that game has me using 4 or 5 hotbars onscreen at level 7 already, and it’s only getting more complicated. Not sure if I have screenshots but I think I had 6 (all four central hotbars, then two on the right of the screen) hotbars total back when raiding in WoW, and I didn’t actually need that many. I ‘feel’ like I need all these hotbars in DDO.
Having said that, I think the design and the active combat system in the game lends itself well to the console platform…