All I want to know is if I can team up with Samurai Jack.

When Atlanta-based Cartoon Network New Media was shopping around for a developer to produce an MMOG named FusionFall based on, well, their entire cable network, to market not only in the US but around the world, they looked to CEO B.K. Cho and Seoul-based developer Grigon Entertainment (makers of the cartoony, casual F2P MMOG Seal Online). Why would Cartoon Network skip over North American developers more familiar with their properties? Why would Grigon pass on the sure thing of developing domestic MMOGs for the ravenous Korean crowd and team with a company a half a world away? Learn why Paul Condolora of Cartoon Network and B.K. Cho of Grigon Entertainment feel that going global wasn't just the most cost-effective strategy to develop FusionFall, but oddly enough, the right creative fit too.

"Yet none of that deterred Mr. Condolora, who began talks with seven Korean developers in September 2005, fourteen months before Cartoon Network actually began broadcasting 24/7 in South Korea. For Condolora and Cartoon Network, what's lost in translation (linguistically and culturally) didn't compare to the hurdles he'd face by choosing a North American developer. "There were a couple of things that didn't work in the American developers favor, from our perspective. One is, most of them focus on hardcore gaming - we were clearly focused on casual gaming. Secondly, the cost was much greater. And then the third thing was - and I think this was the most important thing - creatively we weren't in-sync with each other.""

Read the interview right here at Ten Ton Hammer.