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The 20-year-old metaverse game 'Second Life' is getting a mobile app
'Second Life' developer Linden Labs has announced that it's developing a mobile version of the game.
Why 'Second Life' developer Linden Lab gave up on its VR spin-off
Second Life developer Linden Lab has sold Sansar, a platform for virtual 'scenes' that could be explored with a VR headset or traditional PC setup.
'Second Life' creator sells its ambitious social VR platform
Second Life creator Linden Lab's big VR push didn't pan out, it seems. The company has sold its Sansar social VR platform to a startup, Wookey Project Corp., in a bid to "streamline its focus" in favor of Second Life as well as money service provider Tilia. Sansar will revolve more around "premier virtual events" under its new ownership, the team said in a blog post.
DARPA head joins the list of speakers at Engadget Expand!
Fall's nearly here and so is the next Engadget Expand event. On November 7th and 8th, we'll once again take over New York City's Javits Center North to let you experience the future of technology and hear from the leading minds in the industry.
Second Life's Linden Lab confirms new virtual world in development
Linden Lab has confirmed that it is currently working on a new virtual world in the spirit of Second Life. According to an official statement at New World Notes, this new project will be "an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king." If that sounds exactly like the description for Second Life already, the studio points out that, "The next generation virtual world will go far beyond what is possible with Second Life, and we don't want to constrain our development by setting backward compatibility with Second Life as an absolute requirement from the start." But Linden Lab assures current Second Life users that this doesn't spell the end for their favorite virtual world. "Second Life has many years ahead of it," the statement continues. "And in addition to improvements and new developments specifically for Second Life, we think that much of the work we do for the next generation project will also be beneficial for Second Life." A video of the developers meeting that discusses this project is expected to be released soon. [Thanks for the tip, Zenaphex!]
Eerie comparisons between MMOs and real life surface
We all joke about how unrealistic MMOs are to our mundane, tax-filled lives, but Redcentric did a little digging to compare how virtual worlds and the real one stack up in various ways. Some of the results proved astounding. With World of Warcraft, Redcentric noted that the population in both the game and the US military have about the same percentage of males (84% to 83%), while EVE Online's male population (96%) is more similar to that of the astronaut crowd (90%). The agency also noted how Second Life has 10 real-world embassies in it and that a previous ban of real-money trading in the game caused a very real financial crisis for a bank that wiped out $750,000. So how do these three titles compare to real-world cities in regards to population? World of Warcraft at its peak was close to Moscow's population (11.5 million), while Second Life almost hit the levels of San Fransisco (825K) and EVE Online barely surpassed Edinburgh's 495,000.
Second Life developer Linden Lab picks new CEO, Ebbe Altberg
Linden Lab announced Ebbe Altberg as its new CEO today. He joins the company following former CEO Rod Humble's departure late last week. Altberg was previously COO of professional networking company BranchOut and SVP of Media Products for Yahoo. Linden Lab is best known for developing Second Life, a Sims-like online virtual world for PC, Mac and Linux that first launched in June 2003. It also acquired the indie-focused game distribution platform Desura in July 2013. [Image: Linden Lab]
Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble departs Second Life developer
Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble has parted ways with the Second Life developer. Humble, who had been with Linden Labs for three years, announced his departure on Facebook last week, GamesIndustry International reports. "It's been a great 3 years! All my thanks to my colleagues at Linden Lab and our wonderful customers I wish you the very best for the future and continued success!" Humble's post revealed he would be exiting the company to start a new operation focused on making "Art, Entertainment and unusual things." After three years working on Second Life, we're terrified as to what Humble's idea of what an "unusual thing" may be. Humble was the Executive Vice President of the EA Play label at Electronic Arts, prior to his stint with San Francisco-based developer Linden Labs. Humble worked on such games as The Sims 3 and, while at Sony Online, EverQuest.
Second Life CEO Rod Humble leaves Linden Lab
Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab for the past three years, officially announced via Facebook that he has left the company. Humble has worked on both The Sims and EverQuest, pretty much exactly the two games that you would think could be mashed together into Second Life. Linden Lab has not issued a statement about Humble's replacement at this time. In a statement on the move, Humble wished his former coworkers and customers the best of fortunes, stating that he was moving on to form a startup company to make "art, entertainment, and unusual things." Whether or not this will be another startup in the online gaming space or something entirely different remains to be seen.
Some Assembly Required: Virtual world roundup for 2014 and beyond
Just over two years ago there was a great disturbance, as if millions (or so) of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Yes, something terrible had happened: a beloved virtual world was destroyed. And that left a number of sandbox refugees looking for a new place to call home. At that time, Some Assembly Required offered a roundup of the then available virtual worlds that could possibly offer accommodation, depending on what qualities players most desired in their games. But as things are wont to, they changed; a lot can happen in the MMOverse in 24 months, from additional features in existing games to new games to the loss of more worlds. So it's time to update this list of virtual worlds to reflect 2014 and beyond. Take a look and see what titles or titles-to-be have the sandbox features that best make a game a home for you.
Massively's Third Annual Frindie Awards
It's time once again for me to throw out my awards for the best of free-to-play, indie, and oddball MMOs, a real niche-within-a-niche. It might seem that I am assigned many of these titles as though I were some modern day Mikey, but the truth is that I get a huge thrill out of finding a new game but get even more of a thrill when I realize that no one is covering it. I had to really think hard about the criteria for the awards this year, mainly because "indie" is quickly becoming one of those often hard-to-define words, alongside "MMORPG" and "free-to-play." Fortunately, I think I know it when I see it. I kept my choices to games that I have actually played this year. I wanted to avoid games that appear to be really cool. If you want a more broad batch of prizes, check out Massively's best of awards. (Side note: I voted for Defiance as my game of the year.) These awards are for games that are being created on a shoestring or independent of massive budgets. Some of them are connected to some money, of course, but instead of trying to define "indie," I will only repeat: You'll know it when you see it.
Colbert cracks ancient Second Life joke, picks on NSA
I guess we'll forgive Stephen Colbert for not realizing that the Second-Life-users-don't-have-a-first-life joke is older than he is. Mainly because the rest of his segment on Linden Labs' virtual world and its NSA-powered avatars is pretty funny. Colbert follows up Comedy Central colleague Jon Stewart's riff on the NSA in World of Warcraft with a segment heavy on Second Life secret agents. Kotaku has the full story as well as a video embed.
NSA spies infiltrate MMOs to weed out terrorism
News of our government spying on us is not actually news at this point, but recent reports suggest that governments are also spying on us in our online games. The reason? Suspected terrorism, of course! Former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden, ProPublica, The Guardian, and The New York Times report today that American and British intelligence agencies have infiltrated Second Life, World of Warcraft, and Xbox Live to weed out militants that may use the games to communicate, move money, or plot attacks under fake identities. So that noob in your PUG last night who just wouldn't heal the tank may have been a CIA agent getting paid ungodly amounts of money to level his Priest at the taxpayers' expense. Most interestingly, Blizzard denies any knowledge of such activities: "We are unaware of any surveillance taking place," said a spokesman for Blizzard Entertainment. "If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or permission." [Source: ProPublica press release]
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding November 17 - 30, 2013
One thing gamers can definitely be thankful for this year is crowdfunding! Thanks to this phenomenon, we have many more options opening to us than ever before. And there are definitely some good gaming prospects on the horizon, even if news about all but one is seeming a bit scarce lately. While it's true that a few funded projects tossed out a news morsel or two, two new campaigns replaced two unsuccessful ones (neither The Zodiac Project nor Omuni Online made their goals), newcomer The Mandate already made its goal, and another hopeful -- Ever, Jane -- has secured three-quarters of its goal with only a couple of days left, the majority of the spotlight has been stolen the upcoming space sim Star Citizen, which continues to blast the crowdfunding record to smithereens. If you missed any of the news, you can catch up on it all right here in Make My MMO.
All nominated IndieCade games offered Desura distribution and promotion
Linden Lab is offering free Desura distribution and promotion to all IndieCade finalists, the Second Life developer announced. The offer extends to all PC, Mac and Linux nominees in the games festival, which takes place this weekend in Los Angeles. According to IndieCade's website, 21 of the 36 nominees are eligible for the offer, which includes a spot on the indie game distribution platform without any listing fees as well as "promotional advertising" as part of Desura's partner program. The promotion and placement of the IndieCade finalists' games isn't a huge challenge for Linden Lab, as it acquired Desura in July. Still, it's the thought that counts.
Daily iPad App: Blocksworld HD lets you build and play with 3D blocks
Blocksworld HD from Linden Lab brings creative block building to the iPad and gives it a twist by letting you control the creations that you build. At its core, Blocksworld is a building app similar to Minecraft that allows you to build creations using Lego-like 3D blocks. Blocksworld is an open environment -- you can snap blocks together and build anything you can imagine. Specialized blocks make it easy to build cars, robots, planes, creatures and more. Once you create an object, you can bring it to life using actions that'll make the creation walk, jump, fly, drive or even fire weapons. It's this action scripting that sets Blocksworld apart and makes it extra enjoyable. It's great being able to build a hovercraft, and it's even better when you get to fly it around your world. When you start building, you are given a limited number of blocks and a small number of coins. You can buy additional blocks or specialized block sets using coins, which are available via an in-app purchase. A set of 100 coins costs US$0.99, while block-hungry builders can spend up to $24.99 for a set of 6,000 coins. I started off with a $10 set of 2,000 coins that lasted for about two weeks with very heavy usage from my three kids and me. The average person will likely get more mileage out of their coin purchases than I did, but I would still plan on buying coins as part of the game. There are daily gift blocks and a free bonus block set, but these sets are small and give you just a handful of items. Hopefully, Linden Labs will make it easier to earn bonus coins within the game, so you don't always feel like you are paying to play. Blocksworld ties into Game Center and has a social component that allows you to share your block creations and browse through a catalog of items that others have built. If you find a creation that you enjoy, you can play it and also "like" it. One of my recent favorites was a dart challenge in which you drive a car over a ramp and try to hit a bullseye while in mid-air. Game Center hosts a leaderboard that shows the builders who have earned the most "likes," while the Blocksworld app tracks both likes and views for each creation. Blocksworld HD is for both kids and adults who have a passion for building with blocks. It's basic enough for a 7-year-old to easily pick up, while challenging enough to entertain an adult who enjoys creative building. It is available for free in the iOS App Store and is compatible with any iPad running iOS 6.0 or later.
Second Life's Linden Lab expands with digital distribution service
Second Life's Linden Lab has announced this week that it has acquired the digital distribution service Desura. What's Desura? Think of it as a lesser-known version of Steam, yet without the DRM headaches and more focused on player mods. So, not really like Steam. Linden Lab's CEO, Rod Humble, is optimistic about Desura's offering to the 14-year-old virtual world company: "This acquisition gives us a global platform for serving creative developers of all kinds, and we're looking forward to growing both Desura's global community of gamers and its fantastic portfolio of thousands of games, mods, and other content. Our aim is to invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world."
Second Life developer snaps up indie game distribution service
Linden Lab, developer of the 3D virtual world Second Life, announced today that it has acquired the indie-focused PC game distribution service Desura. Desura, notable for offering a publishing platform with a lower barrier for entry than its competitor Steam, is a DRM-agnostic service employed by the Humble Indie Bundle and Indie Royale, among other organizations. The service was created by the PC modding hub Mod DB, and currently serves as a high-profile distributor of user-created PC game mods. The Desura purchase is Linden Lab's second major acquisition this year, following up on the company's recent purchase of Blocksworld, an upcoming iPad game. "Desura's talented team, thriving business, and impressive technology are a great fit for Linden Lab," said Linden Lab's CEO Rod Humble. "Our aim is to invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world."
Second Life readies for 10th anniversary, celebrates a million active users per month
Second Life hasn't gotten much respect in MMO circles since the genre went mainstream (yes, yes, get a first life, aren't you clever!). Still, Linden Lab's virtual world is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary on June 23rd, and it boasts user numbers that most MMOs can only dream about. An anniversary infographic says that Second Life has amassed 36 million registered users as well as more than 400,000 new accounts per month. Oh, and don't forget "a million monthly active users," according to Linden CEO Rod Humble. Those users typically rack up 1.2 million virtual goods transactions per day and have accounted for $3.2 billion worth of transactions over the life of the game. You can find more nifty stats like those on the the graphic after the break.
Free for All: My five favorite MMOs for exploration
There's nothing more important to me than the ability to freely explore MMOs. Heck, exploration is the reason I got into MMOs. I remember grabbing that box of Ultima Online (man, I wish I still had that box!) from a shelf at the local game store and looking in wonder at just how vast this virtual world seemed to be. I'm still the same way, although after years of doing this, I am a bit more cynical about games. I've heard so many promises that never came true, but I know that even the worst of titles offers the chance to explore a brand-new world. There are a lot of exploration mechanics out there. Free Realms has an adventurer "job," The Secret World needs players to explore to solve mysteries, Guild Wars 2 offers experience based on discovering new areas, EverQuest II entices people to explore by offering collectible items embedded in the ground, and there are so many MMOs that allow players to gain experience just by approaching areas they haven't before. But I have my favorites. These are games that just make me feel like an explorer.
