There Is Still... There!
Tony Walsh at Clickable Culture has passed on some neat info about virtual world There, which used to be the 'big 2' competitor with Second Life before they both kinda blew their first round of venture funding - at which point, There converted to 'serious game' firm Forterra but spun off the social/consumer bit, which is now making a bit of a comeback. Complicated!
Some pretty interesting stuff in there: "* "We are still larger than 'that other place' and will continue to be." [Wilson presumably refers to direct competitor Second Life] "Free There lowered the barrier and got us more people into the funnel and into the world.".. * ThereIM, an avatar-based chat system interoperable with There, AIM and YIM, will be available in 2007..."
Also, all this virtual world tech is getting a bit, uhh, old, hence: "We are actually going to be building a brand-new terrain engine for the product… we're actually working with the guys at Forterra [former There-makers] to build a new terrain engine from scratch… One important objective I gave them was 'Make the competition lie awake at night.' They are being paid to deliver it by the first quarter of 2007. The terrain engine we have today is just bad. They are going to rebuild it from the ground up."
Comments
Let me drag out all the stuff in my head about this and get it on the web....
- The community manager of There some time ago (and may still be for all I know) used to be Oracle Vaserius, community leader at Worldsaway, in the heady, early days before it Went Bad. He seemed like a genuinely cool guy. Here's hoping they haven't screwed him over again.
- That said, Second Life has a hundred times the buzz There has. The sense is that the race has already been lost, and their claim that "We are still larger than 'that other place' and will continue to be" seems to be a tacit admission of that fact. I wouldn't doubt it if there was some unexpected definition of the term "larger" here.
I hope There prospers, but I don't have a lot of hope for it at this point. (And both There and Second Life trail far, far behind World of Warcraft, of course....)
Posted by: John H. | October 1, 2006 5:02 PM
It's a shame to see such disparaging remarks about the terrain engine when it is really one of the most aesthitically pleasing out there. The simplicity allows for gorgeous vistas not possible in more traditional games.
Posted by: Danjo O | October 2, 2006 11:27 AM
As a former internal There Developer I hope this product fails miserably and the scum in charge receive the karmic retribution coming to them. One day many moons ago we were told the company was going through a restart on the assumption that THERE had no value. Therefore any personal investments in said company also had no value. Who declared this? the board of directors, two members of which are now running Makena Technologies, current owners of THERE, and are apparently turning a profit this app with "no value." My sleepless nights building technology that remains active over two years later has "no value?!?!?" ... go to #&!! you scum.
Posted by: former there employee | October 5, 2006 2:52 PM