Metaplace introduced the world to a brand new technology two days ago -- the ability to embed a fully functional virtual world into any website or forum, anything that can handle HTML.
This upgrade allows Metaplace to act like a more enhanced version of Google's old Lively service. All you need to do is make a world, take the embeddable HTML code from it, drop it into your website, and you now have a full virtual world running in flash right inside of your blog post or forum thread. The world can be edited to your whims through the Metaplace builder, letting you create whatever you want to create inside of your space. Think of it like Second Life Lite.
Massively had more than a few questions for Raph Koster, the founder and creator of Metaplace, about this new upgrade for his virtual platform, so they caught up with him to pick his mind on Metaplace and virtual worlds at large.
Acquisition-happy social games studio Playdom has purchased Metaplace (formerly Areae), the virtual world platform developer co-founded by game industry veteran Raph Koster, gaining access to the firm's tech and expertise.
Eurogamer writes: "Editor's note: This interview was conducted in mid-December last year. Shortly after we spoke to Raph Koster, it was announced that Metaplace, which much of the interview is about, would shut down on 1st January. However, we thought that Koster's comments were still interesting in light of that news - perhaps even more so - so we decided to run the interview in its original form. We also contacted Koster for a comment on Metaplace's demise, and he had this to say."
The Metaplace development team made the announcement today that no fan of a game likes to hear: "Today we have unfortunate news to share with the Metaplace community. We will be closing down our service on January 1, 2010 at 11:59pm Pacific." The bottom line to the reasoning behind the decision is that Metaplace simply is not making enough headway to be a viable (read: profitable) product.
Wow. This is unfortunate... There was a lot of star power behind the development of this, so I wonder why they just didn't find a way to keep the lights one and let the community grow over time.
