Update February 20th 2014: Linden Lab discontinued Creatorverse on February 19th, 2014. As such, links to the Creatorverse website, various app stores, etc;, have been removed as no longer valid.
April 19th saw the Android and Kindle Fire versions of Creatorverse made available for free, following in the footsteps of the iOS version.
Interestingly, the move has been without any formal announcement from Linden Lab, although the Creatorverse website has been updated to note the app is now free on all three platforms. I actually only found out as a result of an update message appearing on my device on April 19th. Of course, there’s not much to say on the matter which hasn’t already been said with the iOS announcement – but it’s hard not to escape the feeling than the lack of any bell-ringing concerning the Android / Kindle move pretty much suggests that Creatorverse is now not so much a “fire and forget” product as a “fired and forgotten” product where the Lab is concerned.
The update brings with it a slight change to the user interface, which now includes a shopping basket for in-app purchases of “add-on” packs.
The first three of these are a Rocket Tool, priced at £0.64 ($1.00), a Power Pack, a Forces Pack and a Portal Pack, each priced at £1.29 ($), which appear to have superseded the original “Advanced Creator Pack” referred to in the original LL press release marking the pricing restructure. For those who have previously purchased Creatorverse, the Power Pack, Forces Pack and Portal Pack are all denoted as “Purchased” in the shopping options, as they all form a part of the original Creatorverse release.
A further change in the UI is that the forces button is removed from the left side of the screen – which has led to at least one mistaken report that the forces capabilities, etc., have been “removed” from the application and must be repurchased. This isn’t the case as indicated above. Rather, a new set of buttons for defining forces, etc., can be accessed at the bottom of the screen. For those obtaining The updated version of Creatorverse for the first time, one assumes these new buttons will only become available as the additional packs are purchased.
Back when Creatorverse was made free on iOS, I ruminated if it might not be a canny move on LL’s part – or the last attempt to eek a return out of a floundering app. My preference was for the former; however, users don’t agree, and reading through some of the comments left on Google Play and the Apple App store, reaction has been negative.
For my part, I admit I gave up on Creatorverse a while ago. That is not in itself an indictment of the application – it didn’t have any major appeal for me to start with. Rather, it is a reflection of the fact that I’m more interested in other offerings from LL.
Not that you’d guess that from the contents of this blog :D.
Related Links
- Rod Humble would like you to meet Second Life 2.0 – Giant Bomb, October 11th
- My look at Creatorverse on a Galaxy S2
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 