Category: Linden Lab

Linden Lab acquires Desura games distribution service

Posted on by Inara Pey

LL logoUpdate: Linden Lab sold Desura to Bad Juju Games on November 5th, 2014.

On Wednesday July 10th, Linden Lab announced they had acquired Australia-based digital distribution service  Desura Pty Ltd, which distributes games and related media online and which might be said to be somewhat akin to Steam.

The Lab’s announcement reads in part:

Desura puts the best games, mods, and downloadable content from developers at gamers’ fingertips, ready to buy and play. The free Desura application can serve and patch games, mods, and add-ons directly for customers around the world. Developers and publishers can share news, images, videos, and other content through their profiles, while every member of the Desura community can post comments, submit reviews, and upload screenshots from their own playing experiences. Desura also demystifies user-made mods and add-ons for games by making them as easy to find and install or update as professional titles.

“Desura’s talented team, thriving business, and impressive technology are a great fit for Linden Lab,” said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. “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.”

The Desura website
The Desura website

This is an interesting move on the Lab’s part on a number of levels, and one which is bound to provide a range of reactions. In terms of the former, for example, does it indicate that the link-up with Steam has been abandoned?

Announced in August 2012, the deal to promote Second Life through Steam never materialised. More recently, there had been unofficial hints coming out of the Lab that a technical hitch with provisioning the viewer through Steam may have delayed matters at some point. Whether or not these had stopped the deal dead in its tracks is unclear, but when talking to Rod Humble recently, I found it interesting he drew something of a line from the non-appearance of SL on Steam with the hook-up with Amazon which came towards the end of 2012.

The Desura acquisition is also obviously interesting in what it says about the Lab’s broader ambitions. Although somewhat similar to Steam – but nowhere near as large – Desura is aimed at a different market. Whereas Steam predominantly distributes titles from larger software houses, Desura leans towards smaller indie games produced by smaller developers who do not necessarily have the clout to deal with Steam.

In this, Desura would appear to be something of a potentially good fit for the Lab, giving their acquisition of small houses such as LittleTextPeople and Boldai – they gain the exposure they are seeking within the indie market by potentially building a name as a distributor of games and a host for the indie game / modding communities (Desura provides a strong modding capability for games and also boasts something of a community-centric environment for users).

The Desura community pages
The Desura community pages

There may also be some speculation as to what this might mean to Second Life. A potential attraction of the Steam hook-up was the possibility of enticing games modders and 3D content makers interested in building for SL (particularly given the opportunities for selling their content in-world and / or through the SL Marketplace). Depending upon how the Desura acquisition is developed and prompted, a similar opportunity might exist here. Time will tell on that.

If nothing else, the Lab had set itself a pretty big goal in acquiring Desura – which is available on the Windows, Linux and Mac platforms. This is, according to Humble’s quote in the Lab’s press release, “To invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world.”

It’ll be interesting to see what rebranding of Desura takes place (if any) as a result of this move.

Related Links

My thanks to Julian Slade for contacting me and pointing me to the Games Industry International article & this acquisition.

Versu: making NPCs human

Posted on by Inara Pey

versu-5Amidst all the focus on Second Life and the emerging press coverage on its tenth anniversary – with Gamastura being the latest, providing a very short, punchy and positive piece based on the All Things D article which I examined here over the weekend – it is easy to miss the fact that another of LL’s products, Versu, has also gained a little media attention.

Versu, the Lab’s interactive storytelling application for the iPad, launched back in February with little fuss or flag-waving.  Since then, there’s been little news. It doesn’t appear as if the library of titles available for it has grown to any degree, and there has been little in the way of any word from the Lab as to the future of the product. Versu hasn’t been updated since March 2013, the promised Android version has yet to surface, and there has been no news on the Lab’s broader plans to allow users to write and publish their own stories.

However, in June, UK magazine New Scientist published a piece on Versu, AI gets socially savvy, written by Douglas Heaven. The article was born out of Richard Evans, one of Versu’s co-creators, presenting a paper entitled Versu: A Simulationist Interactive Drama, at the Games and Media Event held in May 2013 at the Imperial College London. Heaven’s piece also appeared in New Scientist Online under the title AI makes social game characters all too human.

One of the current Versu titles
One of the current Versu titles

It’s a fascinating read. Not only does it give a greater insight into the power and versatility of Versu – something which is potentially easy to dismiss when first encountering the product on paper -, it also suggests ways in which applications such as Versu could be used to assist with or study a range of real-world social and other situations.

FLIRTY, shy or gossipy… these aren’t the typical traits of a bit of computer code. But a simulation system that gives computer-controlled agents a sense of social propriety could change that, leading to more realistic interactions between humans and characters in games.

So opens Heaven’s piece, before going on to give some background on Evans himself, who is not only one of the two minds behind Versu, but also worked on The Sims 3, before going on to set-up LittleTextPeople with Emily Short, which the Lab acquired in January 2013, and from which Versu was born. Interestingly, one of the motivations to generate such a rich depth to Versu’s non-player characters was the frustration Evans had with the behaviour of characters in The Sims 3 where, Heaven notes, computer-controlled characters would suddenly behave inexplicably, shattering the illusion of realism – such as visiting a neighbour’s house and having a bath…

To avoid this, Versu characters are not scripted, per se, as the New Scientist piece notes:

Versu character screen (click to enlarge): you chose the characte you wish to play, the rest will react to you based on a range of social rules, their own goals, and your actions in the story (image courtesy of Linden Research / Apple Computers)
Versu character screen: you chose the character you wish to play, the rest will react to you based on a range of social rules, their own goals, and your own actions in the story (image courtesy of Linden Research / Apple Computers)

Each of its computer-controlled characters is governed by a deep model of social propriety. They react to rudeness, disapprove of bad manners, and they know a violated social norm when they see one. They gossip, show off and flirt. To make such behaviour possible, Evans streamlined the code that defines characters’ beliefs and desires. This allows them to weigh the consequences of many possible actions before deciding how to behave…

The behaviour of the agents [characters] is not scripted. Instead, they each have a unique set of goals and desires that govern their behaviour. No two play-throughs are likely to be the same.

This approach allows the Versu characters to “play out their own soap opera independently”, which can have some very surprising repercussions, as Evans noted in his presentation. In it, he relates that when testing Versu, he was surprised to find he was being snubbed by one of the characters. It wasn’t until he examined the game’s logs that he found out why. Earlier in the game, he had been rude to another character, who had gone on to tell others of his unpleasantness, with the result that Evans found himself snubbed later in the game.

Because Versu uses social rules to govern the actions and reactions of non-player characters, it is seen as a particularly powerful tool for modelling human interactions, which is in turn bringing it to the attention of academics as well as gamers.

Evans also sees a wider potential for the technology developed for Versu, suggesting that it could be used in a wide variety of activities – such as helping soldiers learn to interact with  civilians in a war zone, or young people to deal with bullies.

Of all the new products launched to date by the Lab, Versu is the one which has piqued my curiosity the most – and it is also the one I’ve found to be the most frustrating, given it is restricted to the iPad and lack of any further news on it coming out of the Lab. Evans’ paper and this New Scientist article therefore both provide welcome insight into the app, and on its potential for the future – assuming the Lab shares in those aims and remains committed to developing and enhancing Versu.

Related Links

LL looking to launch Blocksworld in July?

Posted on by Inara Pey

LL logoBack at the start of 2013, Linden Lab acquired Boldai AB, a team of three programmers who jokingly refer to themselves as being, “From the country that gave you Minecraft and the country next to the country that invented Lego”.

Together, the Boldai AB team had created Blocksworld, which they described as “the ultimate building game – only it isn’t really a game, but you build stuff”, in their very creative initial marketing trailer. Early reviews of the app referred to it as a “perfect mix of Lego and Minecraft.”

Since the acquisition, the former Boldai AB team have been a little quiet (other than the odd Tweet on things), and their website has carried little more than news of their acquisition and a link to the Lab’s Beta Product sign-up page, together with a new promotional video. The latter may well demonstrate the app – including the ability to share your Blocksworld creations, a common theme within LL’s new products -, but it lacks the shine and fun of Boldai’s own efforts; such is the price, perhaps, of putting on a corporate jacket.

Well, now we have confirmation – albeit confirmation easily missed – that Blocksworld may well launch in July, appearing on the platform for which it was originally developed – the iPad.

There are no official details of any launch as yet, other than the (almost throwaway) comment which forms a part of an introductory piece for an interview with Rod Humble by All Things D, including whether, as Boldai originally intimated prior to their acquisition, whether Blocksworld will also be made available for other platforms following the initial iPad release. It’s also not clear whether this initial release will be a “full” release of the product or an initial “beta” of some description. Time will tell on these latter points.

In the meantime, if you wish to try to keep abreast of LL’s new products, and have not already done so, you might want to consider signing-up to the Beta Product page, and I’ll leave you with Boldai’s original and imaginative trailer video.

Related Links

Linden Lab issue press release celebrating 10 years of SL

Posted on by Inara Pey

LL logoThursday June 20th. Linden Lab has issued a press release ahead of the official 10th Anniversary of Second Life (June 23rd, 2013).

The press release, which is accompanied by a large-format infographic, opens:

Since Second Life first opened to the public in 2003, users have spent the equivalent of more than 217,266 years in the virtual world, which has seen nearly 36 million registrations to date. To mark the tenth anniversary, Linden Lab has published an infographic highlighting these and other facts about Second Life’s history and the current state of the virtual world which is available here: http://lindenlab.com/releases/infographic-10-years-of-second-life. [see below]

Throughout the month of June, Linden Lab has been celebrating Second Life’s tenth ‘birthday’ (SL10B) with special surprises for the virtual world’s users, including limited-edition virtual gifts, contests, and inworld activities. Second Life users are also organizing a number of special events themselves, including a community celebration featuring art exhibitions, parties, and more. Users are urged to keep an eye on the official Second Life blog and the SL10B category of the Destination Guide, which highlights more than 2,400 locations and events in total for Second Life users to explore.

The piece goes on to include a quote from Rod Humble and to highlight the fact that he recently appeared on Draxtor Despres’ The Drax Files, complete with a link to the episode.

The infographic highlights some of the significant “high level” numbers relating to the platform’s first decade of use, which should hopefully make eyebrow-raising reading for the uninitiated among the press and (one would hope) those who have long since considered Second Life to have either “failed” or “dead”.

SL10B_Infographic

For those of us who use Second Life daily, some of the figure may appear to be light on substance (how many of the 400,000 monthly sign-ups are new users who become retained users, for example/). Given this, it is likely that some / all of the figures will be questioned, mulled-over, debated and questioned by users – and rightly so.

However as a tool for reaching out to the press at large and reminding them that Second Life is very much at the centre of the Lab’s thinking and is still alive, kicking and vibrant (why else would we all be here otherwise?), the infographic will hopefully act as a firm dig-in-the-ribs for those in the media who are otherwise quick to dismiss the platform as being little more than history long past.

Related Links

With thanks to Pete Linden, Linden Lab.

Lab announces BE a Linden Bear for SL’s 10th anniversary!

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL10BLinden Lab have launched their official celebration of Second Life’s 10th anniversary with a special blog post on the topic and offering everyone a special gift.

The blog post opens:

This month marks ten years since Second Life first opened to the public in June of 2003! We’re incredibly proud of Second Life’s success and longevity and we hope that all of you are too – it’s thanks to everyone who has made Second Life part of their lives over the past decade that we’ve reached this major milestone.

The gift takes the form of a special commemorative bear – but not just any bear, or even any Linden Bear.

This is a bear avatar, and it has been commissioned and made specifically with the new SL materials processing capability in mind.  The bear can be obtained directly from the SL Marketplace, where the accompanying text reads:

The past ten years have seen Bears play an important part of the Second Life experience. To pay homage and celebrate the history of this noble animal, we have created a limited edition SL10B Bear avatar that comes ready to have a good time!

The celebratory bear avatar, seen via the materials beta viewer
The celebratory bear avatar, seen via the materials beta viewer

As well as the celebratory bear avatar, the blog post also announces the start of a special photo contest:

We’re also kicking off an SL10B Snapshot Contest! Start snapping your celebratory images and get ready to share. Top prize is free use of a homestead for four months, and second and third prizes are free use of a homestead for two months.  Check out the rules and submit your entries here.

So, if you fancy trying-out a Homestead for a few months, get snapping!

Creatorverse for Android and Kindle now free

Posted on by Inara Pey

LL logoUpdate 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 updated Creatorverse UI with the new shopping basket for in-app purchases (top right)
The updated Creatorverse UI with the new shopping basket for in-app purchases (top right)

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.

The new in-app purchase capability
The new in-app purchase capability which recognises the fact I already have a “paid” version of the app, and so marks the appropriate optional packs as “purchased” for me

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.

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