According to Gamasutra, The MMO/virtual world development platform Multiverse had shut down last month. Started by a team of Netscape workers in July 2004, the platform was designed to allow people to "build and launch their projects more quickly and for less money than ever before."Over the years, it took in several million in funding, and even had “Avatar” filmmaker James Cameron in its advisory board. It acquired the rights for multiplayer online games based on the “Firefly” sci-fi show, as well as Cameron’s “Titanic” and “Avatar,” but delayed development. Despite attracting the interest of “thousands of developers,” they weren’t “able to achieve a profitable business model” and so in December 2011 had effectively closed.
But the place will not be completely going away. Multiverse released their source code to their community, which made the Multiverse platform open source, “we have been updating and altering the code ever since, with the aim of carrying on the original dream - to give small-time developers the chance to make something big, and to show the development community that you didn't need to have millions of dollars to make the next World of Warcraft, or the next Eve Online. With the tools we provide, you can be just as good, if not better.”
In New World Notes, Hamlet Au thought the open source platform might be useful for Second Life builders, who could intigrate what they built on it into their builds on the Grid. He also mentioned that Second Life residents had created a “Firefly” roleplay community, as well as an “Avatar” inspired one.
To get the code, Click Here. You can also check their community on their forums.
Sources: Gamusutra, New World Notes, Multiverse
Bixyl Shuftan
No comments:
Post a Comment