Great Canadian Grid Owner Announces Closure

In December, the Great Canadian Grid, an Opensim world, went offline. The reason was a dispute between it's owner, Roddie Macchi, and that of Digiworldz's, Terry Ford, which handled the other grid's management services. Macchi started a Gofundme to raise money to get it going. But it was not enough. On the grid's webpage, Macchi has announced the Great Canadian Grid will be closing for good.

I enjoyed my virtual travels and managing GCG in the last 7 years. But it is time to move on.

Since GCG started out as a hobby I decided not to sell the grid but to close it permanently.


Machi went on to say those people who had a place on his grid could get the oars from gevolutionworld.com, "I have made arrangements with Cliff Hopkins aka Shadow to be sure to hand over only those whose names were owners ... He has an entire list of who owns what, and if successful on the corrupted database ... he may also be able to retrieve your .iars." Machi stated he no longer had the database, as "the new hosting company maintains it in their servers," so people would have to contact gevolutionworld.com.


I hope you all find your way and enjoy the opensim world like i did.

Thank you all for supporting GCG and me,

Roddie Macchi

The final line was another swipe at Ford and Digiworldz, whom he has blamed for the grid's closure.

There's been a great deal of chatter on the "Hypergrid Explorers and Creators" Discord thread (link) in the "Great Canadian Grid" channel. "The level of drama in OpenSim just boggles the mind." "Well so much for being nice on opensim. ... time to ruin hypergrid." "i seen this from the very beginning when he started begging for money .. having folks pay tier ahead of time and the go fund me ?? i feel for each and every one of you .. its like a old Inworldz nightmare all over again." One person was particuarly angry, accusing Macchi of stealing his virtual property. It was also stated that the recovery effort of the grid had been 70 percent complete when Macchi made the announcement, and due to accusations of theft the handing over of oars files would be suspended.

And so, another virtual world fades away.

Bixyl Shuftan

Great Canadian Grid Offline

So soon after High Fidelity is about to all but shut down, another virtual world is in trouble. According to an article on Hypergrid Business, dated December 28, as well as some chatter on Discord, the Great Canadian Grid, a small Opensim world, has been taken offline.

The reason for the world being offline is apparently a personal dispute between it's owner Roddie Macchi and that of a larger virtual world, Digiworld's Terry Ford. Digiworld had been handling the smaller world's grid management services. Then somehow the two owners got into an argument of some kind, and the Great Canadian Grid was taken offline after these services were stopped.

Macchi has reacted by starting a Gofundme campaign, which he says is to help pay for technical help and new services to restore the Great Canadian Grid.  As of the writing of this article, $1,175 USD had been raised.

There was no shortage of negative comments following the articles, as well in Discord. A few compared the Great Canadian Grid Gofundme to the InWorldz one over a year ago, which was unsuccessful in saving it. Some felt the incident not only made the two grid owners, but also Opensim as a whole, look bad, "It deeply saddens me it has come to this but it is our farewell to opensimulator altogether. My wife and I are heading back to our mainland parcel in Second Life ..." "... you complain that 'Why are people from Second Life not coming to you?' Coz you are terrible managers."

Bixyl Shuftan