More on Sansar's Transition to Metaverse Investments

 
When we last reported on Sansar a few months ago, it was a virtual world in trouble. It was described as on "life support," and was involved in a million-dollar lawsuit. Little wonder that when the world went offline one day in December, people were quick to assume the plug was pulled on it, though it was up and going the next day. 

With the virtual world in this kind of trouble, Sansar needed help, and soon. A few days ago, it arrived. On the Sansar Discord channel on Tuesday  April 12, there was an announcement. Sansar would be getting a new owner: Metaverse Investments. Speaking for the company, Chance Richie promised to get the virtual world back on track and be "focusing on the future and making Sansar the most Creator-friendly Metaverse on the planet." He also promised to resume community meetings.

Hello Sansarians! My name is Chance Richie, and I will be working with Wookey to transition the Sansar platform to Metaverse Investments Ltd. Wookey Technologies has been diligently looking for the right candidate to take over the responsibility of progressing Sansar to the next level, and Metaverse Investments Ltd is looking forward to the challenge.

I am working with the Wookey Team to get Sansar back on track.  In my opinion, the Wookey Team has done a lot of good work on the platform and has had to work through many challenges inherited from the Linden Labs acquisition.  I believe the Wookey Team has been fully committed to the platform and expanding it to a broader audience by focusing on the true immersive VR Metaverse experience.  I understand that there has been some history with the former direction and team, however what is most important is focusing on the future and making Sansar the most Creator-friendly Metaverse on the planet.  My strategic vision is focused on providing the Creator community the tools they need to build the most engaging worlds, quests, and experiences in the Metaverse.  I strongly believe that if we fulfill that vision, visitors and residents will come in droves.

We understand Sansar has problems that need to take care of as soon as possible and it has been a challenge to address these issues with a limited team.  My first priority is bringing in the engineering talent necessary to get things fixed and stabilize the platform. So do not despair, help is coming soon!

In the meantime, I want you to know how amazing I think the Sansar platform is, and that I see great potential. That potential will only be realized if we are successful engaging the Sansar Community, so to that end I’d like to restart the meetings Ebbe Altberg used to do in Sansar.  More to come on that!

Rest assured, we did our homework and know Sansar has a great community that is welcoming to new users. The Sansar Discord has also been a great way to pass knowledge on to new people and I have gotten more familiar with the platform as a result of following the channel. No question seems to be too difficult or tiring for you. Sansar is clearly "for the people, by the people", and we want to amplify that culture.

And last but not least, I’d like to thank the Sansar ambassadors and helpers who have stuck with Sansar through thick and thin, including all you die-hards who kept events going. You never stopped believing and I am here to reward that belief in Sansar by providing you the tools you’ve all been looking for.

I am transparent almost to a fault so feel free to reach out and ask me anything.  Even though Sansar is about 8 years old from its initial conception, it is still a startup, and I am going to try and instill the “nothing is impossible” startup mentality.  Admittedly, I am far from Phillip Rosedale or Ebbe Altberg, but I have built and sold software companies and guarantee you I will put my heart and soul into making Sansar a success.  I am looking forward to meeting you on Discord and in the first "Community Meeting".

I am the Sansarian known as “Oriym” and if you see someone in the Nexus with a black cowboy hat on it is probably me.  Please stop me and say hi if you see me wandering around!
 
Hopefully the new owners will be able to not just keep Sansar running, but growing.

For those who don't know, Sansar was created by Linden Lab, officially going online on July 2017, as a next-generation virtual world. But it's numbers remained small, so Linden Lab would eventually sell it to Wookey Technologies in 2020. 

Image credit: DrFran Babcock

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Wookey To "Transition" Sansar to Metaverse Investments

 
On Tuesday April 12, it was announced on Sansar's Discord channel that the virtual world would be changing hands. Wookey Industries would be handing over the virtual world to Metaverse Investments Limited. 

Stay tuned for more information.
 

Sansar's Owner, Wookey, In Lawsuit By Former CEO

 

Lately, things haven't been looking very good for Sansar. The "next generation virtual world" created by Linden Lab and going online in 2017, had struggled to find an audience and in 2020 the Lab would sell it to Wookey Technologies. In recent weeks, the place has been described as "on life support" with the workers furloughed and it's Umbra license expired. Then on Dec 22, it was knocked offline for a day. The cause of that has yet to be determined.

As it turns out, this isn't the only problem going on with Wookey. It seems they're in a legal dispute with a former CEO of theirs, John Fried. The "Wrongful Discharge" suit started in April 2020, not long after Wookey bought Sansar. He is demanding one million dollars. As of November, it was headed to a jury trial set for June 27, 2022.

Inara Pey states that the company has a net worth of about 3.78 million, "a judgement made in favour of Mr. Fried, it could put a significant dent in the company’s finances." Needless to say, the future of Sansar is looking more troubled.

Source: Modem World, Superior Court of California

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Sansar Mistakenly Declared Dead After Being Knocked Offline

 
Those who read DrFran's article from earlier this month may remember she described Sansar as "on life support" with "all of the employees have been furloughed, and many have gone on to other jobs," and it's license for Umbra, which helps it's graphics to run better, had expired. So last week on December 22 when noted blogger Ryan Schultz couldn't get on, he assumed the virtual world had died. New World Notes would also report it was offline. But the next day, people were able to get back on the virtual world. Inara Pey would say, "services came back on something of a rolling basis, with all avatar services being about the last."

Exactly why the virtual world was knocked offline for a day is still unknown. While one can easily pin it on the lack of technical support, it's notable at the time there was an outage with Amazon Web Servers which is known to have affected the Epic Games Store, Imgur, and other places online. So that may have has something to do with the outage. While Second Life uses Amazon Cloud servers, it is unknown what effect if any the outages had on the larger virtual world.

While Sansar may still be around, it's still a virtual world in trouble. So while the reports of it's demise might have been mistaken, unless things change for the better for the place, it could soon go permanently offline for real.

Sansar was created by Linden Lab, officially going online on July 2017, as a next-generation virtual world. But it's numbers remained small, so Linden Lab would eventually sell it to Wookey Technologies in 2020. 

Update: DrFran reported a response from Wookey management on December 26:

 hi there. this is steve from the wookey management - sansar team. i thought i'd pop in to let you know we are actively looking to resolve the issues on the platform. we value our community big time, and hoping we can get things running smoothly soon. ... we appreciate your patience and understanding... happy holidays from the wookey team!!!

Sources: The Verge,

Image Credit: Inara Pey

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Sansar Update: A New Direction, Torley, And Account Issues

For years, Linden Lab had been trying to make it's "next generation virtual world" of Sansar a success. But it only attracted a tiny number of regular users. So earlier this year they sold it to Wookey Productions. So how is the world doing? It's still around, with a few from Linden Lab still there such as Torley. And it's found a new path, with an emphasis on being a place for live events. But as one former Newser writer discovered, there are still some customer service issues.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

Linden Lab Announces Sansar's Sale to Wookey

On Saturday March 21, it was noticed that Sansar didn't have Linden Lab mentioned as an owner, but Wookey. But there was no announcement from the Lab right away. On Tuesday, there was finally a press release from them about the sale.

Linden Lab has had some inquiries from the public and media about the current happenings of Sansar. We are very excited to witness the unfolding of Sansar getting a fresh opportunity to thrive under the ownership of Wookey Project Corp., a San Francisco-based technology company that has assumed all operations without any interruption to operations or the Sansar community.

We are proud to have given birth to this amazing platform for creativity and live events, and encourage our community to continue the process of supporting Sansar as it shifts to new ownership. We’ve assembled a quick FAQ to address key inquiries about this transition.

There was little information that wasn't already known, though of the people still on the Sansar team, "As for Linden Lab, many members of the Sansar team formerly employed by Linden Lab are staying with Sansar as employees under its new ownership."

On the Sansar blog, they tried their best to make the change look like good news.

Together, we’re turning a page on Sansar’s most dynamic chapter yet, and we’re excited to take you with us. We’re also grateful to Linden Lab for their many years of support, and we look forward to building on the work we started there.

What does this mean for you? More of the amazing events you know and love! More cosplay karaoke, more zero-gravity game nights, more of the massive interstellar shows that Sansar’s known for - thousands joining from anywhere in the world for one-of-a-kind live performances. You can also expect more features for meeting, socializing and hanging out with friends from around the world. Possibly even more ways to experience Sansar across different devices (more on this in weeks to come!). Nothing will change in your day-to-day.

Considering Wookey is a much smaller company than Linden Lab, and Sansar has a much smaller user base than Second Life, it's difficult to imagine them doing much of anything revolutionary in regards to virtual words in the future. Much has been spoken about if Sansar, which has been estimated to have cost the Lab 50-60 million dollars to develop, should never have been tried, or if they should have tried but their mistake was not having been smarter about it. But in any event, it is now no longer part of Linden Lab except as a chapter in it's history.

Source: New World Notes 

Bixyl Shuftan

Sansar Bought By Wookey

Sansar, the next generation virtual world created by Linden Lab a few years ago, has been sold.

There has been no announcement by Linden Lab, other than Ebbe Linden saying on the Lab Gab show last month that they were looking to either find someone to co-own Sansar with, or sell it to them. But yesterday it was noticed on Sansar's main page that Linden Lab was no longer mentioned, and at the bottom was "Wookey." It's also mentioned on the Terms of Service page. Sansar bucks have apparently been renamed Wookey Marks.

Wookey does have a webpage, www.wookey.com, but there's not a great deal of information on it. It does list the CEO as Mark Gustavson. It is based in San Francisco, the same city where Linden Lab is. Presumably the company is named after a town in England, though the resemblance to the name of the tall furry humanoids in Star Wars should be obvious to most anyone on the Internet.

Comments have already started on a thread in the Second Life forums.  One can also check out the Sansar Discord channel for more comments (and there have been plenty there).

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan