More On Linden Lab Acquiring Caspertech

 

 If you rent a place in Second Life through someone rather than getting it directly from Linden Lab, then chances are you know of Caspertech. Their rentboxes are a fairly common sight in numerous places here, including at the Sunweaver Estates where the Newser office makes it's home. Since 2018 with the closing of Hippo Technologies, they've clearly been the top seller of rental vendors. Things seem to have run smoothly with them. So it was a big surprise yesterday when Linden Lab announced they were acquiring them. 

 

CasperTech has provided various business related services within Second Life for 13 years. Over that time, CaperTech has proudly provided continuous service for tens of thousands of Second Life businesses, and it has remained steadfast in its commitment to the merchants who have depended on those services.

This acquisition will ensure that all of the existing CasperTech services in Second Life will continue to operate without interruption into the foreseeable future, but it also opens up brand new opportunities to vastly improve the experience for our users as our next step in the CasperTech and Second Life journey.  

You can expect to see the same great services that you know and love continue on, with all of the same functionality you enjoy today, but with closer integration into the Second Life ecosystem – and as such, an even more reliable and convenient experience.

The news sparked more than a few questions and some fears among some residents, both those on the forum thread to discuss the matter, as well as conversations with people I had that day. A few were expecting Linden Lab to gouge them to the point they'd have to give up some of their land. 

Shortly afterwards, there was a special episode of Lab Gab to help explain things. In short, Caspervend is not in trouble, but the owner had other reasons to sell.
 

Caspertech is owned by Casper Warden, and he and Patch Linden were interviewed by Strawberry Linden. Casper stated he came to Second Life in 2006, was asked to by people in his real-life job to take a look at it. Worked on promotional material for the company at first. But was soon making his own items. Caspertech as a Second Life company has been around for 13 years. Casper originally created the vendor system in 2009 for his own personal use as he didn't like some of the ways what was on the market worked, "they were script-heavy, and I didn't like the way that the vendors scrolled through the products." But he soon realized people were more interested in his vendors than what he was selling, "In hindsight, I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised by that." So he soon launched version one to the public. While he didn't do an ad campaign for it, word spread by word of mouth and started becoming popular, "and we just continued to expand to meet customer needs." Casper does make other items, such as a security orb and a product update system, though his vendors continue to be his "bread and butter."

Patch called himself "a bit of a fan" about Casper's products, and had been using them not just for himself, but Linden Lab work, calling it "an awesome system." He would say the talks about Linden Lab getting Caspertech started, "a little while back now," with he and Casper talking on various subjects, and eventually came to the idea of the Lab taking the system and intigrating it with Second Life. This way, Patch stated, this would mean the long-term stability of the vendor system while under the Lab there would be more resources available to improve on it. So Patch asked him about the idea, "and well, here we are." Patch went on to say Caspertech's technology, "will bring a lot of capabilities ... in the future."

Strawberry asked what residents can expect. Casper answered that customer services will continue, "It's really critical to us that our customers don't get disrupted." He went on to say that he was still basically in charge of Caspertech's day to day operations, saying the big difference was that they now had, "the support and resources of Linden Lab behind us," reminding that other companies offering rental vendors had closed down over the years, "now our customers can be assured that their Caspertech services aren't just going to suddenly disappear." Of the future, he stated that he saw "plenty of exciting opportunities" to improve the vendor system, saying residents can expect "significant" improvements. Patch stated that in the deal, the Lab "would not interrupt or change what you know and love about the Casper products today. They will continue for the foreseeable future just as they are now. ... the goal is to ... give Second Life residents the tools they need to be successful in what they do."

Casper described himself as mainly a software engineer, and stated that as his business expended, "I found increasingly less and less time on my hands to really spend on the code," and that "many requested features have kind of sat on the back burner. ... this move give me an opportunity to really get back to what I love and what I'm good at," developing his rental vendors and other products of his. He would go on to say he'll still be online, and around in group chat, "monitoring and helping to keep everything running," and thanked his support staff, "who have already kept the show running all these years."

Patch stated they would soon start working with Casper to "transition the service" to the Lab, saying the goal was to make it smooth to the point it wouldn't be noticed by anyone. And after that, Casper would presumable have more time to work on the system's new features. 

In the forums, someone would ask Casper if he was in some kind of financial trouble, and he would answer, "No! We've been profitable since the day we launched. But the amount that one guy (me) can handle is limited, and as CT grew I found myself with a massive challenge and not enough time to improve the service. Now I can! *yay*" There were numerous other comments. Some were cautious, some were optimistic, some were a little of both, feeling the Lab wasn't out to gouge them but weren't so sure about the promised improvements. There were a few comparisons to Linden Lab's acquisition of Xstreet, which would eventually become Second Life's Marketplace. One would say this was no surprise as she felt Caspervend had gotten "too big to fail" for Second Life. 

While a major development, for now it appears little will change as far as daily life in Second Life goes. Hopefully Casper will soon come up with the improvements he says he was requested to make, but hadn't the time to develop them. For now, we can only wait and see.

Bixyl Shuftan

Breaking News: Linden Lab Buys Caspertech

Earlier today, Linden Lab announced it had just acquired Caspertech. For those who don't know, Caspertech is a business in Second Life most noted for it's rental vendors that allow residents to rent land or other locations in Second Life from other residents instead of dealing with the Lab. For the past few years, they have been the dominant company in that market.

Stay tuned for more information on this development, though you can read more on the Linden blog and a special episode of Lab Gab that appeared today. 

Hat Tip: DeniseUnicorn Toonie, Oldesoul Eldemar

Men of the Year Runner-Up: The Acquisition Team

 

Besides the Newser's choice for "Man of the Year" Draxtor Despress, there were a number of other newsmakers. But the ones who stood out were the team of investors led by Randy Waterfield and Bradford Oberwager. On July 9, it was announced by Linden Lab that negotiations between them and the team had reached a deal that would result in the investors taking ownership of the company known for it's running of Second Life. All that was left needed was the approval of the US Federal Government to finalize it. The news was all the talk around the residents for a while. Some were afraid the result would be Second Life going lower in quality or even dismantled and shut down. Others felt there wouldn't be much change or possibly even some improvement. And still others felt it was too soon to tell or were otherwise unsure. Ebbe Linden stated that part of the deal was the Lab would continue to be free to run Second Life. Brett Linden added Waterfield and Oberwager had a solid view of what Second Life was and wasn't, which led to their decision to invest. After a few weeks, the chatter died down, and Residents were more or less going about their usual business.

While the investment team was only in the news for a matter of a few weeks, the move's potential implications for Second Life are obvious. So they are the Newser's Men of the Year - Runner Up.

Other notable people this year were the Moles for their continued work on Bellisseria and the Linden Homes, the staff of Gen-Con whom took their annual gaming convention online to Second Life, those whom made an effort to inform residents about the Coronavirus and honor those whom passed away from it, and of course the Relay for Life volunteers.

Bixyl Shuftan
Editor, SL Newser

Trion Worlds Acquired By Gamigo, 75% Layoffs Follow

On Monday October 22, Trion Worlds, a game developer and publisher, was bought by Gamigo. Trion currently is behind five games: Atlas Reactor, Trove (a Minecraft spinoff), Rift, Defiance, and Archeage. On their website, Gamigo called themselves a "leading publisher" of "various Free2Play MMORPGs and MMOGs," many of them browser-based games.

In the Rift forums, one director posted, "...We can confirm that there has been a transaction involving Trion Worlds and its games. While many of the names and faces you’ve come to know in our studios will remain on through this transition, others will not be making the journey. To those who are leaving us, we are forever grateful for your incredible work and contributions over the years. We’d like to assure our communities that the games will continue on in capable hands moving forward, as everyone involved is aiming to make this transition as smooth as possible for you. We will have more information to reveal as soon as we possibly can. ..."

What followed in the Rift forums were many sad comments, and well-wishes for those whom had been laid off. While a few expressed optimism for the future of the game, more often there were predictions the game only had a few years left in "maintenance mode" with few to no updates.

In a statement by Gamigo, the company told, "Trion was acquired via an 'Assignment for the Benefit of the Creditors' process, in which the buyer only buys those assets, with which he wishes to continue the business. In this process, gamigo group acquired the majority of the assets, including the platform, takes over employees to operate the business and gets the full publishing rights of the games. The IP’s of the Trion Worlds games have been acquired by gamigo’s sister company Padmapani GmbH and are made available for gamigo group, worldwide and exclusive."

According to an article by Gamasutra, "roughly 25 employees remain at each" of Trion's two studios. With the company having once employed 200 people, fifty are now left. Earlier, it was reported only 25 employees were left in total. A look at Archeage's forum shows that the release of an update that was almost finished has been delayed. There had been some earlier signs of trouble for the company, such as fifteen people laid off in July. With only 25% of it's staff remaining, it is unclear what the future is for updates that are far from complete, or if any more will be made for the forseable future.

In 2011, Xymbers Slade reviewed Rift for the Newser, saying it was heavily based off World of Warcraft, but was so good he was spending a lot of time on it. Nydia Tungsten reviewed Archeage in 2014, saying the MMO had a well done storyline and a unique crafting system, but there were some frustrations such as griefing by players wanting to become pirates.

Sources: Rifts forums, Archeage forums, Gamasutra, Rock Paper Shotgun, MMORPG.com, Massively Overpowered  

Bixyl Shuftan

BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump Buys Linden Lab, Promises to "Make Second Life Great Again"

Update: April Fool's

In a move that was completely unexpected, Linden Lab announced that it had been purchased by the Trump Organization, the primary holding company for the businesses and investments by Donald Trump, the billionaire and media personality whom recently has been making news as a leading candidate in the US Presidential election later this year.

"We at Linden Lab are happy to announce our merger with the Trump Organization," Ebbe Altberg, the CEO of the owner of the virtual world announced, "Our new partnership will allow us to make developments in virtual reality like never before."

In an official statement by Donald Trump, he stated he had been impressed by past accomplish- ments by enterpenurers in the virtual world, such as Anshe Chung. and was looking forward to attracting new ones. It had also gotten his attention that among the users in the Gird were supporters of his, such as those in Second Life's own Trump Organization, and planned on making an appearance inworld soon, "Second Life is full of all kinds of people, smart people, socially upward, socially awkward, I love the socially awkward."

Developments are still coming in on what is clearly a turning point in both Linden Lab and Second Life.

For more information: Click Here.

Blue Mars Platform Bought by Ball State University

Some news in about Blue Mars. The virtual world was at one time seen as the "Second Life Killer." Then in January 2011 the company behind it, Avatar Reality, changed course to concentrate on a mobile device version. The PC version would be limited from then on to bug fixes. Since then, little news has come from this virtual world. It did get a couple more updates after all, as well as Avatar Reality getting a new CEO (Henk Rogers).

Recently, Ball State University acquired the rights to the virtual world. Ball State's official statement was later taken down, but Tateru Nino described the terms of agreement as "the university will begin to fully operate Blue Mars for non-commercial purposes, expand upon the source code, increase its research and academic initiatives, and enhance the community of Blue Mars. In addition, Ball State will continue to deliver original content on Blue Mars as it has done in the past." The University plans to use Blue Mars for "3D simulation and research projects."

No figures are available yet on what Ball State paid, but the Blue Mars platform is reportedly worth $10 million. Tateru stated Avatar Reality, the company that once challenged Linden Lab, is now down to less than a dozen people. With the platform off their hands, she felt they would be "subsisting on licensing fees, or working on mobile projects."

Ball State and Blue Mars have a history. The University's Ball State's Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts (IDIA) made a number of projects there, such as the Virtual Middletown Project and their simulation of the 1915 World's Fair.

Sources: Tateru Nino, Ball State University, Blue Mars Blog

Bixyl Shuftan