Being There
I believe I read it in the intro to a science fiction novel. “Who will mourn the earth when she is gone?”
It just goes to show: when you hear complaints, and compliments, and rivalries, between games, or pasttimes, in online discussions and blogs, it seems to continue forever. Yet “There.com” is shut down, March 9th, and I read hardly anything about it. Where are all the “Citizens There” going to go? Discussions and links after the jump….
It was a groundbreaking world, a direct competitor for Second Life (and I can read the chuckling Sl-izens, thanks very much) and yet… there it goes. Closed down without so much as a barbed-wire fence or a “by-your-leave”. First, I offer to you several links of esteemed sources which describe the demise and effect of the loss:
Official Announcement from There.com
Real-world woes shuttering virtual world There (CNET blog)
Makena closing There.com on March 9th (WorldsinMotion.Biz Industry blog)
And here is what I found to be the best commentaries on the subject of There’s closing:
5 Lessons Unlearned by the MMO industry (from the excellent blog Pop Culture of Destruction)
Another World bites the dust (Fatfoogoo blog, discussing the difference a year makes)
My own take on this follows after the break: __________________________________________________________________________
The explanations are very nice, very detailed, seemingly very open. But as the last article points out, the companies that run the virtual worlds insist upon their great health until the bitter end. The announcement of the end of a virtual world that had been running for the better part of a decade is…. ahem, March 9. (That would be less than 2 weeks notice for your non-math-majors out there).
With all due apologies to the great developers, industry people, and those with great foresight within there.com – are they serious? A world that is built of conversation, openness, and social interaction of what I’ve been told is some of the better minds (to engage in avatar chat) they couldn’t figure out a better end than that?
This is the second major virtual world within the past 3 months to close, and each of them has given less notice than is required for a tenured employee at any small employer? I’m amazed that the second There.com closed its doors, they shuttered their forums. If There.com participants wanted to complain, they had to find another forum. See article on Virtual Worlds News. Noted at the bottom of that article, is that those who had the forums closed, had a place at Utherverse to vent their grief or try to reconnect with old friends (and Frenzoo also is running a promotion). Even though the closure of Metaplace was criticized in some circles as being fairly short notice, at least Raph Koster and his team did give an aura of dignity to the termination of Metaplace by allowing the citizens to interact, grieve over the loss of the world, and have a final get-together in the same venue and same forums.
This is purely commentary of course, and I welcome and will respond to citizens from There.com who feel I’m being a little harsh: but the whole purpose of a virtual world is immersion. I would think many at There.com would have loved to hear about the financial difficulties; try to participate in a solution, get some transparency from the developers, and do everything, everything in their power to save There.com before an announcement had been made. Maybe that’s naive of me to believe, but so was the belief only a couple of years ago that the majority of your social interaction would happen online; and that’s true for most people today. And that’s not a direct criticism of There.com, but just a statement that these large publishers and developers are building something more important than even they realize.
Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.
There are two main issues working here, I think.
1) The business side. There’s nothing like the reek of failure to scare off potential investors and players. If There.com admitted there were problems, players might have been less interested in staying around and participating. Reduced user numbers make it less likely to find investors, etc.
2) The emotional side. As someone who has been around a game closing, it’s a very hard thing to face. Developers put a lot of their souls into a world, and it’s a sad moment to see it go. It’s like facing the death of a beloved pet. You don’t want to accept it until the very end when the inevitable stares you in the face.
Unfortunately, these two conflict with doing what is best for the community. When 3DO shut down Meridian 59, the community was given some time. We even re-activated a bunch of old accounts (except for cheaters) and let people play for free for the last month.
Some perspective.