It might just be the biggest loss to the virtual world space yet, as San Diego based Metaplace announced recently that they’re shutting down operations as of the 1st of the year.
Metaplace, which provides a platform for anyone to create their own web based virtual world made the closure announcement via email, stating, “Today we have unfortunate news to share with the Metaplace community. We will be closing down our service on January 1, 2010 at 11:59 pm Pacific. We will be having a goodbye celebration party on January 1st at noon Pacific Time.”
The business model itself sounds fairly solid, with users creating virtual worlds ranging from the simple to the relatively complex. Metaplace users could also attend live concert events, watch movies and view art shows together, as well as a host of other virtual events. However, as a revenue generating machine, it simply wasn’t working out. “Unfortunately, over the last few months it has become apparent that Metaplace as a consumer user-generated content service is not gaining enough traction to be a viable product, requiring a strategic shift for our company.”
Moving forward, Metaplace said that it’s shutting down billing immediately, and will refund any virtual item purchase costs and subscriptions for the month of December. Metaplace will leave the doors partially open for virtual world creators to grab their virtual commodities, presumably to allow them to move these creations to other virtual worlds.
The loss of this platform won’t go unnoticed, as approximately 70,000 virtual spaces will disappear as of 11:59 pm on January 1st PST. Moreover, Metaplace was founded by former SOE games vet Raph Koster. Even more interesting, as late as November, Metaplace was still developing the platform, announcing an audio chat feature, as well as investigating ways to integrate with Facebook.
The company Metaplace itself will not be dissolved, but future plans are yet to be determined.
Tags: Facebook, Metaplace, Raph Koster, Venturebeat, virtual worlds
