Today Makena has announced that it is closing down its virtual world, There.com, on March 9th. The company has always been tight lipped about its user base–I can't remember hearing a growth update in any recent months before my hiatus–but it continued to draw in brands to either sell virtual goods or build virtual spaces. Unfortunately, that hasn't been enough.
Makena Technologies will be continuing with "some exciting educational projects in process, which [it] will continue to service." The entertainment-driven, branded space, though, will close.
The announcement alone cites Coca-Cola, CosmoGirl, Bebe, K-SWISS, and SPIN as players in virtual world and last year saw several others as well. However, There.com made its revenue on both brand partnerships and virtual goods sales. CEO Mike Wilson says in the announcement that because it worked to maintain a broadly accessible world, its users were hard hit by the recession.
"While our membership numbers and the number of people in the world have continued to grow, there has been a marked decrease in revenue, which, in these economic times, is no surprise," wrote Wilson. "At the end of the day, we can't cure the recession, and at some point we have to stop writing checks to keep the world open. There's nothing more we would like to avoid this, but There is a business, and a business that can't support itself doesn't work. Before the recession hit, we were incredibly confident and all indicators were 'directionally correct' and we had every reason to believe growth would continue. But, as many of you know personally, the downturn has been prolonged and severe, and ultimately pervasive."
Effective immediately, developer submissions have been closed, registration has been shut down, billing upgrades are finished, and rent collection for virtual land has been turned off. On March 9th at 11:59 pm, There.com will shut down.
On an only semi-related note, the closely related Forterra Systems sold off OLIVE, its virtual world platform, to SAIC last month. Forterra and There.com have common ancestry: Forterra was originally founded as There, Inc., and There.com was built on technology codeveloped between Forterra and the Army. There.com was then spun off to Makena Technologies in 2005. The Forterra sale to SAIC, though, did not prompt There.com's closing, according to the company.
"Prior to that sale, Makena acquired from Forterra all of the rights to the software used to run There, and Forterra's interest in Makena Technologies, making the companies completely distinct in every way," explains the Makena FAQ. "We think the acquisition of Forterra was an fantastic move on SAIC's part, and we wish them and our friends from Forterra all the best in their future endeavors."
Possibly due to its further efforts in educational projects, Makena will not be making There.com open source.
You can read the complete announcement here. The company is conducting a buyback for Therebucks with more information here.
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13 Responses to There.com Shutting Down On March 9th11
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Yes, unfortunate indeed. I’ve actually been a member at There.com for a long time, and it’s one of the products that helped forge the way forward before us. I feel for the developers who have spent so much time and effort into it.
Good luck to them from everyone here at Onverse.
There got pwned by Second Life and OpenSim.
I’ve been in SL for almost 2 years now. I only very recently heard of There. About 2 months ago, when I got a video card for a PC that could actually run the There Client (I’ve been running SL on other PC’s and Macs from the beginning), I created an Avatar with the same name as my SL self. Because I could not “Create” content right away, and the initial choices are pretty limited and lame, My avatar in There looked nothing like what I wanted it to look like. It was also pretty obvious that no matter what I did, the Avatar was going to look like a cartoon. And a Cartoon of Someone else, not me or the alternate of me that I wanted it to be. I was thinking about buying some ThereBucks to buy my looks, but that seemed wrong to me when I was so used to just being able to edit all the aspects of my looks to get a decent approximation of either the real me or the me I wanted to be, even without building and textures to make it look more like real life. Admittedly, in SL an Avatar still does not look like a real human being, especially with the built in appearance tools only, but it is still possible to come a lot closer to realism, even with those built in tools, let alone imported textures and other tools. Also, to build anything in There you need to become a “developer”. The fact that I could start building in SL was a big reason I went to it in the first place after reading and hearing about it in the media. I am now building a copy of a real life local museum on an OpenSim server running in my dining room and can move that anywhere I have land rights in either SL or the OpenSim Metaverse. Hopefully HyperGrid connections between the two will be available sometime soon.
It is no wonder that average users are not “There” and I’m not surprised it is closing at all. Good luck to the folks who were trying to make money either in There, or by working for “There.com”/Makena.
Why is There going under?
Is it the relative lack of creative opportunities as compared to, say, Second Life?
Is There less user friendly from a design standpoint?
Is it the lack of virtual land ownership?
Is it that users are not granted IP rights over their creations in There?
Has the more robust economy in Second Life contributed to the demise of There?
All views welcome.
In response to Matt Farley,
I’m not sure about virtual land ownership. From what I’m hearing, the other questions can all be answered with “yes”.
I’m pretty appalled that There has shut down all of the important communication areas for its users. First it didn’t give them proper notice (only a week, really?). Second, to close down the forums? I’m sure they have their reasons, but it wasn’t well thought out.
I am not a There member, but I have been following the news as much as possible. It’s sad to see people’s friendship ties, investments, and sometimes lifestyles being shredded to pieces.
I am apart of Frenzoo, Second Life, and IMVU. I know Frenzoo is offering Therebucks conversions and lifetime VIP’s to There users, so they can at least transition to a new world more smoothly. I have heard other virtual worlds have been doing something similar.
That being said, I’m sorry for the There members and staff. I hope they find a place where their near decade-long community can continue.
Good luck Thereians!
Matt Farley,
There had a lot of design opportunitis. Maybe not as open as SL but it was possible as was owning land. I don’t think that SL had anything to do with There closing either. Instead I think that the economy suffering brought less money in there as well as a money hungry CEO. I stand firm in believing that There could have been saved, I just think that the CEO did not care anymore. That is why it closed the way that it did. SAD SAD Day indeed.
Matt Farley,
There had a lot of design opportunitis. Maybe not as open as SL but it was possible as was owning land. I don’t think that SL had anything to do with There closing either. Instead I think that the economy suffering brought less money in there as well as a money hungry CEO. I stand firm in believing that There could have been saved, I just think that the CEO did not care anymore. That is why it closed the way that it did. SAD SAD Day indeed.
Sold out is more like it to the military.
Spooky, secretive, titanic US military contractor SAIC has bought out Forterra, a company that makes virtual worlds for government agencies.
http://boingboing.net/2010/02/01/world-of-fedcraft-sa.html
Sold out is more like it to the military.
Spooky, secretive, titanic US military contractor SAIC has bought out Forterra, a company that makes virtual worlds for government agencies.
http://boingboing.net/2010/02/01/world-of-fedcraft-sa.html
To Thereians who felt 1 week was to short to say bye, the ThereIm client still works. Its even still up for download at http://www.there.com/info/members/beta.
While it is always sad to see another virtual world go zero-bit, I am amazed and a little disappointed that few have commented on the loss of user-generated content. How many of these have to disappear before users and customers demand in non-negotiable terms that there be a means to export and import content? That there be a content standard?
I repeat what I’ve said before: this IS the dumbest customer market in the computer industry. Sheep to the shearing, pigs to the slaughter.
As a long time Thereian, the closure, was cited by There’s CEO, Michael Wilson as having every bit to do with the economics of the day, it is correct in little respect to the overall economy itself. There.com mismanaged its’ funds on every level, lied to its’ members at every turn. and lied to themselves. There wasn’t just about avatars, developers, or corporate sponsorship. They had their part, but the main thing There provided its’ members (which exceeded any other virtual workd in numbers, except for IMVU), was about people.
Many of us (Thereians), enjoyed There because we could do things we can no longer do, or in some cases, never could do, in real life. It was our social world and many of us invested thousands of dollars annually for the priviledge of enjoying life, our friends, and just being free to play in a ‘smooth’ environment. Something that no other Virtual World provides. Second Life comes close in some ways, excels in others, yet falls way short in most. Makena won’t release the code for There to Open Source because they know their (susoected) fraud will be readily discovered and they could not stand up to whatever legal suits that would be presented by Coca Cola and Scion Motors.
CEO Michael Wilson has said that they sought a buyer for There, yet there has been no evidence of this … At least among those who are in a position to make such an investment. Linden Labs, Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo! were never approached. There were no official notices in any business magazine, or newspaper that said There was up for sale. I can guarantee that Microsoft would have definitely been interested, as Virtual Worlds are the next step in the evolution of communication in personal computing. I would hope that some legal body will look into this closure and possibly force Makena into releasing There.coms’ coding to open source programmers. There are more than enough people capable, but more importantly, interested in There.coms’ potential.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that nothing in this world depends on money. It depends on people.
Nooo please dont close there. ive bin on here for ever and this site is a kids dream. please reopen. im on here from when it opens (6:00Am) till when it closes (4:00Am) i looove this game. please open it again. Now i know its closed for Good i am suriously crying! please please please Reopen…For us….For us Alll!!!! please. this is the best online Virtual download world game i have EVER played in my hooole like please please just reopen please please please For us All!!?????? Please comment back and reopen
Please