Second Life alternative Litesim shuts down

by Tateru Nino Dec 22nd 2008 at 10:00PM

Filed under: News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds

Well, out of the boost that various third-party opensim grids appear to have had since Linden Lab's announced Second Life void simulator pricing and specification changes, you'd expect them all to be doing well. Not apparently so with Litesim, a UK-based grid that launched earlier this year.

On Wednesday 10 December, Litesim unexpectedly shuttered its operation. It is not presently known whether this is due to financial difficulties, to poor publicity associated with the infamous Lalinda Lovell (the focus of two Sky News 'Wonderland' artificial child sex scandals) who promoted Litesim in Second Life, or the result of unsubstantiated rumors of UK police investigations into activities on the Litesim grid.

Just prior to the shutdown Litesim's CEO Gareth Nelson hinted at a possible future relaunch, but has been otherwise unreachable for comment.

Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

Tags: gareth-nelson, lalinda-lovell, litesim, opensim, second-life, virtual-worlds

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Valiant Westland said on 12:49AM 12-23-2008

If LifeSim was shuttered because of illegal activities, we should all be thrilled that a mastisized "cancer" is being eradicated from the Metaverse. Hopefully this round of "virtual chemo" will put this particular strain into remission forever!

On the other hand, if the reason for LifeSim's closure is financial, it potentially points to the challenge any OpenSim VW will have remaining financially viable. Today's OpenSim VWs are frighteningly complex and expensive to maintain with any decent level of reliability.

For a VW organization to have any chance of survival, the company must have both strong sponsorship / underwriting as well as a monetizable and sustainable business model, based on offering either unique or superior content or value. The failure of LiteSim and other independent OpenSim projects, will make users leery to invest in them in the future.

Marianne McCann said on 1:55AM 12-23-2008

I dunno if the "Wonderland" stuff hurt then or not (as most of that happened on SL, most of that blowback seems to still be there), but I do think this points to the financial issues towards trying to make an SL "alternative" that still uses the SL framework and is largely marketed as a "we're like them, but without LL." That doesn't seem to be the way to run a railroad... er, VW.

J Ross Nicoll said on 7:21AM 12-23-2008

As someone who is trying to organise a UK-based grid (for educational use - http://mimuve.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/ if anyone here wants more information), I'm frankly amazed people are trying commercial grids this early on.

OpenSim is an insanely fast moving target, whose hardware and technical support requirements change at a rapid pace. Its feature list changes weekly, and goals only slightly slower than that.

There's no economy to speak of, and unless you can lure content creators in by the hundreds, content is going to be a major issue. Not to mention you then need to persuade them your grid is a safe place to hold their stuff.

As grid-grid connectivity makes progress, be it OGP or hypergrid, it will become more feasible as content can be moved around, but for now most OpenSim grids are barren wastelands that won't attract anyone but the earliest adopters.

Tateru Nino said on 8:00AM 12-23-2008

Indeed, communities come before commerce. You don't get the latter without the former.

FlipperPA Peregrine said on 7:58AM 12-23-2008

Good riddance. Anyone who harbors the likes of Lalinda knowingly and proudly deserves to be shut down. I won't be shedding a tear.

sigmund leominster said on 10:11AM 12-23-2008

We should expect a period of time whereby new OpenSims pop up and disappear. As it becomes possible to "roll your own," everyone and their dog will think "hey, I can do better than Linden Lab" and promptly set up a virtual space. But as the number of "alternatives" increases, the number of residents may not. If Second Life can only get around 70,000 folks online concurrently, how would 100 OpenSims do this?

Of course, the natural way of things in business is for a plethora of "hopeful monsters" to be spawned and some may well offer a challenge to the beast at the top of the food chain. Meanwhile there will be new options for consumers and fun times ahead.

DagnyT Dagger said on 3:06PM 12-23-2008

I had tried and tried to get into the LiteSIM thing, but just never could connect. Looking for tutorials, or other help on exactly how to get connected to the LiteSIM was like digging a thorn from your side using a spatula. Very slow, painful, annoying, and in the end, not affective at all. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really complaining about it (not sure if I missed anything or not), but frankly, I can see how these alternative VWs will have problems if the average Joe Bloe can't figure out how to get there.

Virtual Dreamworld said on 2:55PM 12-23-2008

I must agree with Sigmund Leominster. This is also not the first grid that shuts down, you can expect many to close again after they tried to become Linden Lab. Clones are likely to fail in the Metaverse. A grid is not about putting up a bit of land and watch it get populated with angry customers from Second Life.

Count Burks

http://www.virtualworld.sl

Jay said on 1:12AM 12-24-2008

Darn, I guess I will need to wait a few more months until the middle two words in your banner dissappear and I see that graphic again, in the context I now hope for.

Actually the rumor I heard is that Gareth Nelson (no relation to the Senator) is Linda's RL husband.