Marketplace traction with the UGC model and the closure of Metaplace
by Tateru Nino 
Dec 22nd 2009 at 12:00PM
Filed under: Betas, Business models, Culture, Opinion, MetaPlace, Virtual worlds
As you read last night, the UGC (user-generated-content) virtual environment side of Metaplace is shuttering on New Year's Day, 2010, just a scant couple of weeks away.
"The reason?" says company president Koster. "Well, it just hasn't gotten traction."
Nor should it have at this stage, really. Metaplace only went into open beta in May this year, meaning that it is closing before it really launched. We believe that is several years too soon for traction with its (now canceled) model.
The 800 pound gorilla in the UGC virtual environment space at the moment, of course, is Second Life, which took four years from open-beta to break-even.
There's absolutely nothing fundamentally wrong with Metaplace. It's just that we wouldn't expect a new virtual environment based around a similar model to gain enough traction to hit the break-even mark in less than five years of post-beta operation. It just seems unrealistic.
We didn't expect that from Lively or Metaplace, and we don't really expect it from Blue Mars, either. Content takes time to develop, particularly from user-contributors, and communities – the key to success in the space – don't spring up fully-formed and in sufficient numbers.
We see it as one of those "go big or go home" scenarios. If your model revolves around UGC, you need to be prepared to dig in for the long haul.
Metaplace is nifty and we like it. However, communities and user-generated content do not and likely won't ever run according to a schedule.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
lordfly digeridoo said on 12:03PM 12-22-2009
It would be nice if they open sourced the whole pile. I doubt it'll happen though.
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Jason said on 3:14PM 12-22-2009
They won't open source it because even without Metaplace the underlying tools will allow them to rapidly develop small world-like games for others.
Jason said on 3:15PM 12-22-2009
They won't open source it because even without Metaplace the underlying tools will allow them to rapidly develop small world-like games for others.
Ari Blackthorne said on 12:17PM 12-22-2009
Read: "We couldn't find addition source of venture capital in order to continue with any viability".
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botgirlq said on 12:29PM 12-22-2009
I would love to know what numbers they projected to generate their big $6+ Million investment round last year. I don't know if this is the case for Metaplace, but if their projections were way off for the year, it could easily have initiated some sort of Plan B. Time (may) tell. I posted on this topic this morning here: http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2009/12/are-forterra-and-metaplace-just-first.html
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thud said on 12:34PM 12-22-2009
If they wanted to turn a profit quicker, then they really missed the boat on encouraging user development. I always felt like I never had enough space to test build things, a key factor in getting users to fork over cash. In Second Life, sandbox regions allow limitless content creation for non-paying residents. In Blue Mars, the Dev Tools do the same. It's the sandbox aspect of content creation in virtual worlds that ultimately leads to profits for the host company. The more a user is allowed to create, the more inclined that user is to pay for some space to share their creations.
In metaplace, you only had one "world" with two "places" at your disposal. Using it as a sandbox meant not being able to have a world to share. using it to share meant stagnant content growth because you no longer had a sandbox to experiment with.
That sandbox wall is what made me leave metaplace soon after joining.
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LunarRaid said on 10:23PM 12-27-2009
I have to really disagree with this one. For starters, you yourself mentioned you got 2 places. Do what I did; have your primary place the community-facing 'world' to share, and the secondary place as your sandbox. I used to develop that way all the time, and had plenty of space to make neat little things even if I HAD only one world. Content creation was absolutely fantastic in Metaplace, and it really blows that they are shutting down so early.
torak said on 1:31PM 12-22-2009
Poor Ralph,
He's had a rough decade.
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PeterD said on 2:39PM 12-22-2009
When I got the e-mail about this my first response was "huh, it's still in beta, why are they complaining?!"
Here's a clue for whoever made the decision to shut it down -- when you're still in beta and not really marketing your product (I haven't seen any metaplace ads, have you?) why on earth would you expect to be getting any significant market share? It's bad enough they've been charging people for a product still in beta, but to then complain it's not making enough profit is assinine.
Also, as another poster said, the clunkiness of trying to develop any content makes it hard to, you know, actually develop content.
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Yo Brewster said on 5:21PM 12-22-2009
I tried the platform multiple times and it simply wasn't good enough. It kinda reminded me of Lively from Google which was clear from the start that it wouldn't survive either. Of course with Google you never know since they don't mind loosing money on certain projects. I am having serious doubts about Blue Mars as well simply due to the fact that their platform requirements are way to steep. Unless they are able to live of investment capitial over the next 3 years so technology has a chance to catch up, they'll have a very hard time surviving. I hope not because Second Life really needs some healthy competition and there simply isn't a match at this point.
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Digital Buddha said on 6:23PM 12-22-2009
I would not be surprised to see this coming from the consoles in the back end of 2010 or the earlier part of 2011. Look at XBOX Live as an early indicator: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(Xbox_360)
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