litesim posts

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.

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Lalinda Lovell, the person behind the Wonderland site that was the focus of the Sky News virtual child sex scandal is apparently promoting a new grid, called litesim. The server software apparently is under development and due to be released under GPL Free Software licenses at some future date, so it isn't exactly clear if the code is based on Open Simulator or some other backend.

The system sports three tiers of users: Free, Basic and Premium, the latter two both having a monthly fee and cashout options. Lovell's advertising for this grid emphasizes "Freedom and privacy guaranteed" however the litesim terms of service specifically state that a number of things (like child pornography, and anything that violates either US or UK laws - that would include simulations of underage sexuality) are not permitted.