Game Over: There.com Virtual World Ends March 9, 2010

Players point to pedo and paintball moderation as possible causes

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

The PG-oriented virtual world There.com is to be closed March 9, a victim of hard economic times, according to There CEO Michael Wilson's announcement. An FAQ at the site states that the company is buying back  virtual currency from players with a "Therebucks buyback" program for those who purchased Therebucks in the last month and for developers who made Therebucks by selling developer items. Therebucks collected from Sparkles, Tips, or give trades from other members are not eligible - so virtual escorts and other personal service industry workers appear to be out of luck.

did There.com's paintballer moderation policies hurt the game?

The FAQ hints at significant levels of player dissatisfaction with hard-to-control end-game emergent behavior. Player profiles have been disabled, and the FAQ explains, "So many members were using profiles to post pornographic links and images out C/S staff couldn't keep up. We've temporarily disabled profiles until we can catch up and find a better solution."

Unfortunately, disabled player profiles make it difficult for in-game groups to coordinate moves to other virtual worlds. A source in Second Life informed the Herald that Therians in Second Life are considering organizing an event at Starlust for There refugees. Given the demographics of There, the Teen Grid is likely to see more refugees than the main grid.

According to our source, speculation among There players is that some of There.com's financial woes may have been due to sponsors pulling out after a recently public incident with a player named Brad Mitchell who was permabanned from There.com, but ended up in the news after a cross country rendezvous with a 16 year old girl he met on the Internet.

Brad Mitchell griefing in There.com

the internet can be dangerous

Comments

[Orion]

Gee, no way to create a new account either! Figured if the place is closing down I may as well sign up and check it out before its too late. Probly for the best though, sounds like it was filled with bratty kids and freaky pedos anyway.

[Senban Babii]

I'll be sorry to see There go on account of it being a little piece of virtual world history.

But perhaps its demise (especially following the demise of Metaplace also) can serve as a cautionary tale for Linden Lab and Second Life users in general?

Also, Brad Mitchell's hair. WTF?

[Darien Caldwell]

It's also interesting to note that There.com used to be owned by Forterra Systems, until they sold off There to the current owner, Makena Technologies, in 2005. Forterra then went on to concentrate on Corporate Virtual worlds, very similar to LL's corporate offering.

However, on Feb 1st, 2010 Forterra sold their corporate virtual world to a Defense Contractor in Virginia called Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

And so the cookie crumbles.

[Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia]

I was one of the early residents of There years ago. It was a fun place, but it left me wanting more, so I found SL. The vehicles were the main selling point of the virtual world for me, but content creation was as bureaucratic as getting something in the iPhone store, and I categorically will never spend time or money in a community where censorship is the norm (I will never own an iPhone or iGadget for the same reason).

Reading the CEOs letter announcing the closing, a few things in their death spiral sound familiar:

"Throughout the last year and this quarter, we have fought the good fight by churning out new features and revisions as fast as we possibly could. Our hats have to go off to the team, which have in a very short time introduced a whole new suite of casual games, a completely new foundation for our user interface, improved internal efficiencies for the product, real estate, a whole new level of Community Involvement, etc, etc. On top of that, we've revised our first user experience several times, making the whole process for registering and getting into the world (and continued to be amused when the same features appeared in other worlds)."

link: http://www.prod.there.com/info/announcement

It sounds like when There failed it was doing what LL is trying to do now with SecondLife 2.0 and a few other initiatives. I'm not going to say SL is going the way of There. There and SL are run differently, but the product is essentially the same. I don't think LL is doing a better job in the area of creating a better interface and orientation than There did. Overhauling the UI and fiddling with the orientation process for new residents did not turn out great profits for There, so it probably won't for SL either.

It's sad when a VW closes, but hopefully this is a warning sign to other VWs who are tempted to micro-manage and censor their users creations. Low barriers to entry are what fuels innovation and creativity online. Putting a licencee bureaucracy in the way to create unnatural barriers to entry so that fair competition does not happen is a terrible idea (I'm looking at you, Blue Mars).

[Sasha]

I didn't know about the Brad Mitchell scandal! Interesting, and a bit creepy, especially the weird hair do...

Still sad to see another VW fall down. I feel for all the members. They aren't really given a lot of time to find each other and move to other virtual worlds.

I've heard some virtual worlds are opening their arms and offering help, with some hefty prizes.

For those There members looking for new worlds, I found and interesting pros and cons article about alternative sites. You can get to it by clicking my name.

Good luck to those members!

[Errin]

Good News! i hope SL does it too

[Bob]

@Errin

I noticed on the sidebar that you'd commented on half a dozen posts, all of them negative. Sorry about your shitty existence.

Sincerely,
Bob

[Lina Pussycat]

Ok some things here really after having tried There.com some years ago after i picked up Second Life, first off the lag even comparing to second life at the time i tried it was unbearable and this was on a 5 mbps - 7 mbps connection at the time with a video card that ran Sl just fine at the time (pre windlight before my current computer) Most stuff that we have freedom of in second life was not a freedom in There.com, for starters they had to ok each and every item which had to be made outside of the game and then they took a cut of every sale of said item (sorta like what blue mars seems to be doing) The graphics of it were abysmal at best even though it was made at and around the same time as second life. People do complain about Second Life but its a smoother experience and thats the silly thing. I'm frankly surprised it took There.com this long to fall but it was bound to happen without a complete and utter overhaul with how they operated the game, lag, graphics, building, and overall openness. It might of been good at one point but those days are long gone and have been for a good long while now. Its a shame to see yet another virtual world close but they need to start offering more.

Much as people do have some disdain for what LL do with Second Life they by far have the best offerings as far as an overall package goes. Yeah lag and performance could be better but compare what you can do here to what you can do in any other world out there.