
I'm very sad to report that effective January 1st, 2010, the virtual world of Metaplace will be closing its doors. According to Raph Koster, Metaplace founder, "it has become
apparent that Metaplace as a consumer UGC service is not gaining enough traction
to be a viable product." I.e. an open-ended virtual world platform built open user-generated content is not economically profitable or sustainable.
For nonprofits interested in exploring virtual worlds for their causes, this is a major loss. Metaplace combined a rich toolset, open environment, and possibilities for broad-based participation and collaboration that was unmatched. Several nonprofits and causes had begun very interesting experiments using Metaplace over the past year. And the staff of Metaplace were very supportive of all the public good applications of their platform.
So I'm very upset to see Metaplace go away. And I wish those let go at Metaplace, Inc. all the best.
The full message from Raph follows after the jump...