Google Lively To Be an Online Gaming Platform

GamesIndustry.biz recently interviewed Kevin Hanna, creative director for Google Lively, about the virtual environment's beginnings and the plans for its future. Earlier this month, he announced that Lively would open to developers, and now he says the long-term goal is for Lively to be "used as an online games platform." Hanna goes on to say: "I'd like for it to be invisible, where, when it makes sense to have 3D aspects of the web, that everyone will have already downloaded the plug-in, it's one of the first things you do when you install your machine, and you're able to just jump around and play in a creative space. I feel like a big chunk of the games industry out there has a corporate mentality where you're first to be second, and I've been there, where they say, 'Make sure you include this aspect, and this aspect, and this aspect, to ensure that we have an 80 per cent market share.' And it's sucking the life out of what should be the most creative and innovative medium out there."

Wow.

I wonder how many markets Google will get into. I can't wait until Google starts working on their female douche product line. hehe.

Re:Wow.

I can't wait until Google starts working on their female douche product line. hehe.

That would lend a whole new meaning to "googling yourself".

Or wait, maybe not.

Re:

You underpromise and overdeliver if you're a developer... you do the opposite if you're in marketing.

Re:Wow.

I just yanked this from a report on one of the sites I operate:

Firefox 63.32%
Internet Explorer 16.33%
Safari 7.43%
Chrome 6.36%

(For the record, the site is nothing that would predispose it to FireFox users over IE users. Unless you count video game players as "pre-disposed".)

For Chrome to have grabbed that much market share so quickly is impressive. So "successful" is a perfectly acceptable tag. What remains to be seen is if Google will build on that success or let it flounder.

Re:

(For the record, the site is nothing that would predispose it to FireFox users over IE users. Unless you count video game players as "pre-disposed".)

depends on the types of video games. IF the games require one to upgrade their hardware, then yeah. They are going to be more tech savy and perhaps more likely to change from IE to FirFox.

Re:

Yes, like Corvettes, Axe body spray, hair gel for guys, gold medalions, tight white tank tops (for guys)...

Acquisitions Leading Towards 3d

Valve denied it was being purchased by Google [outsurging.com], but it leads me to believe that the opposite may be true. Time will tell.

Re:

Valve denied it was being purchased by Google, but it leads me to believe that the opposite may be true.

Valve's planning on buying Google?!? Folks, you heard it here first. Now go spread the word!

Re:Acquisitions Leading Towards 3d

>Valve denied it was being purchased by Google, but it leads me to believe that the opposite may be true.

Whoa, I knew Steam was a high-margin money maker, but who knew Value would be buying Google soon?! Between Google's forever tracking cookie and Steam's DRM, it could lead to incredible heights of corporate douchebaggery!

Hmm

Though I'm not really sure it'll work, this actually might make a bit of sense - or at least more sense than simply creating a competitor to second life where you can't build objects.

It's like an open version of ps 3's home.

My goodness, imagine the hardware requirements for this thing... and without any foreseeable return on investment? I guess if anyone can do it, it would be Google.

Shockwave 3D?

I just hope they do better than Shockwave 3D. If nothing else, it would be an improvement in that it's unlikely they'll charge for the creation tools as opposed to the overpriced Director MX.

Lively

Well, of course online gaming is going to be lively. You wouldn't expect Google Bore (beta) to be a force here.

Anyone else think of VRML

"when it makes sense to have 3D aspects of the web, that everyone will have already downloaded the plug-in, it's one of the first things you do when you install your machine, and you're able to just jump around and play in a creative space"

Everytime I hear someone propose something like this, I think of VRML [wikipedia.org] and the failed (and misguided) attempt to reskin the web into something it's not.

Re:

I fail to see how learning Assembly in 3D would be any more useful or any less painful.

The Matrix

Does anyone else think that this sounds like the beginning of the creation of The Matrix?

First REAL attempt at a Metaverse?

Second-life's attempt to be the world's Metaverse turned out to be just a huge advertising/hacking cluster fuck. Not saying that that Lively won't be a advertising/hacking cluster fuck but at least it sounds it would be more open to programmers, which will allow for more diverse possibilities, so there could be just as much good stuff as bad.

Is Slashdot...

Is Slashdot now becoming the marketing arm of Google? I swear this is like the 90th article about some new whiz-bang software they developed. There are other companies writing software!

The need to redesign the UI from scratch

Out of all the 3d user interfaces I've used, this is probably the worst. There's no connection between you and your avatar at all, and even getting your avatar to walk along a straight line is frustrating... the normal motion is to have you avatar teleport from one piece of furniture to another while you pan around at a distance.

If simple movement is so hard, how on earth do they expect people to use it for a gaming platform?

Google Lively To Be an Online Gaming Platform

Here's the translation from the corporate speak:

"We've released it and no one bit. We have no idea what to do with it, so let us see if we can use other people's ideas for free."

Re:

Dude, what you are describing...
SecondLife [secondlife.com]

Re:Snow Crash?

You know, that's what Second Life is. Been around for years now.

And it's horrible.

Re:

Second Life is like the Pong of virtual worlds. It's the first step toward what was described in Snow Crash, driven by profit instead of an open source, open world approach.

Re:Yeah but...

Yeah but does it run Linux?

And the answer:

Requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox

So....it doesn't run on Chrome?

Re:Linux Support?

That's the great thing about Linux -- Choice! Like, the choice to use an operating system with a marginal market share not likely to get commercial support!

Re:

Nothing is stopping Google from turning these two applications into something better than Second Life.

Well, except that Second Life already exists, and Lively sucks balls compared to it.

Lively has no source code available, that I can find. The closest thing I could find [felipebarriga.cl] has barely started to reverse engineer Lively, and appears to have no actual code written. And the official client is XP/Vista, IE/Firefox, nothing else.

Contrast this to Second Life, which has an open source client, with officially supported Windows/Mac/Linux versions.

From what other people are telling me, it doesn't get any better once you