Ciaran Laval

June 5, 2015

Desura Faces Uncertain Future As Bad Juju Games File For Bankruptcy

Desura, the digital distribution platform for gamers which Linden Lab sold to Bad Juju Games in November faces an uncertain future according to an article in Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

An article by Alice O’Connor, Digital Disturbance: Desura Owner Files For Bankruptcy, explains :

Following troubles and discontent with developers being paid late by Desura, the digital distribution store’s owner Bad Juju Games have filed for bankruptcy. A member of Bad Juju confirmed the bankruptcy filing with us today, but the company haven’t made a statement yet or said anything about what’ll happen with people owed money or games folks have bought or whether the store will continue, or… anything. More will follow, I’m sure.

The late payments issue had come to a head late in May and they were initially been blamed on issues such as not having an automated payment system. Desura released a statement to try and calm developers worst fears down. In the statement they said :

The second rumor, that we are going out of business, is also false. We are in fact exploring some very exciting new avenues in terms of partnerships and growth opportunities. The payout issues are not an indication that we don’t have the funds to pay. Bringing in the changes to the payout system, as well as new contracts being lowered to a $250 threshold will both help prevent this from being a recurring problem in the future.

What has happened to those partnerships and exciting avenues of growth is unclear.

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June 4, 2015

Virtual Ability Drew A Great Virtual World Picture At Denver Comic Con

Denver Comic Con ran from May 23rd – 25th and was the expected mixture of comics, computer games, science fiction, fantasy and more. The more part had what was to me, a surprising part to it as it included Virtual Ability Inc. a non-profit organisation who have a presence in both Second Life and Inworldz. Virtual Ability build community support for people with a wide range of disabilities in virtual worlds.

That they were part of Denver Comic Con initially seemed odd, but then I noticed that Denver Comic Con also has links with Pop Culture Classroom, whose mission statement is :

Pop Culture Classroom ignites a love of learning, increases literacy, celebrates diversity and builds community through the tools of popular culture and the power of self-expression.

If you’re still scratching your head, then a blog post may help you : Live from DCC’15: Virtual Ability Helps People in the Real World :

It’s not just about comics at Denver Comic Con. Denver’s fandom is unique in supporting the efforts of education, through our associated nonprofit, Pop Culture Classroom, as well our new and unique gaming and development area, the E.D.G.E.

The post is worth a read in full because it exemplifies a lot of the good work Virtual Ability do in Virtual Worlds, th author of the post spoke to Alice Krueger, the President and founder of Virtual Ability and Alice made some very positive and interesting comments on virtual worlds, particularly with regards to Second Life :

We provide education and entertainment to our community members and do outreach to the general population in Second Life. Most people don’t realize that in virtual environments, one out of every five persons has some kind of disability and that’s a higher percentage than in the general population outside the virtual world.

There are many good uses of Virtual Worlds of course, but the way they can aid people with disabilities is a very important use case.

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June 3, 2015

Gamefly Enter The Streaming Games Arena But Only For Amazon Fire TV

As many of us know, it didn’t end well for OnLive as they attempted to bring streaming gaming to the market. The service had potential and a lot of people enjoyed it, including those of us who utilised SL Go to enhance our Second Life experience. However OnLive were never able to turn that potential into profit and eventually they sold a lot of their IP to Sony and the ship sailed.

When it comes to a replacement for SL Go, Bright Canopy have been at the forefront of developing an alternative. However an alternative to OnLive’s gaming service hasn’t yet appeared.

However The Verge have reported : GameFly’s new streaming service wants to be Netflix for games :

We still don’t have a true Netflix for games, but that isn’t stopping companies from trying. The latest is GameFly — the rental service that sends you games in the mail — which today is launching a new video game streaming service. As part of the announcement GameFly revealed that it has acquired streaming company Playcast, which will power the new service.

Now to be clear, this is not OnLive 2, electric boogaloo, for a start, the service is currently only available for Amazon Fire TV, which I’ll be honest, I’m not really familiar with. However the service currently offers packages bundles of games for $6.99 a month, each bundle contains around seven games, The Verge article states.

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June 3, 2015

A Dwarfin Storms 1920’s Berlin On Relaxed Rules Day

The 1920’s Berlin Project in Second Life is a roleplaying region that takes its history seriously. The year is 1929, Germany is a republic and you get to see an authentic representation of Berlin of that era.

To enable authenticity, Frau Yardley enforces a strict dress code. Now don’t worry, for two reasons. The first reason is that there are freebie clothing outfits at the landing point to enable you to visit without looking out of place. The second reason is that today, June 3rd 2015, is relaxed rules day in 1920’s Berlin.

What does relaxed rules day mean? Well it means this :

As you may know, Berlin has a dress code, we ask all our visitors to look realistic and authentic for the theme of our sim.
But now and then we decide to relax these rules to give new people a chance to explore our sim even if they don’t feel like dressing up or having a realistic avatar.

So, on Relaxed Rules Day we will NOT be asking people to dress in the 1920s style and we will be welcoming avatars such as furries, tinies, demons, fantasy animals, etc.
The only rules we will be enforcing are that we will not accept public nudity or Nazi related behaviour and dress.
Of course anyone bothering or harassing people will also be send home.

This may be a good day to show Berlin to your friends who have not been here before and may feel a bit intimidated by our rules or roleplay.

We will also allow flying on this day so you can see the city from a whole new angle.

This therefore means that as a Dwarfin King I was able to roam the streets of 1920’s Berlin in my full regal attire, therefore earning the respect I deserve from these humans.

Obviously I have taken full advantage of this and done the whole tourist thing by taking plenty of snapshots.

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June 2, 2015

Exploring The Dirty Grind And Jasmine’s Hollow

Second Life is at its heart a social platform and that means engaging in social activities such as lively debates, the arts, music and more. Fortunately The Destination Guide has a section to help us find music and from there I decided to head off to The Dirty Grind overlooking Jasmine’s Hollow.

There I found a delightful steampunk inspired sim that ticks a long very nicely, this may be in a large part due to the cogs and clocks that are scattered around the location.

The Dirty Grind describes itself as an Independent Artist Community. When you land there a notecard is offered, which provides some information on the region. There’s also a website and from there we learn :

Open to the public 24/7! The Dirty Grind™ is a steampunk™ haven for music and visual art. Come for over 30 hours of eclectic live professional recording artists that span from heavy metal and rock to folk and jazz and explore the venue’s many surprises and games. Enjoy our family of musicians featured on our 24 hr radio station, Radio Grind™ and explore our artists and buy their work at Radio Grind presents…

They also offer in Jasmine’s Hollow shop and home rentals as well as having options to hold events or rent gallery space. Independent musicians are not the only artists here, there are quite a few independent artists displaying their wares.

Bear in mind though that this is a moderate rated region so you are likely to be chased out of town if you want to commercially run anything adult. This isn’t a place for overtly adult activities and they make this clear in their information.

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