Desura – 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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November 5, 2014November 5, 2014

Bad Juju Games Acquire Desura From Linden Lab

Desura has changed hands again with a press release from Linden Lab stating :

As has just been announced, Bad Juju Games has acquired Desura from Linden Lab.

Bad Juju has taken over all day-to-day support, maintenance, and ongoing enhancements to the Desura website and service platform. The Bad Juju team will be reaching out directly to developers with games on Desura and are happy to respond to any questions they may have.

Transitioning Desura to a new owner is great for Linden Lab and our customers, as it allows us to further enhance our focus on creating the ambitious next-generation virtual world, while continuing to improve Second Life and growing Blocksworld.

Desura is a fantastic platform for game developers and players, and we look forward to seeing it continue to evolve and grow, now as part of Bad Juju Games.

The post on the Bad Juju games website explains that this is not a suddent process :

Indie Game and Middleware Tools Developer Bad Juju Games®, today announced that it has officially acquired Desura™, a comprehensive digital distribution service for PC, Mac and Linux gamers from its former owner and operator Linden Lab®. The move comes after several months of coordinated planning by the companies to ensure uninterrupted operation of the Desura service as well as a comprehensive roadmap of new features that will significantly benefit both its users and game developers during the upcoming months and beyond.

Linden Lab has begun an ambitious project to create the next generation of virtual worlds, while continuing to improve Second Life®, and grow Blocksworld®. Transitioning Desura to Bad Juju Game ship enables the company to enhance the focus of its resources on these priorities, while ensuring that spirit of Desura’s original vision lives on and game developers and players on the platform continue to be well served.

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March 21, 2014March 21, 2014

How Will Second Life Fare In The Face Of The Rise Of The Sandbox MMO?

Second Life has in many ways been way ahead of the pack. Their free to play model was controversial when launched but has proven to be the right model and now many MMO’s follow this model. Second Life introduced user generated content to 3D worlds and whereas some of that content has definitely been controversial, Second Life trailblazed as a platform of creativity.

In terms of empowering content creators, Second Life has once again trailblazed, by allowing content creators a means to make real money from their creations, Second Life tapped into a massively underestimated market. Second Life has therefore been quite ground breaking in terms of bringing together these concepts, but now others are starting to take note, they are starting to see the potential and they are hoping to get their share of the pie. The people who make content creation tools are also seeing the massive opportunity that is knocking louder and louder, they are making their products more accessible by offering different payment options and making their tools free or cheaper.

The likes of EverQuest Next Landmark are already attracting attention and will allow content creators to build and have the opportunity to make real money from their creations. Others will be watching with interest to see how this pans out. There is without doubt fear about user generated content but the window of opportunity is wide open.

Then there are the tools, yesterday the Unreal Engine 4 was launched with a very affordable licensing model for pretty much anybody. The full engine and source is $19.95 a month and then 5% of any game sales, in games sales and advertising. The previous Unreal Engine was not an option for indie developers, in an article on Gamautra they quote Epic’s Tim Sweeney as saying:

it’s typically cost millions of dollars… negotiating has involved teams of lawyers, looking at the shape of the industry now we realize it’s an outdated model, looking at the possibilities for the engine, we started out from scratch. We came up with an entirely new business model for the Unreal Engine which we are announcing today.

Now, absolutely anybody can gain access to Unreal Engine 4 by subscribing to the engine for 19 dollars a month — and you get access to everything” .

Now it dangles there as an affordable option and it’s not just game developers being wooed, they are also chasing content creators:

To help you get started, we’re shipping lots of ready-made content, samples, and game templates. You’ll find it in the Marketplace in the Unreal Editor. Right now, it simply hosts free stuff from Epic, but its resemblance to the App Store is no coincidence: It will grow into a complete ecosystem for sharing community-created content, paid and free, and open for everyone’s participation!

These platforms, games, development engines etc. are stepping on Second Life’s toes and more of them will be stepping on their toes, will Second Life prosper?

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October 31, 2013

Would A Second Life Game Engine Be Feasible?

Whilst pondering the many theories on the TOS change, I’ve speculated wildly and with absolutely no clues that it may be feasible that Linden Lab could have been working on a Second Life game engine. The thing with wild speculation is that you begin to convince yourself that it makes sense.

Desura, the digital distribution platform Linden Lab own lists a number of game engines for devs to get their hands on. There are big players such as Unity 3D , Unreal Development Kit and CryEngine3. However there are also much smaller players such as Ren’PY for visual novels and Adventure Game Studio for those who want to make point and click adventures. These latters ones are the ones where I think opportunity could knock for Linden Lab.

Second Life is more than capable of being used for point and click adventures. Second Life is not suitable for all action first person shooters, but for point and click adventures it could work. People are still making and selling point and click adventures.

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October 28, 2013

TOS – The Desura Connection

Being a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, it doesn’t take me long to don a deerstalker and a pipe. However for this modern day version, I require a couple of Watsons, namely Nalates Urriah and Inara Pey. The TOS debate rolls on, it’s getting ugly in some quarters. There has been much speculation about what it all means. Quite frankly I’m now coming to the conclusion that it means very little, but a window of opportunity may have been opened for content creators and Linden Lab.

Now let’s get into speculation mode, the first person I saw making the Desura link was Nalates Urriah. In that post Nalates makes the point that the terms of service change is a Linden Lab terms of service change, not just a Second Life terms of service change. For example the same terms of service apply to both products, although there are a couple of sections in the TOS that are product specific, it’s a one size fits all TOS.

Nalates also speculates that this TOS change could be a means to eventually allowing Second Life content creators to sell on Desura. This speculation has been growing as the debate has rumbled on. Some have said that it’s not likely because Second Life content is specific to Second Life, but if the opportunity to sell to the Desura market was there, that would change. Others have welcomed the idea of extending the markets in the Linden Lab product catalogue, one person even said the concept was “Freaking awesome“. That’s where opportunity knocks.

I do think there’s potential in this area and that plenty of content creators would find the idea of selling content to other markets “Freaking awesome“. However the wording of the TOS would mean some content creators would be reluctant to participate. Then there’s the damp squib part, that’s brought to us by Inara Pey who in her own post on The Desura connection points out that sections of the TOS that many find objectionable, are actually pretty much taken from the old Desura TOS.

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