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Linden Labs Raises 8 Million Dollars in Capital

Posted by Zonk on from the that's-a-lot-of-linden-dollars dept.

TerraNova is reporting that cooperative Virtual World creator Linden Labs has raised US$8 Million from a venture capital group. The Official Press Release is also available on the Second Life site.

15 comments

  1. VC money into US Dollars by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think Secondlife is the only MMOPG (But is it a game?) that has virtual money you can use for real money to buy/pay for services from Lidenlabs.

    I know some people in SL that actually have stores that sell stuff, just to pay the monthly service contract.

    Finally had to switch my account to the free account (yes, they have free accounts) because I didnt have enough time IRL. But if you log on once a week, you get a little lidencash to buy things. I do miss the triva questions for Linden bux, but they seem to have active contests going on to keep people busy. Bingo, Coding contests, Avatar contests, etc. Very busy place.

    It's also nice how the market drives the size of the virtual lands, more people and Liden buys more servers, subscriber grown turns hardware growth.

    1. Re:VC money into US Dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Think of it as Virtual IRC with gfx and sound, and you can create anything you want. Instant Messaging with attitude.

    2. Re:VC money into US Dollars by ClockChaos · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you check out eBay there is a page worth of auctions for people to buy Linden Dollars in order to buy real estate, etc. in Second Life. So currency goes both way. :)

    3. Re:VC money into US Dollars by JamesMiller · · Score: 2, Informative

      Also, IGE.com sells Linden Dollars, as well as GamingOpenMarket.com :)

    4. Re:VC money into US Dollars by randalx · · Score: 1

      only MMOPG (But is it a game?) that has virtual money

      Not sure if you can also buy ThereBucks from another similar game There. Not much info on their website.

      (But is it a game?)

      I think that's an interesting question. These are truly virtual worlds and gaming is only one of the possible activities.

  2. Siims 2 by jerichohol · · Score: 0

    Isnt this like another version of the siims but this time you can create a world and actually live in it?

    1. Re:Siims 2 by JamesMiller · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No, not really. The Sims (and the Sims 2) aren't online, nor massively multiplayer. Second Life is an online "place", a virtual world -- a metaverse. Very "Snow Crash"-ish. It's kind of hard to define...you should just try it out yourself. :)

    2. Re:Siims 2 by MORB · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not really. You actually build your own stuff by assembling geometrical primitives and attaching scripts to them, written in some heavily modified C like language. You can also upload your own textures.

      There's also a physic engine. It means that everything you see in the game has been designed and built by players.

      The result are impressive in terms of what can be done. There are even people who have bought a sim (a world parcel) to build a mmorpg in it.

      What's impressive also is how people who are not necessarily technical-minded achieve to build stuff and actually write scripts.

      Downside is that performances is rather bad. It's very slow, caches a lots of stuff locally all the time, etc.

      Also, it's really just a giant sandbox, and there are no definite goals, which can be a big downside for a lot of people. I can't find anything that I would like to do in SL, although I find it an interesting experience.

  3. Real money? by KenwoodTrueX · · Score: 1, Insightful
    If you can get real money seems like the incentive to hAxXoR and cheat the game would be very high....... Not that I would hAxXoR and cheat.

    Free Flat Screen HERE!

  4. VC money into US Dollars-Larger than life. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    What I would like to see is a MMOPG with the Graphics of Myst: Revolution with an expansive environment that your avetar can live in. It should be technically possible.

  5. Project something or other.... by PreDefined · · Score: 1

    Wasn't there some other game that was in beta that was tied to using your CC to buy items? This would have been a while back. For instance to buy a pickax to dig for minerals there were different models available and of course the most "efficient" one was more $... I managed to get my character stuck in a floor somewhere and I couldn't get any help on unsticking myself from anybody wandering by + there didn't seem to be any GM types on hand to whisk me away so I submitted a bug report and never touched the beta again.

    1. Re:Project something or other.... by PreDefined · · Score: 1

      Ok, I decided I was really being too lazy to just leave it at that so I googled. Project Entropia https://www.project-entropia.com/Index.ajp

  6. Unix games? by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 0

    I hope they don't make Unix games, because I wouldn't like to have /usr/local/bin/linden directory in my filesystem...

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."