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."

Comments

Anyone else think of VRML

[elrous0]

"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 and the failed (and misguided) attempt to reskin the web into something it's not.

Re:Wow.

[AKAImBatman]

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.

Is Slashdot...

[diablovision]

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!