In a nutshell: Second Life developer Linden Lab has thrown in the towel on Sansar, the spiritual successor to Second Life. The social platform isn’t disappearing, however, as San Francisco-based technology company Wookey Project Corp. has taken ownership of the asset effective immediately.
Financial terms of the sale were not made public.
Linden Lab got started on what would eventually become Sansar in 2014, positioning it as a social virtual reality platform of sorts. At that time, that was perfectly plausible as modern virtual reality was experiencing a renaissance and it seemed as if the future of VR would indeed involve social experiences.
As we now know, that isn’t exactly how things played out as virtual reality has struggled with mainstream adoption. While there are some great VR games out there (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Half-Life: Alyx immediately come to mind) and virtual reality environments like AltspaceVR do exist, it’s far from – say, Ready Player One’s Oasis.
Linden Lab said it sold Sansar in order to streamline its focus. The developer will continue to work on Second Life and its licensed money services provider Tilia. The Second Life community won’t notice any change, nor should Sansar users, as Wookey Project Corp. plans to keep evolving the platform for live events and entertainment just as Linden Lab did.
The Sansar team said it will be working hard over the coming weeks to bring people together with new shows and surprises. "Meet-and-greets and live performances from some of music’s biggest names. Virtual versions of the festivals you thought were canceled or postponed. It’ll be the most fun you ever had staying home!"
Masthead credit: Andrush
https://www.techspot.com/news/84547-second-life-creator-jettisons-social-vr-platform-sansar.html
