Blue Mars Becomes iPad & iPhone-Focused Virtual World

Blue Mars, the CryEngine-based virtual world, is shifting its focus to become an app for the iPhone and iPad -- check out the demo video of Alpha version below:

"[W]e aim to release the first builds of Blue Mars on iOS next month," the announcement on the Blue Mars blog states. "The focus for the first version of Blue Mars Mobile is avatar style and rankings." The PC version will continue to exist, but likely won't be updated besides bug fixes; however, current Blue Mars City developers no longer have to pay monthly hosting services. Read more here from Avatar Reality CEO Jim Sink, who as part of the restructuring, is leaving the company. However, he will still be appearing in Blue Mars to talk about the world's future today at 5pm. As regular NWN readers know, Iris Ophelia and myself were consultants with Avatar for a few months last year, but not at the moment. We'll let you know if that changes. In any case, I'm very interested to see how Blue Mars Mobile develops -- unless I missed an earlier launch, it looks like it'll be the first 3D virtual world for the iPad.

Anyway, for more info, join Jim in Blue Mars' Welcome Area in about half an hour.

Comments

[John]

Crawling back to SL?

[Hitomi Tiponi]

I'm sad about this. It clearly spells the end of Blue Mars as a VW and the failure of the CEO to make it achieve a position in that market. I also feel sorry for all those that were drawn into learning, making and selling in Blue Mars. The platform had potential but sadly that always remained unrealised. This is a desperate last gasp by the company to head into the mobile space that in the next 12 months will be filled with more attractive offerings.

[Hamlet Au]

I wouldn't make that conclusion just yet, Hitomi, stay turned for updates.

I never left Second Life, John, SL was a major focus of this blog even when I was consulting for AR, and barring the unexpected, it will continue to be so.

[Fogwoman Gray]

This makes me terribly sad. Blue Mars was never developed to the point of making it truly interactive and community friendly. Avatar customization is a first step, not an end unto itself. I would be on IMVU if it was!
I am really curious if they intend to let all that potential sit fallow? They have a half-developed VW with HUGE potential that still needs to have vehicles, interiors, and the ability to share content - hell maybe even some tools to create it! That must have some value?

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Another desktop 3D VW is taken down by that Champeen and Queen of Desktop 3D Virtual Worlds...Secoooooooond Liiiiiiife.

I told you so.

Now they're just simply regurgitating the newest popular buzzwords "mobile i-App" how feasible that Kinect-BM connection you dream about is going to be now?

Maybe they could have done better if they had released a Linux client to get more Linux-y early adopters. Or if they'd had focused on having good communication tools right in the client like "Groups". Flash based HUDS for everything, what kind of silly idea was that. My last venture into BM really wasn't that bad, really. Realized they were going for a "We're Sony's Home for the PC....we don't make content others will." But that wasn't really working was it, because they needed content (and those Flash HUDS they were saying were to future) to show off to prospective clients.

I wouldn't be surprised if Caledonia has/had the highest user numbers due to the Guvnah's fans and large number of SL Caledon early adopter types.

Hey Hamlet, how about NWN sponsoring/hosting some SL events like the old days? :-)

[Eddi Haskell]

Here is my first take:

For all intensive purposes, Blue Mars is now out of the large scale pc-centric Virtual World business. Stopping development on a platform cannot be sugar-coated.

This announcement did not have to be negative. The new Blue Mars (Blue Mars mobile) will be browser-based, with a very lightweight client. What they could have said -- and did not -- is that Blue Mars will now focus work exclusively on a browser-based application (much like Second Life did in mid 2010 to explain a similar diversion of resources in laying off staff).

Instead, Avatar Reality wishes it to be known that they are finished with trying to support, market, and develop a virtual world that is way ahead of its time in consumer and organizational acceptability. It is obvious from the announcement that they were losing cash at a very rapid rate.

The real reason for this announcement is that Blue Mars has not yet earned substantial payback for the large investment that was made in a highly advanced platform. It is very hard to gain investment capital now for any Virtual World application due to the the failure of first - generation entrants (with the exception of Second Life) to earn substantial income.

In addition, Blue Mars is empty. I put the number of repeat users at under 5,000. I am a heavy user (I love the imaging), and I rarely see anyone in there outside of three or four "regulars". It would take a huge amount of content and activity investment for Blue Mars to come anywhere near what Second Life has to offer.

I do not think any major organization, and many were considering doing so, will now enter the current Blue Mars platform. I am not sure that they can be convinced to buy off on the new mobile application. Blue Mars has been very successful in gaining a handful of high-quality developments for universities as test beds which are now operational -- including IDIA labs from Ball State Univeristy and the OnLand development from Tesside University, all of which must be considering the efficacy of future investments based on today's announcement.

What does this mean for Linden Labs and Second Life?

The Virtual World market is Second Life's right now. They will not have a graphically rich competitor breathing down their necks for crucial institutional, educational, and mainstream business investments. If Linden Labs, parents of Second Life can gain the business that is now evaluating Blue Mars, which includes according to some reports the huge U.S. Smithsonian Institution, they can regain momentum in the virtual world arena.

It is also clear the Linden Lab's initial business model for Second Life -- let the users handle development, keep things as open as possible in terms of building and scripting, and minimal if any enforcement of internal content -- actually makes sense considering that large-scale professional content development, sales, and maintenance is very expensive. Whether or not they can become a serious commercial or educational platform is still to be decided, but doubtful given Second Life's current rendition.

[Ananda]

I feel like something crucial is missing from this. What exactly is meant by no longer charging for the City Developers? Are the actual worlds just going away? Is there anything about this that is still a 3D virtual world? It's really unclear. Although that's not new with Blue Mars - I'm unclear if they ever fully implemented the service to begin with.

[Velvet Bikcin]

I went into Blue Mars maybe a dozen times, and sure the eye candy was impressive, but the closest I came to contact with another person was seeing 1 other person running across a plaza, that was it.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

BM is betting low power tiny screen crappy hand-helds with high monthly fees.

Hopefully the consumers will reject this idea and those companies and ISPs die off.

BM didn't really appear to have much of a revenue model. I suspect, based on early ads, they were hoping for a lot of edu and corporate sponsorships that never materialized. But I bet the company officers took a lot of investor cash home. Want to get rich? Get venture capital.

[VRHax]

For those who missed the meeting, you can listen to Jim's talk here: http://blog.vrhacks.net/?p=231

[II Singh]

BM always had the right initials (Bowel Movement).
Never liked it... tried it a half dozen times.
Can't say I much like SL either these days.

[Loki]

There was no mac client so i never saw Blue mars for myself. How does content get created for the place? is it with the pc browser thats no longer being updated?

I will be interested to see how Blue Mars works on my ipad. Im sure LL will watch with interest also.

If i Was LL which im obviously not, i would consider doing a mobile version of SL that only represented Second life rather than have every large textured detail. maybe even having a mobile version of your avatar specifically created to represent your mobile self. Basic set of features for communicating with friends, checking notices and profiles. Experiencing second life has many many levels, some of which will not be effective on a small mobile device. A mobile version should be optimised for the sorts of tasks people will find most comfortable doing on a mobile device.

[CyFishy Traveler]

There was no mac client so i never saw Blue mars for myself.

And that is why they failed.

Say what you will about SL, at least they acknowledge that not everybody does Windows. Yes, I suppose I could have used Boot Camp in theory but I've never bothered to for anything else and it didn't seem worth the hassle to learn just to sign up for another virtual world when I already have one to spend my time in. Twice over.

To all future would-be SL competitors--be sure to have Mac and Linux clients available if you want to tap into the ENTIRE virtual world market.

[c3]

the great irony is that "all that detailed" rendering power of the crytek engine, etc etc. will all be basically un-needed for the level of detail and presentations that will prove most "successful" as interfaces on the smaller screens of mobile devices.

anyhow, same old story for fame and glory.

[Allison]

Blue Mars was boring and this will serve to make it more boring. Perhaps Microsoft will buy it and use the tech in Xbox, but otherwise, BM is dead.

[Adeon Writer]

Blue Mars makes their first mistake... oy. Not further developing the PC version? HELLO?

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

"[Second Life] will not have a graphically rich competitor breathing down their necks for crucial institutional, educational, and mainstream business investments."

The only educational initiative in Blue Mars I knew about was a group from Ball State. I'd have liked to seen their build. Perhaps with this new client I can.

As for SL, though many of us are moving to OpenSim grids, SL still works great for meetings with 40+ educators.

And lots of folks, unlike me, are not so grumpy. They are sticking around SL for now.

[Hamlet Au]

"Another desktop 3D VW is taken down by that Champeen and Queen of Desktop 3D Virtual Worlds...Secoooooooond Liiiiiiife."

CronoCloud, this kind of triumphalism might be understandable if Second Life was still growing, but the painful fact is SL has been slowly but steadily losing active users and active user hours over the last three years. The reality is that the total market for 3D virtual worlds is shrinking, not growing. Indeed, that's one of the main reasons I wanted to consult for Avatar Reality -- Jim had really good plans for expanding the market, some of which you saw, like the first cloud deployment of a 3D world, and some of which haven't come to fruition yet. Hopefully they will in the future of Avatar Reality; iOS deployment is a good idea and may expand the total market, because there's not really any 3D virtual worlds on the iPad that I'm aware of. Avatar Kinect and various spinoffs may also grow the total market, which is why I'm excited about those; same with web-based 3D worlds and technology like OurBricks and KataSpace. Not everyone likes these kinds of deployments; some of them aren't to my personal taste as a user. However, it is absolutely crucial for the future of Second Life that the total market for 3D worlds grow, and since SL is not growing now, I'll continue to hope other technologies and platforms can do so.

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

Perhaps I'm an old fogey (fogette?), but the notion of confining a huge 3D virtual world into the pitifully small screen of an iWhatever makes no sense to me, any more than using such a device to watch videos or TV. It feels like Plato's cave 2.0.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

'the painful fact is SL has been slowly but steadily losing active users and active user hours over the last three years'
If you look at the raw figures, yes it has. I think that has more to so with the crackdown on bots over that period. If you look at number of logins (a better figure as bots don't usually login again until they crash) that peaked in early 2010 and even now after all the Viewer 2/Emerald drama it is still at 2009 levels. That is not saying that SL does not need to go after different markets as it certainly will have to, and with recent developments it will become possible to run a paired down SL on tablets, just as it is already on netbooks.

Can you really say that running a Crytek engine base on iOS is the best way to make a dress-up game? And do you think that the investment capital will even give it enough time to try? Other competitors will be there faster and with more suitable technology - sadly this is the end for the Blue Mars VW.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

It's really a pity to see yet another virtual world failing, but... it's not really a surprise. 18 months later, 3500 registered users (on the forums), and possibly no VC money left, it was time to evaluate if the business model was really suited to pay for the recurring costs on further development and server maintenance.

I guess that being the first 3D user-generated-content, social virtual world on the iPhone might be an interesting market; after all, IMVU's own offerings for iOS are not 3D.

But I agree with c3 above: so much for exalting the advantage of the "fabulous" CryEngine...

And Hamlet, "Second Life" as the product of Linden Lab might not be growing, but "Second Life" as the concept, the technology, the platform is growing like crazy — it just happens that the growth is happening outside Linden Lab on OpenSim grids. No, it's not exponential; but I'd be very surprised if in 5 years there are still any universities left without a SL-compatible experience. There are not many left right now. They're just not paying LL, that's all.

Maybe BM could learn from that and release their viewer as open source, too :)

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Hamlet... as for your claims that "the market for 3D virtual worlds is not growing, but shrinking", I'd like some factual data, please; because Kzero's own data shows rather the contrary:

http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=4471

http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=4485

You can order their reports if you wish and publicly contest their data (that's good science); however, your extraordinary claim that "the market for 3D virtual worlds is shrinking" requires extraordinary proof...

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Hamlet wrote: "this kind of triumphalism might be understandable if Second Life was still growing, but the painful fact is SL has been slowly but steadily losing active users and active user hours over the last three years. "

It's not triumphalism at all, Hamlet. It's just the truth of the matter. As much as we SL users complain about the faults of SL...it's still head and shoulders above anything else. Any VW that want's to compete with SL has to do everything SL does and better and more besides. Sure it may not be growing like it was in 2006 or 2007 but from my view "on the ground" there are some good signs there if you look for them. Newbies keep coming in, oldbies are becoming more active, I'm also seeing more interest by newer folk in taking up the SL fashion blogging mantle.

You may not realize this but I actually have a BM dev account, got it in September of 2009 upon the suggestion of certain Caledonians that I get in on the ground floor of "The next best thing that was going to take SL down." But I soon realized that BM wasn't the future, unless they got over their obsession with the technology of meshes and cryengine. and focused on the communication between avatars.

I wrote these posts on the BM forums in 2009:

http://www.bluemars.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=315&start=40#p2480

http://www.bluemars.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=316&start=10#p2500

http://www.bluemars.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=316&start=20#p2687

Someone said in one of those threads that they doubted AR would ever "dumb down" the BM client for less powerful hardware.....ha ha ha ha ha.

And I said this in 2009, which I stand by:

"Don't bother with BM, it's not an SL killer, it's Sony Home for the PC. Not worth your time since it's not really a beta, it's Alpha level even though they've had years to learn from other virtual worlds. I'm surprised how non-existent the social tools are." And in fact I'll probably say such things, but only if directly asked my opinion.

BM needs users. Users are why VW's exist, the content creators and corporates are middle men. The "BIG DOUGH" is all well and good, but AR/BM needs users to keep that coming, the VC based on "potential" won't last forever. Sooner or later, results (with lots of actual users) will be needed."
************

I figure something like this happened:

Venture Capitalist (VC): Hey hows that Blue Mars thingy coming along

AR: Here's what it is now

VC: The client hasn't changed much since the last time you showed it to us How is the growth..are people flocking to your cryengine powered graphics? And hows that cloud thing going.

AR: Ummmmm.....wellllllll.

VC: No More Money. It's over.

AR: Wait! We'll turn it into a mobile app! iPhone, iPad app-store buzzword mezmerize!

VC. mezmerized by the buzzwords and hype over Apple's devices: Here's more money...go to it.

In other words I think the move to mobile is just a cynical ploy by AR to keep the VC money coming for another year or so.

[Lamorna Proctor]

As an experienced SL creator and scripter, I was intrigued by the hype about BM and I tried it briefly a few months ago. It seemed clear to me then that it was very young, very raw and needed a lot of further development. Also, the entrance barriers for content creation were too high. I'm not surprised the investors took fright (I reckon the previous poster's imagined conversation with the "VC" is about right!).

The great thing about SL is how an intelligent and inquisitive newcomer can invest a relatively small amount of time and effort and learn how to build things. That said, LL have lost their way in the last couple of years, and are no longer giving priority to the needs of the people who built the world for them. Many of us are now seriously looking at other grids.

[Extropia DaSilva]

I am rather confused as to why this move constitutes the failure of Blue Mars. It seems all but certain that mobile devices like the iPhone will become the primary computing device for most people (this might already be the case for all I know). So, surely, it makes a lot of sense to focus less on the PC as a platform and concentrate instead on getting a decent performance out of mobile devices?