Rod Humble Drops Hints About Linden's New Projects

Last Friday after news broke that Linden Lab had acquired adventure game studio Little Text People, CEO Rod Humble stopped by this blog to hint a bit more about what that team was doing. It wasn't developing a new Linden product which was rumored to be an adventure game last year -- however, the Little Text People people are creating what sounds like an adventure/interactive fiction product for Linden Lab. Said Humble:

Just by way of clarification, this team is working on product 3. I first started to talking to them December (although I have known them personally for longer). When we chatted about Interactive Fiction/Adventure a few months ago, it was in relation to product 2, which is also still in production, not this product :) Hopefully things will become less opaque in the near future, but yes, this team is working on a separate product (one of several we have in development). Sorry for the cloak & dagger stuff, shouldn't last too much longer.

Then again, since Linden is apparently developing adventure game(s) now, some cloak and dagger clues may be quite appropriate. Here's what Humble's comment strongly suggests:

• Linden Lab is making more than three new products besides Second Life.
• Linden Lab will announce what some or all of these are relatively soon (perhaps around GDC)?
• One of them will probably be an interactive fiction/adventure type game.
• Another one is not interactive fiction/adventure, or at least, not the kind that Little Text People are helping with.

So what are the other products Linden Lab is cooking up? Like I suggested before, my bet (or hope) is on an MMO Developer Kit, a Web/Tablet game with prim-based construction, and a Fashion-oriented social game using SL assets. But it sounds like we'll know for sure soon.

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Comments

[Eddi Haskell]

Hamlet you devil you! I betcha know more than you are saying but you promised to keep it zipped didn't you :).

[roblem hogarth]

Oh I heard some stuff too.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Thanks Hamlet - exciting times ahead. Something that used SL's massive existing clothing/furniture/building etc. assets would be great for a social app - and hopefully better than Blue Mars's limited offering.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Oh, it'd be great to tap the massive wellspring of Second Lifes talented creators... assuming they receive proper credit and compensation, of course.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say they were probably poking at the lucrative (but crowded) Facebook game space, or an asynchronous mobile device game.

While it may be technically possible to bring the full SL experience through the Facebook interface, it's probably easier to start from scratch with a title optimized for that experience.

Social games and mobile devices are all very nice flavors of the month, and I don't begrudge anybody for milking the cash cow before it runs away. Just keep an eye on the prize: immersive virtual environment techology.

[Ehrman Digfoot]

an iOS app?

[Pussycat Catnap]

"my bet (or hope) is on an MMO Developer Kit, a Web/Tablet game with prim-based construction, and a Fashion-oriented social game using SL assets. But it sounds like we'll know for sure soon."

- All of those are the kinds of products that would potentially be direct threats to SL.

They are ways of saying 'lets take our expertise here, and move it there.'

They are also ways of saying 'lets take a person who would have been a customer here, but for our prior gaffs that we'll blame on customers being social retards and wackaddodles, and shift them here, so hopefully we can get more Ken and Barbie customers, since none of our problems are our fault, but all from bad customers.'

[Pussycat Catnap]

"If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say they were probably poking at the lucrative (but crowded) Facebook game space, or an asynchronous mobile device game."

Crowded is the word for it. Zynga is already devouring its own tail - but its games are not really that mentally engaging so they kind of have to do this to retain customers like pop-music: keep churning out the hits fast enough to get fans onto the next one before the old one gets too old.

Not sure there's room for another competitor there. Unlike pop-music, there isn't an endless supply of sexually frustrated teeny-boppers who need your crack. The growth is tied to another fad: social networking websites.

[shockwave yareach]

What I hope is that this is being poured into a NEW architecture -- SL2. One where the shortcomings and problems with the existing grid are corrected at inception.

Let the sim handle only physics and a list of IP addresses of who is in the sim. Let dynamically allocated servers handle who is where and descriptions. Tada, sims can handle hundreds of people.

Make each sim 1K x 1K. costs the same as what we have now, and is far more useful for things like racing and flying without worrying about simcrossing.

When SL2 is ready, copy everything in SL into it. Tada, little is changed and everyone has much more space to work with and grow into. And the improvements to the grid mean more can be done than is possible today.

[KyLi]

And while they're doing all these fancy upgrades, will they be working on SL stability and usability issues? I'm unenthusiastic about new stuff from LL when they can't yet get the old one to work properly.

[Cio Koba]

I have to say I like your three ideas Hamlet.

-MMO devkit: Sounds awsome, any amateur could build his own mmo, power to the people! later bring some or all this tools to sl.

-Tablet primbased construction: Great! make anything and play with it, or upload it to sl.

-Fashion doll: built in-browser. If apparel creators could upload everything they already made for sl and target a new market i think they would be more than happy.