Pictured: Sansar.com's homepage (inset) and the homepage to Wookey.com
Sharp-eyed Second Life user Chic Aeon noticed that the official homepage to Linden Lab's Sansar now displays (at the very bottom of the website page) a copyright and "All Rights Reserved" notice for an entity called "Wookey".
Going to Wookey.com takes you to a page with little details beyond promising "The web animated for VR -- A NEW WORLD COMING SOON!"
Well, what's Wookey? Crunchbase lists the company as WOOKEY Search Technologies, founded by Garnet Chaney and Mark Gustavson, neither of which have any background in online games or VR (at least going by their LinkedIn profiles). However, on his Crunchbase profile, Gustavson lists his core business experience as "turn-around transactions", i.e., what happens to a company that's hit hard times and is put into recovery mode.
This news comes about a month after Linden Lab, having spent an estimated $50-60 million to launch and develop Sansar, announced that the company was looking to give the world a new owner.
What's this all mean besides the fact that Wookey claims the copyright to Sansar? I've reached out to both Wookey and Linden Lab for a comment and will update this post when/if I receive any reply.
Probably just people intending to rebrand it and sell it to someone else at a higher price.
Kind of like how sold land rapidly changed hands a few times before ultimately finding a new long term owner.
Posted by: Anonymous | Monday, March 23, 2020 at 11:41 AM
New TOS naming Wooky have to be agreed before connecting.
New since 20th March, apparently.
Posted by: Fed Up | Monday, March 23, 2020 at 03:05 PM
I'll bet all 5 fans of Sansar are happy today.
Posted by: TDGunner | Monday, March 23, 2020 at 07:47 PM
How Linden Research funded, Sansar is unknown to me. Was its stock sale, banknotes, capital reserves? I have no idea. But I know this for sure, it’s a private company with a board of directors who are the primary stockholders. Hence, they may only answer to themselves, no one else. Unless there is a new stockholder attached to that $50 million that just went down the drain. A $50 million loss offset by whatever pittance they can get from selling Sansar is a substantial financial hit to a company like Linden Research. Did they give up $50 million of stock for this, are there new board members about to be seated in answer to this loss? Was this funded partially by a bank that does not want stock as payback but cash payments? I own lots of stock, and if I were a stockholder in LR, I’d be wishing right now I’d sold all my stock and bailed out of this mess long ago. Make no mistake about this. Linden Research is in big trouble right now financially. They are a small company that just lost fifty million dollars. If this was entirely funded by cash reserves of fifty million, it could mean they are nearly insolvent right now. If it was funded all or partially by stock sale, then some people have basically near-worthless stock, and they want their money back one way or another. Since my first avatar, I’ve been in SL 16 years, 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days as of today. And I’m rather sure this ship is floundering, without a captain or direction and could possibly capsize and sink.
Posted by: Luther Weymann | Monday, March 23, 2020 at 08:20 PM
"If this was entirely funded by cash reserves of fifty million, it could mean they are nearly insolvent right now. "
I'd be cautious about jumping to that conclusion -- that's an estimated $50 million over five years or more, and Linden Lab is probably making a yearly profit in the high seven/eight figures. (Based on some quick back-of-envelope guesses of their payroll + expenses vs. what they make from SL sim tier/etc.)
Posted by: Wagner James Au | Monday, March 23, 2020 at 10:20 PM
Wagner, maybe you know something we all don't know. But software company with an after-tax net profit of as you suggest nearly a million dollars a month that do not invest any of that into the upgrading of their bread and butter core application is way outside the normal business practice for software company planning on staying competitive, or in business.
Posted by: Luther Weymann | Monday, March 23, 2020 at 10:46 PM
Yeah but they have been spending quite a lot upgrading Second Life as much as it can be upgraded, adding new features and spending a lot (likely) on moving it fully to the Amazon cloud:
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2017/11/linden-lab-cloud-tara-hernandez-aws-second-life.html
... which now that I read this old post, was supposed to happen in 2018. So presumably they've been spending much more on that upgrade than they had originally planned!
Posted by: Wagner James Au | Monday, March 23, 2020 at 11:20 PM
Wagner, I believe Linden Lab is in a very, dire situation at the present. I don't believe they have the money to upgrade, or even move SL to the Cloud. I believe they used the money made from SL to work on Sansar and it cost them more than they had. I'm beginning to think that there was more to this deal than what anyone is letting on; and I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't just Sansar that was bought by Wookey.
Posted by: Alicia | Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 06:16 AM
Credibility Gap - an apparent difference between what is said or promised and what happens or is true. Ex. "there is a distinct credibility gap between policy and achievement"
The LL Board of Directors has been suffering from a Credibility Gap since Fall of 2006. EVERY decision "they've" made has been DISASTROUS. And yet "they" still cannot admit failure and cannot admit that "they" are 100% responsible.
LL is in trouble. Financially. Because of BAD decisions by the LL Board of Directors. Yet "they" remain in control and none of "them" has suffered one iota from "their" INCOMPETENT decision making skills(or lack thereof).
NO ACCOUNTABILITY...
SL WILL go dark at some point in the future. It's inevitable. The only question is when...
LL/SL is rotten inside - completely rotton and stinking to high heaven. And this Ole Carrion Eater is eagerly anticipating feeding off it's completely rotten and decomposing corpse. It will be Scrumptiously Delicious... ;)
Posted by: Cathartes Aura | Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 07:39 AM
I pretty much feel about SL like I feel about RL. You just know this thing is gonna tank when you look at what's happening.
Breathtaking failure is at the helm of LL. Good common sense tells us that there is absolutely nothing to be gained by leaving that failure in charge, unless failure is now the destination. Keep it looking as normal as possible because the hand is quicker than the eye. Now you see it, now you don't. How much is that building 945 Battery Street worth? LL never impressed me as a frugal company who banked all of their profits for a rainy day. Investors would have paid attention if they weren't being $howered. If they were frugal, they simply would never have gone down the Sansar route with guns blazing. Conservative is as conservative does. They would never have abandoned their base that gave them that nest egg. There was never enough.
$99.00 regions? C'mon. It's a liquidation sale. You don't go there if you ever expect coming back. I'm afraid we're going to soon learn what our Second lives, loves, and businesses actually are... imagination.
Posted by: P&L | Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 09:08 AM
Mark Gustavson is a thief and liar. This company owes millions of thousands of dollars in back rent for an office in San Francisco they never paid for that they also trashed. Sansar and mark Gustavson have enough lawsuits against them to end their professional careers. I am still trying to collect past rents from the company but these cowards are too scared to even have their lawyers look at the mess they did.
Don’t do business with these people.
Posted by: S | Monday, January 02, 2023 at 06:34 AM