Metaplace Unfortunately A Bit More Meta

Raph Koster’s virtual world startup announces its closure on 1/1.

This is a bittersweet moment for us. Metaplace Inc the company will be continuing on – in fact, we have big plans – but what you the users have known as Metaplace will be going away. We are also losing some friends and colleagues here as part of this strategic shift.

Raph has a few more thoughts on his blog.

The reason? Well, it just hasn’t gotten traction. I have many thoughts on why, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t go into all of them right now. It is a sad day for us here, and I know many users are going to be very disappointed by this turn of events.

Really a shame. Metaplace had a unique niche and was aggressive about pushing open standards for virtual worlds. Hopefully whatever they have in the pipe is as promising (and can keep everyone there afloat).