Google Kills Lively

Lively will be taken offline at the end of December (5 months after it’s release). Google will be eating it as a lost bet.

Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it’s the

best way to create ground-breaking products that make a difference to people’s lives. But we’ve also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.

It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritise our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business. Lively.com will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams.

For the past few months Google has made bold moves into gaming by acquiring in-game ad firm, Adscape for $23 million. and releasing Lively. Google had big plans for Lively, hoping to turn it into an online gaming platform with an API for developers to create their own games.

Why Did It Fail?

Bruce thinks this is a failure of marketing. And I agree with him to an extent. But the virtual gaming market is crowded with Second Life and IMVU. To break through the noise Google had to develop a superior product. And they didn’t. I never got a chance to play Lively myself because it crashed my computer. But I watched Adam Broitman play the game this past summer. It wasn’t remarkable.

But then again, Lively has only been around for about five months. Did Google think that was enough time for the game to take off? In a good economy a project like Lively would’ve been given more time to take off. In this economy it makes more sense for them to focus their gaming efforts around their ad and search business. They’ve alreadly accomplished that by acquiring Adscape.

Do you think this was the right decision? And how will the members of Lively react? Is anyone still playing it?

[Via - Gamesindustry.biz]

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