The Multiverse Network, Inc. was an American
startup company
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend ...
creating a network and platform for
massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...
s (MMOGs) and 3D
virtual world
A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...
s. Multiverse's stated aim was to lower the barrier of entry for development teams by providing a low-cost software platform for online game and virtual world development.
In 2009, the company extended its development platform to support Flash and built a series of real-time multiplayer games to demo the technology. As part of the worldwide marketing effort behind James Cameron's film ''Avatar'', Multiverse built two Flash-based games, one with McDonald's and another with Coca-Cola Zero. Both games allow players to explore Pandora, where much of the film takes place.
In late 2011, Multiverse closed from lack of profits, releasing the source code to the
Multiverse Foundation, a nonprofit group of volunteers who are presently updating the platform.
Technology
Multiverse provided technology known as
MMOG middleware (Multiverse used the term
platform
Platform may refer to:
Technology
* Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run
* Platform game, a genre of video games
* Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models
* Weapons platform, a system or ...
). It included the client software
Multiverse World Browser (for
Microsoft Windows only), a server suite, development tools, sample assets, documentation, and a developer community. The goal was to provide consumers/users with a single client program that let them visit all of the virtual worlds built on the Multiverse Platform. From the consumer point of view, this enabled a de facto network of virtual worlds.
Like
RealmForge, the Multiverse World Browser was written in C#, and based on the
Axiom Engine. The Multiverse server suite was written in
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
and used a
publish/subscribe messaging system to provide reliability and scalability. The server also provided a plug-in API. The Windows-based tools used the
COLLADA
COLLADA (for ''COLLA''borative ''D''esign ''A''ctivity) is an interchange file format for interactive 3D applications. It is managed by the nonprofit technology consortium, the Khronos Group, and has been adopted by ISO as a publicly available ...
data interchange format, to enable artists to import 3D assets from popular tools such as
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...
,
3D Studio Max
Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capab ...
, and Google
SketchUp.
Business model
Multiverse provided its technology platform cost-free for development and deployment. Income came through revenue-sharing; Multiverse took a share of any payments made by consumers/users to the world developer. If a developer provided a world for free (or free for a period of time), Multiverse did not charge anything. When a developer started charging consumers/users, Multiverse took a share (10 percent), and also handled the financial transaction processing. Development teams hosted their own servers and retained 100 percent of their world's IP.
James Cameron joined the company's board of advisors, and
Red Herring magazine
Red Herring is a media company that publishes an innovation magazine, an online daily technology news service, technology newsletters, and hosts events for technology leaders.
Red Herring is perhaps best known for its Red Herring Top 100 techno ...
selected it as one of the "Red Herring 100" privately held companies that play a leading role in innovating the technology business.
In December, 2006, Multiverse announced that it had optioned the rights to develop an MMOG based on ''
Firefly'', the science fiction television series. In 2008,
Buffy and
Titanic
RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, Unit ...
games were announced. None of them ever came to fruition.
Open source
After closing shop, the Multiverse Network released its code as open source under the
MIT License
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...
. It is now managed through the Multiverse Foundation.
References
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External links
* {{official website, multiverse.net
References
Virtual reality companies
Video game companies established in 2004
Companies based in Mountain View, California
Video game engines
Free game engines