Crispy Gamer News

How quickly Google has put this one to bed. The company has already put a bullet in the head of Lively, the company’s MMO-like space that it launched only a four and a half months ago - according to TechCrunch.

“..despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we’ve decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year,” Google said in a statement.” It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.”

They encourage users to take videos and screenshots to commemorate the rooms they created. Users do not find this solution very pleasing and are gathering in rooms called “Lively is Murdered.” They probably will not go quietly, but at some point, it will not matter.

I wasn’t convinced that Google was really behind the whole idea of Lively in the first place, and its short life span convinces me that my first impression was correct..

Update: Valve Software’s Doug Lombardi has shot down speculation that that the company would be purchased by Google, calling the Inquirer report a mix of fiction and rumor. I can’t say that I’m surprised.

Original Story:
According to a report on the tech-focused web site the Inquirer, Valve is going to be bought by Google “any second.” Why would Google buy out Valve? for its digital distribution platform, the report hypothesizes. Yes the target of the acquisition would be Steam, Valve’s platform that in recent years has expanded beyond its own properties to allow publishers of shapes and sizes to sell their properties directly to Steam users.

A short time ago Valve had said that it would consider being acquired if the atmosphere was right. Meanwhile, Google has been pounding away at content distribution platform called Google Content Distribution, which is currently in beta. This is where Steam and Valve fit into the puzzle.

We’ll have more on this story as it develops, but at this time the story remains unconfirmed.

Sources:

- Kotaku
- The Inquirer