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Google's Lively Goes Open

Lively, Google's virtual world, is opening its platform to third party developers. It's hope: to become a portal for casual games. VentureBeat talks with Lively creative director Kevin Hanna, who gives the example of walking into a room with classic arcade machines and having the option of playing any of those games. This could eventually include larger scale games, "allowing users and developers to build games on top of the architecture," he says.

Lively competes with a variety of virtual worlds where users personify themselves through digital avatars. Some of the most popular are IMVU, and the 2D chat rooms of Gaia Online and Habbo. Sony and Nintendo users can also create avatars on the virtual networks of their respective consoles. Second Life is arguably the most famous avatar-based virtual world, but Hanna insists that Lively isn't designed to be quite as immersive. Instead, Google is aiming for a more casual experience.

While many critics have panned Lively, Hanna says that Google characterizes the project as a success so far. "Our user-base exceeded every number that we had put down," he says. "So, in that sense, our beta is more successful than most launched products." To that effect, Hanna doesn't provide any details.

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