Metaplace funding, name change, invite-only beta

 Posted by (Visited 12777 times)  Gamemaking  Tagged with: , ,
Oct 222008
 

Today we announced that Areae is no more — there’s just Metaplace. Easier to spell and say. 🙂 And also that we closed a Series B funding round, with Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz joining the funders. And that we are now into invite-only beta — there are invite keys on TechCrunch and GigaOM right now, and there will be more scattered about soon.

The beta site is up now too, with a link to the press release. Some press coverage thus far (I’ll just keep adding links at the bottom as more come in):

  15 Responses to “Metaplace funding, name change, invite-only beta”

  1. Stacey Roach (Marduk) says:
    October 22, 2008 at 10:10 am

    Congrats on the success! Hopefully it really pans out well for you!

  2. Jussi Laakkonen says:
    October 22, 2008 at 11:08 am

    Outstanding, congrats on landing Series B!

  3. Morgan Ramsay says:
    October 22, 2008 at 11:13 am

    Building virtual worlds has always been the purview of large companies with deep pockets.

    Our vision at Metaplace is to combine the ubiquity and ease of the Web with the immersive and addictive nature of video games to give everyday users the power to create a network of worlds based on their interests be it community, games, education or business. In the coming years, as virtual places become a standard element of the Web, alongside text, audio, images, and video, Metaplace will be the engine that enables the transformation.

    That doesn’t sound like you, Raph. 🙂

  4. Joe says:
    October 22, 2008 at 11:30 am

    The more you describe it, the less I understand it, but good on you, Raph!

  5. Raph says:
    October 22, 2008 at 12:22 pm

    What’s not to understand? You show up, you get a world, you build it whichever way you want and whichever way you are capable, you invite people to it, you enjoy what you’ve made. 🙂

  6. Morgan Ramsay says:
    October 22, 2008 at 12:39 pm

    Joe, here’s an oversimplification: Metaplace is LEGOs for the Web.

  7. Raph Koster Just Told Me I Made A Virtual World « Broken Toys says:
    October 22, 2008 at 12:49 pm

    […] by Scott Jennings on October 22, 2008 No, really! Go check out the list of beta codes at his blog (I got mine from GigaOM) and he can tell YOU that […]

  8. Patrick says:
    October 22, 2008 at 2:13 pm

    Procedural LEGOs.

    I’ve been having run reading about big numbers:

    $150k – Palin’s makeover

    ~$60 million – Trion’s round C.

    $23.9 billion – Wachovia Loss

    $56 Trillion – size of Credit Default Swap market

    $1.125 Quadrillion – global derivatives and debt liabilities

    So it’s good to hear someone with a brain is getting a reasonable amount of money to accomplish something.

  9. Joe says:
    October 22, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    Oh, I get the simple part, it’s when Raph starts riffing that I begin to get confused. It’s like reverse origami: the more things open up, the more complicated it gets.

    What I’m saying is Raph is a million times smarter than me and I’m glad I got in the beta. 🙂

  10. Amaranthar says:
    October 22, 2008 at 6:11 pm

    Congrats.

  11. Manish says:
    October 23, 2008 at 2:45 am

    Congratulations !

    I strongly believe there is an immense potential in Metaplace, a multiplayer ‘place’. Social engineering, interaction, entertainment, games all in one sort of package. Google’s lively is too restrictive and is ‘room’ based approach. Hopefully i get to see in open beta what i am looking for.

    Best Regards,

  12. Arrakiv says:
    October 23, 2008 at 6:44 am

    Spiffy. Going with the Metaplace name, I think, is a smart move. Areae was always in the back before, and in some way, I always thought of it more as the “name for the secret project”, and once Metaplace was announced, I barely thought of it again.

  13. Kim Pallister says:
    October 23, 2008 at 7:51 am

    Also blogged at:
    http://www.vgvc.net/?p=134

  14. Jason Moncrieff says:
    October 23, 2008 at 1:22 pm

    Must say I’ve just discovered this, and it sounds very interesting. Good work

  15. Metaplace closes new funding — personal virtual worlds - The WebZappR says:
    October 23, 2008 at 5:47 pm

    […] an invite-only beta, and Raph’s promised to update his blog whenever new invites are made available. Raph’s one of my favorite people in the world, and […]

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