Vivaty Shutting Down 3D Virtual Spaces

San Francisco-based developer Vivaty will shut down its free 3D virtual spaces service next month after running out of cash and less than expected sales for its Vivabux virtual currency. "As one who has spent years making Vivaty a reality and then trying to make it a success, it pains me to announce that as of Friday the 16th of April, Vivaty.com will completely shut down," said Vivaty co-founder and CTO Jay Weber in a post on the company's blog. "I apologize to our loyal users that this must be so." Founded in 2007, Vivaty offers a platform for 3D virtual rooms that users could decorate, inhabit with customizable avatars, and invite friends to for chat/activities. The 3D scenes are embeddable not only in Facebook and AOL Instant Messenger, but also on blogs and websites. The company received more than $9 million in funding from VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers several years ago, but Weber described Vivaty as a "rather expensive site to run" and said the developer has been running out of money for some time. Vivaty based its business model on hopes that Vivabux, its virtual currency launched last November for purchasing goods and services within its 3D spaces, would carry the company into profitability, but the CTO revealed that Vivabux sales have "never come close to covering [its] costs". The developer said that Vivaty users have two weeks to take snapshots and videos of their virtual spaces, but it will take down all of the 3D content once the site is shut down. The studio will refund any Vivabux purchases made since February 1st, though it can't pay back transactions made through ad/offer network Gambit. "We thought there would more consumer demand for a lightweight web based 3D avatar community along the lines of a simpler Second Life, and it just didn’t turn out that way," said CEO and co-founder Keith McCurdy, according to a report from VentureBeat. Vivaty's closure follows the termination of several other virtual environments launched during Second Life's heyday. San Diego-based virtual world software platform developer Metaplace closed its flagship product last January, and San Mateo's Makena Technologies shut down its There.com virtual world several weeks ago. McCurdy added, "When we started, Second Life was all the buzz. We thought that if the web was going to flourish with hundreds of Second Life like experiences, then someone would have to build the infrastructure. That was our goal. But it turned out Second Life was a single product and definitely not a foreshadowing of the future transformation of the web. At least not for a good while." The chief executive said Vivaty is in the final stages of being sold and that its intellectual property will be used as the base for another product or service. The company plans to hold a virtual farewell party in one of its 3D spaces on April 15th from 3-5 PM, and invites all its users, remaining employees, and former workers to attend.