Google shuttering virtual world Lively

Sad news today for Lively enthusiasts as Google announces that it intends to shutter its 3D online world service to "focus more on our core search, ads and apps business."

I'd just talked with creative director Kevin Hanna of X-Ray Kid, the studio headed by Marvel and The Batman cartoon series artist Jeff Matsuda, in September, who had revealed at the Austin Game Developers Conference that the project's then-long-term goals included opening Lively's API to developers, hoping to make it a ubiquitous browser-embedded 3D platform for games.

X-Ray Kid, for their part, updated just days ago saying they were at work on "a large number of different, diverse and wonderful projects," so presumably they'll survive the blow. More discussion on the closing can be found at virtual worlds blog Terranova and at Metaplace creator Raph Koster's blog.

Official Google Blog: Lively no more [Google]