History
In the summer of 1994, Ron Britvich created WebWorld, the first 2.5D world where tens of thousands could chat, build and travel. WebWorld operated on the Peregrine Systems Inc. servers as an after hours project until Britvich left the company to join Knowledge Adventure Worlds (KAW) in the fall of that year. In February 1995, KAW spun off their 3D Web division to form the company Worlds Inc. Britvich was eventually joined by several other developers, and the renamed AlphaWorld continued to develop as a skunk works project at Worlds Inc, internally competing with a similar project known internally as Gamma and publicly as Worlds Chat. While AlphaWorld was developing a strong cult following due in large part to Britvich's open philosophy of favoring user-built content, Worlds, Inc. favored Gamma for the company produced contract projects for Disney and others.
On June 28, 1995, AlphaWorld was renamed Active Worlds (from Active Worlds Explorer) and officially launched as version 1.0. Around this time, Circle of Fire (CoF) was formed to create content for the Active Worlds universe. This company played a pivotal role in the future of the product. In January, 1997, Worlds Inc., after failing to secure needed contracts and having spent its venture investment of over 15 million dollars, laid off almost the entire staff of the company, keeping only several employees which included the author of Gamma, now known as WorldsPlayer. Active Worlds, never considered much of an asset by the company, became an object of struggle for those close to it. Eventually, it ended up in the hands of CoF, with most of the development team joining CoF until (in July 1997) internal disagreements caused most of the team and employees, including Britvich, to leave the company.
On January 21, 1999, CoF did a reverse merger with Vanguard Enterprises, Inc., which changed the company's name to Activeworlds.com, Inc. and, later, ActiveWorlds, Inc. Some of the original developers like Roland Vilett and Shamus Young (although Shamus Young had been involved as first an artist, then webmaster, and now developer since CoF took over) stayed involved with Active Worlds and development on the product continued for years, as it continues to have a following. In 2001, the company launched a new product called 3D homepages. Each citizen account is entitled to one free 30 day trial of a virtual 10,000 square-meter 3D homepage, using their choice of layout from a selection of pre-designed styles. After the trial, the user has the option of upgrading to a larger size and user limit. These 3D Homepages are hosted for the user, unlike traditional worlds where the user would have to get their world hosted by another company or user, or themselves. Later, the 30 day free trial citizenship that came included with the 3D Homepage would be discarded.
In 2002, the company, in an attempt to financially survive and turn a profit, increased the price of their yearly citizenships from $19.95 USD to $69.95 USD. In September 2002, the company was sold back to its founders Richard Noll and JP McCormick and became a private company again. The company was renamed "ActiveWorlds, Inc." In January, 2006, Wells Fargo's Stagecoach Island program was released, which used a pre-release version of the software. During that time, beta versions of Active Worlds 4.1 were available to registered citizens only. On May 30, 2006, Active Worlds, Inc. commenced the rollout of the 4.1 version. Active Worlds routers did not last for long due to the extreme amount of users downloading the new 4.1 browser and a large amount of users in the new 4.1 universe. 4.1 was closed for a short time, while Active Worlds upgraded their equipment. On May 31, 4.1 was reopened and the release began again. On June 1, 2006, Active Worlds, Inc. released the public world server version 4.1. While a normal amount of issues were reported for a massive software update, there are now over 700 worlds converted to 4.1. In late August 2006, a new product called Miuchiz was launched using the Active Worlds technology. In early 2008, Active Worlds, Inc. plans to release the first customer-oriented feature in years: the introduction of Customizable Avatars, similar to Second Life. The feature has been described as better than the competition's, with more options for easier customization. It will come in the next version of the browser, 4.2. On June 16, 2008, Active Worlds, Inc. released the first major update to the browser in two years, version 4.2. The update was considered smooth and painless, being completed in a matter of only fifteen minutes, compared to the several days of version 4.1's initial upgrade in 2006. Version 4.2 includes an enhanced graphics engine, captured web pages on objects, and, most notably, customizable avatars. On December 5, 2008, Active Worlds, Inc. renewed over 65,000 citizenships for a period of 30 days. In doing this, the company hopes to draw back some of the community that has been lost over the years. On June 24, 2009, Active Worlds, Inc., released an open beta of their next version, 5.0, for anyone to download and use. Currently Active Worlds is on operating version 6.0
Read more about this topic: Outer Worlds
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