Linden Lab makers of Second Life buys out Desura

Well that's it folks, Desura has been acquired by Linden Lab the makers well known for the Second Life game.

Press Release is below:

QuoteSAN FRANCISCO – July 10, 2013 – Linden Lab, the makers of shared creative spaces including Second Life, Patterns, Creatorverse, Versu, and dio, today announced that it has acquired Desura, a digital distribution service for PC gamers. The service will continue uninterrupted for current customers and the team and technology become a part of Linden Lab.

Desura puts the best games, mods, and downloadable content from developers at gamers’ fingertips, ready to buy and play. The free Desura application can serve and patch games, mods, and add-ons directly for customers around the world. Developers and publishers can share news, images, videos, and other content through their profiles, while every member of the Desura community can post comments, submit reviews, and upload screenshots from their own playing experiences. Desura also demystifies user-made mods and add-ons for games by making them as easy to find and install or update as professional titles.

“Desura’s talented team, thriving business, and impressive technology are a great fit for Linden Lab,” said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. “This acquisition gives us a global platform for serving creative developers of all kinds, and we’re looking forward to growing both Desura’s global community of gamers and its fantastic portfolio of thousands of games, mods, and other content. Our aim is to invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world.”

The acquisition is Linden Lab’s second of the year and follows the company’s acquisition of Blocksworld, an iPad game soon to be released globally.

About Linden Lab

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in San Francisco, Linden Lab makes shared creative spaces that inspire and empower users to explore and share their creativity with others.

In 2003, the company released Second Life, the pioneering virtual world filled by the unique creations of its users, who can build anything they can imagine, socialize with others from around the world, and share or sell their creations in a thriving real-money marketplace.

Linden Lab has now expanded its portfolio to include four new digital entertainment products, including Patterns, a new 3D universe for users to shape; Creatorverse, a tablet and mobile game that allows users to set their creativity in motion; dio, a new shared creative space on the web; and Versu, an interactive fiction experience that makes the reader a part of a living story.

For more about Linden Lab, its products, and career opportunities please visit LindenLab.com.

Source: http://www.lindenlab.com/releases/linden-lab-acquires-desura

So maybe this will help Desura improve their service, I have been hearing complaints from quite a few developers on the time it takes them to get things done.

Not only that but maybe this will also speed up their rather needed re-design which the now previous owner Scott has said is being worked on?

What would be interesting is to see how they manage the desktop client since it's open source (Desurium). Will they keep to that or will they go their own way? This will be very interesting to see how it plays out.

I have reached out to Linden for clarification on the client to see if they plan to do anything with it.

Thanks to Neil on twitter for letting us know!

UPDATE: Scott Reismanis from Desura posted the following statement in our comments section:

QuoteRest assured this means big things for Linux and Desura as a whole. For a while we have been held back with limited resources available. The addition of employees to the team will allow us to improve the client, support more games, so expect significant progress to be made over the coming months

ANOTHER UPDATE: Desura themselves have now put out their own statement on the acquisition:

QuotePublishers, developers and gamers - you may have seen in the news recently that Desura has been acquired by Linden Lab. This marks an important milestone in the company's history - with much to come.

If you've read Techcrunch, Gamasutra, GamesIndustry, Gamespot, GamingOnLinux, Joystiq, Destructoid (and more) today, you may have seen the news that Desura has been acquired by Linden Lab, the makers of shared creative spaces including Second Life, Patterns, Creatorverse, Versu, and dio.

For our community of gamers, publishers, and developers, rest assured Desura shall continue running uninterrupted. Long term, expect plenty of polish as we continually strive to innovate and differentiate ourselves as we have done in the past with our Linux client, alphafunding, mod support and self-publishing for developers. We have big plans and many ideas to explore, and the resources we now have as part of Linden Lab will allow us to do just that.

Our aim remains to put great games, mods, and downloadable content at the fingertips of players - and we look forward to doing this in a greatly expanded manner and challenging ourselves to grow with the games we support.

Update 3: Message to us from Peter Gray Manager, PR & Communications

QuoteHi Liam,

Thanks for your email! Today we're not announcing specific plans for the service, but as Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble noted in the press release, "Our aim is to invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world.” It's also worth noting that Linden Lab supports Linux with Second Life and has a strong belief in the future of the OS going forward.

Best,
Peter

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.