Linden Lab Buys LittleTextPeople

Linden Lab has acquired game development studio LittleTextPeople, the company announced Friday. Terms of the deal were not released. Linden Lab is best known for the virtual world Second Life. LittleTextPeople specializes in writing, programming, and designing next-generation interactive fiction. -cn

PRESS RELEASE
Linden Lab®, the creator of digital spaces and tools for shared creativity and fun, today announced it has acquired LittleTextPeople, a game development studio that specializes in writing, programming, and designing next-generation interactive fiction.

Best known for Second Life®, Linden Lab will grow its digital entertainment offering by launching several new stand-alone products this year. Now part of Linden Lab, the talent and technology of LittleTextPeople will support the development of these new forms of interactive entertainment.

“It’s an exciting time to join Linden Lab as they prepare to roll out entirely new types of social experiences and products,” said Emily Short, Chief Textual Officer of LittleTextPeople. “We look forward to building tools and technology that will allow people to create their own stories in interactive mediums that have never existed before.”

“LittleTextPeople brings a depth and breadth of AI and interactive story development expertise that is a great fit for Linden Lab as we launch multiple new products,” said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. “The result of this investment will be a new type of digital entertainment that modernizes the novel as a shared story-telling experience.”

About LittleTextPeople

Founded by Emily Short and Richard Evans, LittleTextPeople explores the gameplay possibilities of nuanced social interaction. The company’s core technology is a simulator able to model social practices and individual personalities. Combine the simulations with the expressive freedom of fiction and the result is gameplay that more closely resembles the rich emotional dialogue of a novel, rather than a fight scene in an action movie.

About Linden Lab

Founded in 1999, Linden Lab is a developer of digital entertainment that inspires users to create, socialize, share — and have fun. The company pioneered the virtual currency and marketplace with Second Life, the massively multiplayer online platform, where hundreds of millions of user generated items are bought and sold for real money and which entertains millions around the globe. Linden Lab is headquartered in San Francisco.