Kaneva, LLC is a privately owned American video game company based in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

and founded in 2004 by Christopher Klaus and Greg Frame. Kaneva was a 3D

Virtual World A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...

that supported 2D web browsing,

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...

and shared media. In 2004 Kaneva worked with

's Department of Economic Development to draft a new law that would promote video game development in Georgia. It passed in 2004. On 14 November 2016, Kaneva's online world was shut down, with its "2d" social networking site closely following.

Background

Kaneva was founded to develop a massively multi-player online game (

MMOG A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...

). In late 2004, Kaneva released the first version of the Kaneva Game Platform. Kaneva later decided to use its own technology to develop a virtual world that combined video sharing,

and 3D environments. In 2005, Kaneva started development on the ''Virtual World of Kaneva'', the company's flagship product. The Virtual World of Kaneva was released into

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

in mid-2006. A new site was created in April 2006 to allow the community of game developers to collaborate on their Kaneva Game Platform projects. This site was named the Kaneva Elite Developers Site. The Elite Developers program was discontinued with their source code release in November 2009. The source code is hidden, but was available to everyone on the resources page on their developer website which is now defunct and no longer available to the public. In the first quarter of 2010 Kaneva released their Kaneva 3D Applications and their 3D App Game Developer Program which is now Defunct and available to developers Kaneva shifted from featured MMO development to smaller scale 3D application development which closely mirrors the very popular

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

applications. In 2016 the original game was shut down. In 2017, the company launched a new game, CasinoLife Poker, for mobile platforms, and as a Facebook App.

Status And Closure

In June 2010, the original Kaneva Platform had over five million members and content creators. In 2016 Kaneva LLC Announced shut down its original game platform and its social community site.

Competitors Of Original Platform

The Original''Kaneva'' Platform had several competitors during its lifetime, including OSgrid.org, Smallworlds,

Entropia Universe ''Entropia Universe'' is a massively multiplayer online (MMORPG) virtual universe designed by the Swedish software company MindArk, based in Gothenburg. ''Entropia'' uses a micropayment business model, in which players may buy in-game currenc ...

, Utherverse,

IMVU IMVU (, stylized as imvu) is an online virtual world and social networking site. IMVU was founded in 2004 and was originally backed by venture investors Menlo Ventures, AllegisCyber Capital, Bridgescale Partners, and Best Buy Capital.

Active Worlds Active Worlds is an online virtual world, developed by ActiveWorlds Inc., a company based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and launched on June 28, 1995. Users assign themselves a name, log into the Active Worlds universe, and explore 3D virtual wo ...

vSide ''vSide'' was an Internet-based 3D virtual world that was launched on May 15, 2006. The game is in its public beta phase. However, the game appears to have been discontinued as of 2021. Initially developed by American studio Doppelganger, Inc., ...

Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fr ...

and

Twinity ''Twinity'' is a 3D online virtual world. Initially developed by Metaversum GmbH, it is currently held by ExitReality. The game offers its population, called Twinizens, to navigate around virtual (historical) versions of real-world cities, als ...

Competitors Of The New Platform

''CasinoLife Poker'' had several competitors offering 3D Virtual Reality Poker, including Casino VR Poker, Poker Show VR and VR Poker. One difference between those games, and CasinoLife Poker, is that it is the first such VR Social Poker to be available to play for free, with monetization coming from micro-transactions within the game instead.

References

External links

Official website
{{Video game engines , state=autocollapse American companies established in 2004 Video game companies of the United States Virtual world communities Companies based in Atlanta Video game companies established in 2004