Less than a week after its first appearance on the web, Sackbook.com has been taken down at the request of Sony’s lawyers.
In a statement on the site, Sackbook‘s creator, Chris Warren, is surprisingly upbeat about the situation, saying:
8th December 2008:
As expected I’ve been asked by Sony’s Sacklawyers to take down Sackbook whilst they take a look at how the data is accessed to ensure everything is safe and lovely (it is, but they are right to make sure of such important things).Please keep your burlap fingers crossed that Sackbook can return in the not-too-distant future in some form or other. If you cross your toes too, there may even be added useful thingamabobs and fun doodahs to play with.
Sackbook launched last week and was built using the same (unencrypted) XML data which the game uses to fetch player and level information over the Internet. Initial users of the site were incredibly pleased with its key features, which included the ability to check level rankings, player rankings and access photos taken from in the game.
We were so impressed with Sackbook when it launched, we even wrote an article heralding it as the LittleBigPlanet social network that Sony should have built. We suspect that Sony is somewhat miffed that an individual could so easily create a site that overshadows their own community portals such as LittleBigWorkshop; by providing access to the data which players so eagerly want to access.
Use of the games XML data is supposedly unauthorised however, so the action being undertaken by Sony is perhaps understandable. Then again, quite why such a community focused game like Little Big Planet does not have an open API for the creation of community apps on devices such as iPhone or sites such as Facebook remains unknown. But lets hope that Sackbook has helped find a key to opening the shutters of Sony’s community windows.
Fingers crossed, gadders.
I hope it comes back soon. It’s a pretty neat idea.
Why is that users come up with better implementaions of what developers *hoped* to do?
Ha!
Looks like Sony didn’t truly understand the implication of a game like LBP: it’s been one misstep after another…
First the “ownership” of all UCC by Sony, then the inexplicable moderation, now this.
Sony, if you can’t / are not able to provide to the community of LBP the right instruments to communicate and exchange ideas, AT LEAST let us create our own! You are succeding to ruin a GREAT game!
Sigh. Not to be a troll, but this is why MS can get away with charging for Xbox Live. I’m loving LBP but Sony really needs to get its arse into gear with its online services.
hola como estan
