Avatars United

Lore & Background

Avatars United was a social networking website that allowed users to connect their game avatars with each other. Avatars could interact by sending messages, blogging, discussing topics, and uploading photos and videos. Users could join or create groups and organize in-game events. Real-life content or references to real-life identities were strictly forbidden. Avatars were organized by the server they belonged to, called 'worlds' on the website, each with a dedicated page for tracking avatar activity. Users could register an unlimited number of avatars from multiple worlds and games and designate one as their main avatar, enabling them to keep in touch with friends from past games as they migrated to new ones. To log in, users were required to fill out their real-life birth date, though it was not clear whether this information would be public.

Reader's Guide

Avatars United represented an early attempt to create a cross-game social identity layer for online gamers, focusing on avatars rather than real people. By supporting 90 virtual worlds and integrating with official game resources such as the World of Warcraft Armory and EVE Online API, it aimed to bridge communities across different games. Its acquisition by Linden Lab in 2010 and subsequent closure in September 2010, with the underlying social technology integrated into Second Life, marked a shift toward embedding avatar social networking within a single virtual world platform. The project was initiated by a group of real-life childhood friends with a passion for computer games in the summer of 2007. While short-lived, Avatars United highlighted the demand for persistent avatar identities and social tools that transcend individual games, a concept that later influenced broader metaverse and cross-platform social features.

Did You Know?

• Avatars United was launched in March 2008 by Sweden-based Enemy Unknown.
• It was owned by Linden Lab, which announced its closure on September 23, 2010.
• The website strictly forbade any real-life content or references to real-life identities.
• Users could register an unlimited number of avatars from multiple worlds and games.

Origins & Founding

Avatars United began as a passion project born among a tight-knit circle of childhood friends who shared a deep love for computer games. In the summer of 2007, this group came together to conceive what would become a web community dedicated to the avatars people create across online games and virtual worlds. The project was developed under the Sweden-based company Enemy Unknown, and the site officially launched to the public in March 2008. What made the founding story particularly compelling was its grassroots nature: rather than being a corporate product designed in a boardroom, Avatars United grew organically from the genuine desire of gamers to maintain social connections across the many different virtual spaces they inhabited. The platform's very purpose—to bridge the gap between isolated game communities—reflected the founders' own experience of moving between titles and losing touch with friends who had migrated to other worlds. This origin story gave the site a personal, community-driven character that distinguished it from more corporate social platforms of the era.

Core Philosophy & Social Features

At its heart, Avatars United functioned as a social networking platform built exclusively around game avatars rather than real-world identities. Users could send messages to one another, write blog posts, participate in topic discussions, and upload photos and videos—all within the context of their virtual characters. The site also supported group formation and the organization of in-game events, giving communities a structured space to coordinate activities. A defining rule of the platform was its strict prohibition on any real-life content or references to actual identities; the entire experience was meant to remain firmly within the fictional worlds users inhabited. Avatars were organized under their respective game servers, which the site called "worlds," each with its own dedicated page for tracking member activity. One of the platform's most practical features allowed users to register an unlimited number of avatars drawn from multiple games and worlds, designating a single main avatar. This design directly addressed a common frustration: when players migrated from one game to another, they could still maintain connections with friends who had moved on, preserving social bonds that would otherwise dissolve with each title change. Login required entering a real-life birth date, though it remained unclear whether that information would be publicly visible.

Scale & Game Integration

By the time of its peak, Avatars United had expanded to support ninety distinct virtual worlds, making it one of the more broadly inclusive cross-game social platforms of its era. Rather than limiting itself to a single franchise or genre, the site embraced the full spectrum of massively multiplayer online experiences. Beyond simply hosting avatar profiles, the platform went further by integrating directly with official game resources and external APIs. Notable examples included the World of Warcraft Armory and the EVE Online API, which allowed users to pull character and game data into their Avatars United profiles seamlessly. This integration meant that a player's in-game achievements, statistics, and character details could be displayed alongside their social activity, creating a richer profile that reflected both their social and competitive sides. The "worlds" structure—where each game server had its own dedicated page—gave the site a natural organizational hierarchy. Users could browse a particular world's page to see what its avatars were up to, effectively creating a public activity feed for each community. This combination of broad game support, external data integration, and structured community pages made the platform feel less like a generic social network and more like a hub specifically designed for the MMO and virtual world gaming ecosystem.

Acquisition & Closure

The story of Avatars United came to an end as quickly as it had begun. In 2010, the site was acquired by Linden Lab, the company behind the long-running virtual world platform Second Life. Following the acquisition, Linden Lab announced on September 23, 2010, that Avatars United would be shut down, with the closure taking effect in October 2010. The decision was not simply a matter of discontinuing a product; rather, Linden Lab chose to absorb the underlying social technology that powered Avatars United and integrate it directly into Second Life. This meant that the social networking features—messaging, blogging, group organization, and cross-avatar interaction—would live on within the Second Life ecosystem rather than existing as a standalone cross-game platform. For the Avatars United community, this represented a significant shift: a platform that had been defined by its ability to connect avatars across ninety different virtual worlds was effectively folded into a single virtual world. The brief two-and-a-half-year lifespan of the site, from its March 2008 launch to its October 2010 closure, left a mark on the cross-game social space, and its core technology found a new home within Linden Lab's broader product suite.

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