Google hired X-Ray Kid team for the visual style and aesthetic direction for Lively 3D chat service. “It's been 2 years of work, dozens of original character designs, each with hundreds of unique animations, thousands of clothing variations and original sound content. In addition, we also produced numerous themed environments, hundreds of objects, animated room buddies, and the list goes on,” explains the game development studio.

Google already bought AdScape —  a company that monetizes games by placing relevant advertising, and some speculated that Google intends to acquire Valve, the company that developed Half Life.

Kevin Hanna, creative director at X-Ray Kid, offers some insights on Lively's future in an interview:

Some of my favourite stuff has yet to come out. There's a lot of different characters, and cute animals and stuff, but we didn't do anything really genre-pushing. I think with the next step we're going to be still within that style, but really pushing the different genres of known game types. (...) There is a longer term goal of opening up the API so the architecture of Lively could be used as an online games platform.

Source:→ Google System