Google's shot at the mainstream genre - a new virtual world called Lively - has been axed today by the search engine giant.

Lively only officially launched in July, the "game" an early hint from Google at their aims to get into virtual worlds with a social focus.

"We want to ensure that we prioritise our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business," a spokesperson for the firm revealed.

Lively could have been a platform for further expansion into gaming - speculation abound that the behemoth were planning to add a variety of games to the service.

Virtual words aren't doing quite as well as might have been predicted, only services aimed at kids and teens proving successful, while even the mighty Second Life is suffering of late.

We'll bring you more on Google's gaming-linked forays in due course.

By Luke Guttridge