Television may have changed considerably over the past decade, but there has been at least one constant: the gentle swish of a fish tail in the Roku aquarium. The Aquatic Life animated screen saver gave the streaming company's users a moment of calm before diving into a frenzied array of programming options. Over time, the screen saver developed a following of its own, beloved by children, cats and those looking to add a splash of color to their living rooms.
But come Dec. 1, the aquarium will go dark. Over the past week, Roku customers have been greeted with the message that they will be automatically switched over to the urban scroll of the Roku City streetscape, in all its purple glory. The change was announced after Jim Sachs, who designed the 3-D aquarium in 2000, refused to renew the license with Roku, citing Fox Corp.'s $22 billion acquisition of the streaming company, which was finalized on Friday.
In an interview, Mr. Sachs, 77, said he could not work for the Murdoch family. Fox Corp., whose assets include Fox News and the Fox broadcast network, is led by Lachlan Murdoch, the eldest son of the company's founder, Rupert Murdoch. Mr. Sachs said he first learned of the Fox acquisition of Roku while watching the news on his Roku TV. Roku users, in posts online, mourned the loss of their digital pet eels, shared rallying cries to save the fishes and asked what their cats were supposed to watch while their owners were at work.
One user joked that the Roku aquarium was the longest she had been able to keep fish alive. Many others were sentimental. Roku users with autism said the screen saver was calming.
Parents said their children named every fish in the aquarium. One Reddit user said that watching the aquarium reminded him of his wife, who had selected the screen saver before she died of cancer seven years ago. Mr. Sachs said the aquarium allowed people to forget most of their problems, and added that he felt terrible that it was disappearing from their screens. The whole point of the aquarium is producing a product that makes millions of people happy, hurts nobody and uses no resources except inconveniencing a few electrons, he said.
There's no downside and now there is. Now I'm taking their comfort screen away. And I hate that.
Olivier Grandvoinet, 33, opted for the Aquatic Life screen saver when he bought his Roku TV about six years ago because, he said, it felt like home. Mr. Grandvoinet, who lives in the Bay Area, said the screen saver reminded him of growing up in Hawaii and swimming in the ocean every day. It's a warm comforting feeling, he said. Through a move, a job search and his effort to build a catering business, the screen saver provided consistency through all the changes.
He named his favorite fish in the display, an eel, Emeelio. Mr. Sachs first fell in love with saltwater aquariums 50 years ago when he was a pilot in the Air Force and traveled to places like Japan and the Philippines. I would go to all the saltwater aquarium stores and just salivate over the calm look and feel of the saltwater tanks, he said. I knew that somehow that was going to change my life.
And it did. Mr. Sachs got into computers in the early 1980s and began designing games and eventually creating computer desktop designs. But there was little growth. I thought, I need to do something big, kind of world-changing, he said.
He spent a year designing the aquarium and released it in 2000 as a screen saver, charging $19.95 per download. At its peak, Mr. Sachs was making $8,000 a day. The screen saver caught the eye of a Microsoft executive who was dropping off dive equipment at a scuba shop in Maui and saw the fish floating across the shop's computer screen.
Microsoft went on to include it as part of its Windows package. Then an old friend, A...
Source: New York Times Business · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing