virtual-spaces
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Why user-generated content matters in MMOs
The Social Gaming Summit, held in San Francisco last Friday, has been explored here on the site by our own Akela Talamasca. Today the Worlds in Motion blog has a great writeup of a panel on user-generated content, with an emphasis on how that concept applies to online gaming. Industry luminaries including Three Rings' Daniel James touched base with attendees on what makes user content so compelling, why users create, and what game makers can do to incorporate player creations.Most interesting was their observation that virtual spaces were more important than virtual worlds per se. Jeremy Monroe, Director of Business Development for the makers of Habbo Hotel, offered this: "You have to make sure that you're bringing content that is suitable to all players in the world. So when we bring a piece of content that skews to one demographic we have to make sure that we bring more content that skews to the other demographics. Some games try to create different servers, such as a PvP vs. PvP situation. You have to give everybody equal opportunity and an equal number of tools to express themselves."
Korea loves games, except virtual worlds
WorldsInMotion.biz has covered a report from the Korea Times stating that the virtual world business over there is beginning to falter.While we're embracing technology like Facebook and MySpace, bringing these social networking sites into our mainstream culture, Korea is experiencing a slump in their business. Cyworld, the leading social network in Korea, has reported 6% loss in their service revenue. To cope, Cyworld is going to be upgrading to a fully functional virtual space, instead of the current "room system" that it has now, in an attempt to attract more users.In comparison, MySpace Korea's launch was almost disastrous, their opening week garnering 1/20th of what Cyworld gets a week in traffic. It's quite easy to say, perhaps the virtual bubble has burst?
Metaplace sends Metachat live on Myspace
A few of the Metaplace folks have announced that their first virtual world has been released on MySpace in the form of an app called Metachat, which you can add to your Myspace account right now. In terms of virtual worlds, it's not much -- there's a chat room, obviously, and a little soccer ball kicking area, and some RSS integration in terms of stock quotes, some weather info, and even translation features.But even better than what it is is the potential that something like this represents. Social networks are already dabbling in social games (and planning even more interaction between the two), so a virtual space like Metachat may be the first virtual world that most of its users enter. It's a far cry from some of the more mature virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life (not that those two are all that mature, actually), but spaces like Metachat are a big sign of the coming collision of social networking and virtual worlds.
