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The Virtual Whirl: Community guide to Virtual Worlds
Welcome to The Virtual Whirl, a new weekly Massively column covering virtual environments generally. The term 'virtual world' is slowly seeing less use, being supplanted by the more general 'virtual environment', but the world term still has a fair bit of life left in it. Virtual environments covers a whole lot of ground. From William Crowther's original efforts in 1976 that based a game in a virtual version of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, virtual environments have been a part of gaming, artificial intelligence and behavioral research, modeling, telemetry and process control and more. Nowadays we're seeing Second Life, Blue Mars, There.com, IMVU and others trying to find places in non-game contexts, like content-development and prototyping, publishing and performance, entertainment and social, education and business; efforts that are met with varying amounts of success.
Is Congress the smoking gun behind Second Life's turnaround on adult content?
So, ever wonder what's really motivating Linden Lab's recent push to implement an Adult content rating and firm up age-verification for Second Life? How about HR110-920 FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 2009? This is an appropriations bill that covers a lot of ground, covering appropriations for a whole lot of things. Introduced on 10 December 2008, the bill specifically includes an appropriation for an investigation and report to Congress on explicit content in virtual environments and on the access to those environments by minors.
Virtual worlds industry leaders provide forecast for 2009
The Virtual Worlds Management Industry Forecast 2009 (say that three times fast) is now available. What is this Forecast, you wonder? Virtual Worlds Management -- a provider of media, research, and online services related to virtual worlds -- collected the responses from over 60 industry leaders on issues ranging from business/product goals and challenges to be faced, to how they'll adapt to economic changes in 2009. The Forecast for 2009 is a condensed bit of collective knowledge from the movers and shakers in the virtual worlds industry, and certainly worth a read if you're curious about where virtual worlds may be heading over the coming year.
Virtual worlds without interoperability are dead worlds, Swaminathan
Kishore Swaminathan, chief scientist for IT consulting firm Accenture is skeptical about the long-term success of non-game virtual worlds that lack interoperability. Swaminathan believes that interoperability of accounts, assets and a common currency are key to the success of virtual worlds. Swaminathan draws parallels between closed virtual worlds like Habbo Hotel and Second Life with closed services such as Compuserve -- although seems to neglect that services such as Compuserve were established in a time where interoperability pre-existed. Nevertheless, despite something of a heady rush of corporations towards closed worlds, Swaminathan sees them outgrowing those worlds very quickly, and looking towards more open and interoperable systems. 'I don't think, two years from now, there will be a Second Life...', he said. [via Virtual Worlds News]
Kiddie virtual worlds top the century mark
According to a report recently released by Virtual Worlds Management, there are now over 100 youth-oriented virtual worlds somewhere along the phase of development, from concept to several years post-release. And even that is understating the situation a little bit, as they've lumped both MTV and Disney's burgeoning cadre of virtual worlds into single entries on the list.Virtual Worlds News has a pretty thorough breakdown of the data (with charts!), separating the virtual worlds into categories and target demographics. According to their breakdown of the current landscape, it would appear that the tween category (that is, ages 8-12) is currently the most populated area on the current landscape, targeted as they are by the likes of LEGO Universe, Hello Kitty Online, and practically every other game under the sun. We like to think that Elves and Orcs are the running cliche of the MMO space, but more likely it's purses and shopping.
More thoughts for the future in Second Life and beyond
It being the end of the year, people are prognosticating like mad. Analysts for Second Life and virtual worlds are no exception. This time it's Gartner again, but with a "future of education" slant. There is also a "future of virtual world economics" post, which highlights the future of education in virtual worlds, so next year will be the year of the virtual teacher. (With my teaching in Second Life hat on, I might argue it's the year of the Johnny-come-lately virtual teacher, there is a lot of education already happening in Second Life.)In summary, the pieces on Virtual Worlds News suggest: Education will be big next year Second Life, World of Warcraft and Habbo Hotel (amongst others) will continue to grow The usage by children/tweens will be a big growth area Challenges are: Ease of use and induction Spreading platforms that can access virtual worlds Interoperability Globalisation Please, go read both articles and add your comments here or there!
Intel to launch in HiPiHi this week
HiPiHi (pronounced High-pee-high, for those of you that are curious) is gearing up towards a launch by pulling in partners. P&G are already on board, and Intel are gearing up to launch the "Intel Experience Center" on 160,000 square metres of HiPiHi land on 22 November (considering that HiPiHi is in China - you can take your pick about which day 22 November actually is). Chinese-based HiPiHi has been both criticized and praised in the media for it's uncanny resemblance to Second Life - from the feel of their website, to their avatars, stock animations, creation tools and business model.
