A few thoughts on Virtual Worlds Forum

There seem to be four key areas, which could break out into tracks in the future, if this conference is likely to grow (and as it Sold Out, I'm presuming it will). Not that this would necessarily be the best way to categorise virtual environments, but there certainly feels to be four camps here right now:

• 2 & 2.5D environments, which are slightly "minoritised" here, even though they often have giant userbases, dwarfing all traditional virtual worlds and most MMOs (except WoW). Habbo and Club Penguin are the obvious ones, but it would stretch to CyWorld, WeeWorld, Papermint, and the like, the horrible BarbieGirls.com, etc. Plenty of space in this field, I think. Newcomers demoing here include Moshi Monsters from MindCandy, and Taatu.com.

• Virtual Worlds ... meaning the 3D set: Second Life, HiPiHi, Kaneva, There.com and Project Entropia. Some up-and-coming entrants, but pretty much everyone thinks of these types of space - lanky, almost-real humanoid avatar, 3D almost-real VR environment - when we say "virtual worlds", where in fact, virtual worlds should be an all-encompassing term for .. anything involving an avatar?

• Using 3D virtual world technology for internal corporate use. Sun, IBM, BP, Google, and others are poking around in this space; for consumer-facing types though, this may be a strand of marginal interest (and perhaps vice versa!). Certainly my 2D-focussed sofa-mate here was snoring through the recent corporate use panel.

• MMOs. The pure game environments, only lightly represented here by the odd panellist - a fella from NCSoft here, Corey from Multiverse.net there. Of course, Raph was probably going to be the star in the tiara here, but he couldn't make it because California is on fire.

Generally, there seems to be agreement that this entire area is going to continue to grow (at different rates for each sector, though); there's growth despite some negative responses recently, that the Second Life backlash doesn't really matter, if a lot of the marketers retreat from SL, then "all the better".

Kids seem to be quite so into these environments partially because they're kept indoors these days, and partially because these spaces are full of their friends, so they get to socialise anyway (more sociable than watching telly, isn't it?): just avatar-to-avatar rather than face-to-face. This has implications over the long term, of course. Spaces for kids entirely designed around consumerism leaves a sour taste in many people's mouth: and there's no obvious answer to this: do we just hope that some spaces will be more thoughtful, or what? Public Service can step in, but not with budgets of the multi-millions. Tricky.

On the other end of the scale, I'm rather fascinated by both Second Life and There.com remarking that the 50+ audience is their most reliable and highest-use audience. Makes you think about virtual spaces for the retired market, who find themselves suddenly with plenty of time, maybe plenty of money, and possibly in many cases, some slightly limited mobility. Old bones, you know: the laptop and the sofa is a nice place to be. 1950s-themed virtual space, anyone?

Lastly, it's the most glamorous conference environment I've been in for a while: in what was Bagley's in lovely old Kings Cross. Yes, a nightclub, complete with chandeliers, padded walls, dancefloor lights and velour. The finger food is top quality; there are exotic fruit juices on offer, and lots of little goodies kicking about. More like this would be good: the usual faceless hotel ballrooms are so dreary, and it's very conducive to meeting people. Nicely organised.

Comments

[Fred CAVAZZA]

Did you checked my Virtual Universe Landscape:

http://www.fredcavazza.net/2007/10/04/virtual-universes-landscape/

Best regards,

/Fred

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