Virtual Worlds: An Overview and Larger Trends

Virtual Worlds

What’s This About?

• Theory and Practice: Paper-Labs-Business• A Quick Introduction• Where did this come from? – Virtual Reality– Games

• Helping You To Think About Virtual Worlds• A Peek Into Trends

Contents • What are Virtual Worlds?• The Larger Picture: Virtual Reality • Frames To look at This:– Tool versus World– Visual Thinking– Emergent Properties

• Trends– Closed Virtual Worlds versus Immersive Web

• What’s Happening Around The World. – The Tour.

The Simplest Definition

• An environment in a computer

• There is something to interact with.

• The User has choices to make.

Familiar Examples

• Games

• Second Life

Second Life Facts

• A virtual world created by its users• Owner and platform provider: Linden Lab• Went public in 2004• Active user base: 1,102,867 (as of April 4, 2008)• “Residents” meet, hang out, create, buy, sell and

explore in-world.• Currency: the Linden dollar. (L$270 = 1 USD)• Daily Transaction about $1 million

Why is it not a game?

• “Games are artificial systems, separate in some way from ordinary life.” Salen & Zimmerman

• “I consider a game to be something that provides us with a common goal, the achievement of which has no bearing on anything that it outside the game.” – De Koven

• “Rules impose limits… put us inside the game world.”

• Second Life has: A fully convertible currency, credit cards, banks?

The Current Meaning

• Simulations of some form.

• Which are not designed to be a “game” in the conventional sense

• However this does not mean it is not fun.

Tools v.s Worlds

• What is Microsoft Windows? • What is a Theme Park? • What is Ngee Ann Poly?

Virtual Worlds as a Tool

• Quotes from Virtual Reality– Eg. Intelligence amplifier

• Visual Thinking as an important way to be creative and problem solve.

• Some problems are just 3 Dimensional

Virtual Worlds as a Tool

• Has This already happened? – Auto-CAD and engineering software.

• Should we teach this in school?

• What is the focus? – Practical– Play with it: Discover, Invent.

Virtual Worlds as System

• SIMS: A Sandbox Game• Second Life: Real people living online lives

• Emergent Properties:– What is Emergence?

• Why should we care?

Emergent Properties of VW

• Learning about systems for users to “create with”. – User Creating his own experience.

• What will come out of Virtual Worlds? – Nobody Knows. – Today: Entertainment, New Economies. – Taking advantage of emergence: Our Opportunity.

3-D INTERNET BEGINS WITH VIRTUAL WORLDS.

Today’s Situation:

Closed Virtual Worlds

Immersive Internet.

Closed Virtual Worlds

• Entering an experience. – Install a programme– Run it– Connect to the internet

• Why? – That was the state of the technology.– Easier to keep tabs on and control users.

Closed Virtual Worlds

• Second Life is the most sucessful

• Many other ‘boutique players’ are entering the market.

• “The Dream” is to link all the closed virtual worlds: CREATING THE METAVERSE

Open Virtual Environments

• Plug-in Based Environment– Unity Plug-in: Paradise Paintball in Facebook

• www.vastpark.com• www.pelicancrossing.com

Open Virtual Environments

• Anyone can access the 3-D internet through a web browser.

• People make their own content and host it on their own websites. – All open source technology. • IMML – Vastpark.com• X3D – Community based open-source

Open Virtual Environments

• A new form of website• User-created content

– Korean example– Vastpark click and drag

They prefer to call it the “Immersive Web”.

Now What?

• We know there are 2 main approaches to the 3-D internet

1)Closed Virtual Environments2)Open Virtual Environments

• What are the approaches companies are taking?

Again I’m focusing on technology.

KOREA. PART OF MY SOCIAL NETWORK.

Cyworld.com habbo hotel The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.

GERMANY. UK.PEOPLE LIKE THE REAL WORLD!

Second Interest’s Virtual Berlin

The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.

SINGAPORE. VIRTUAL WORLD, REAL FACE.

XID’s Tycoona

The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.

CHINA.VIRTUAL AND REAL ARE LINKED.

Cyber Recreation District and the Dotman platform

The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.

AUSTRALIA. DO WHAT YOU WANT. WE’LL JUST HELP YOU DO IT.

Vastpark

The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.

Other Trends

• The rise of the Virtual Worlds Developer.– Anshe Chung Studios– Second Interest– Metaversatlity– And many many more.

• Professional 3-D content developers are on the rise.

The Corporate Come in

• Who can pay for professional quality virtual worlds development? – MNCs – Universities– Churches

• To advise them, IBM and Gardner are involved in virtual worlds.

Corporate Advisors say…

• Gardner“80% of internet users will have a ‘second life’ (using

virtual worlds)” – Steve Prentice, Gardner Analyst.

• IBM“IBM is helping to drive the growth and adoption of the

3-D Internet with insights and actions that will shape the future of the 3-D landscape.” –IBM site

Working with Second Life and Open SIM.

Pit-falls

• This is a game-based technology.• It’s hard to see it used for serious stuff. – Corporate 3-D content changes the ‘rules’

• At this point, we don’t have a common language to use the interface. – How do I use this to collaborate with others in

projects.

• The technology will take awhile to stablize.

3-D internet leads to Mixed Reality

• 3-D internet will be layered over reality.

• It comes with new technologies in screens and information input.

• It’s part of mixed reality.

The Samsung Labs example.

• (Samsung in California)

In Summary

• There is NO conclusion for Virtual WorldsPotential.

• Closed Virtual Worlds versus Immersive Web• Focus: User-Created Content and Participation• Way to think:– Tool– System with Emergent Properties

My prediction

Today we tell and show each other our experiences.

Tomorrow we let our friends re-live our experiences.

How do we want to take part in this?

joshuanair@gmail.com