Virtual worlds

A rather busy month for virtual worlds, Metaplace has annoucned it will be closing, Blue Mars pricing has been announced and Star Trek Online observers are predicting there will be less Klingons on the starboard bow than many thought, due to Klingons being largely restricted to PVP.

Let's start with Metaplace, I received an email notification last night to inform me that Metaplace will be closing. I'd post links to the relevant documents but you need to sign in to read them and if you can sign in then you should have received the email! However I'll post parts of the email:

"Over the last several years, we here at Metaplace Inc. have been working very hard to create an open platform allowing anyone to come to a website and create a virtual world of their own.
 
Unfortunately, over the last few months it has become apparent that Metaplace as a consumer UGC service is not gaining enough traction to be a viable product, requiring a strategic shift for our company.
 
We’re sorry to announce today that Metaplace.com will be closing to the public at 11:59pm on January 1st, 2010."
{ Read more }

The Federal trade commission have released a report entitled "Virtual Worlds and Kids: Mapping the risks". The summary press release can be read here, whilst the full report can be read here.

The news summary has a headline of: "FTC Report Finds Sexually and Violently Explicit Content in Online Virtual Worlds Accessed by Minors" which immediately brings two responses from me, the first; "No Shit Sherlock", the second; "Did people get paid to make this report?" However you don't judge a book by a cover, unless it's something like Penthouse, in which case you have a damn good idea about the content and that minors shouldn't be buying it. Ah those were the days, when I was a lad we weren't spoilt for choice on eyesight impairing nature urges like kids are today, the youth of today have got it all too easy, but I digress.

The news summary briefly summarises the issue of kids being able to find explicit content via freely available virtual worlds. This is an issue and I don't mean to gloss over it, but I'm going to anyway because it's much easier to find hardcore pornography on the internet itself than it is in a virtual world, far far easier. Now as this report is about virtual worlds that may be considered a moot point, but really it isn't. Now the report does summarise five key areas that should be looked at: { Read more }

So there I am in Marks and Spencer at lunch time buying a tuna fish sandwich when I notice the New Scientist on the shelf and decide it has been a while since I read it, so on I go to the till and pay for my goods, complete with five pence extra for a carrier bag and go merrily on my way, knowing I'm working till half nine tonight and I'll have something to help me wind down when I get home.

So I get home, wonder what happened to the other ten episodes of Fringe that were available on TV on demand the other week and decide I'll watch Entourage instead, when, to my surprise, Philip Rosedale appears in front of me inside the New Scientist! The interview is a brief one, which can be read in full here. This raises a couple of issues for me, one is that Linden Lab never advertise Second Life. I mean I go to all sorts of sites and see adverts for IMVU and the like. The people behind Age of Conan and City of Heroes email me with offers to come back and play but Linden Lab? Zip, zilch, nada. No adverts of their product, controversial adverts of other inworld business now and then but no real self promotion, but yet, despite this it's Philip Rosedale staring back at me from the page in my hand, is this their way of advertising?

The interview, which as I've said is brief, covers how big Philip envisages virtual world economies growing, how spending time in a virtual world affects people psychologically, virtual police and courts, vague answers on accusations that Linden Lab don't do enough to protect intellectual property rights and a very brief answer on what Philip will be doing next.
{ Read more }

There I was minding my own business having a quiet cup of coffee in the Y2P offices one day when Jezebel Bailey walked in with the post, tossing me a sealed envelope and clutching one herself.

"Well open it" she ordered, so I duly did, "What does it say?" she asked.

"What has happened to the penguin guy." I replied, "What does yours say?" I enquired.

"Why don't you blog about WSE anymore" said Jezebel, raising her eyebrows and pulling a funny face.

"Is WSE still going?" I asked incredulously, Jezebel shrugged her shoulders and gave me that frown that means I better make her a cup of coffee. There dear readers we would have left it, nothing to see here was our stance, although we also do wonder where the penguin guy has gone, we have a big picture of him in the office.

However the messages to Jezebel persisted, strange messages. Warnings to be wary in August and the bombshell was dropped, so was my coffee cup, Jevebel merely handed me a broom, however the message that caused such dismay was a note with an im on it:

"LukeConnell Vandeverre: Hello, the developers are almost done, only behind on a few more tasks that remain. Dates are just guides as the developers determine the completion and I don't want to rush them as that would compromise the quality of the platform."

"How do we get more information?" I asked.
{ Read more }

Opportunity still very much knocks within Second Life and virtual worlds, we're still very much in the embryonic stages. This is exemplified by the sheer chaotic nature of business in a virtual world.

I've spent the last couple of days running around, setting classifieds, setting new rental boxes, checking keywords, checking lag, checking whether renters have left Second Life, why am I doing this? I'm the bloody CEO, I should be having executive lunches with other CEO's and plotting world domination, instead I'm still very much the stock department, marketing department, customer support and general dogsbody.

This is how things develop, from RL to SL, Tesco started out as a market stall. I remember as a lad going with my Father to rent some films for our first ever video player, we went to a guys house, he had a video store in his front room. People seeking out and embracing opportunity, that's how it all starts, then along comes bigger business to either buyout or crush the opposition once the ground has been laid, see how small stores react to Tesco wanting to move on their doorstep these days.

There is this whole concept in Second Life however that means people think they cut corners compared to RL, sure they can cut some corners, shipping and distribution aren't such an issue but why do we cling onto control of our businesses so much? Why won't we let go so we can do something else? I mean the content creator who buys the land, builds the store, makes the items, deals with the customer service issues, the failed deliveries, the questions, mall enquiries, business partnerships, search engine optimisation, writing adverts, checking out the oppsition, spam yadda yadda yadda, why does one person try and cope with all that? Wouldn't a skilled content creator be better actually getting on with creating as much content as possible and delegating those other duties to people who are more skilled in those departments?
{ Read more }

Tonight in the UK we were treated to what I can only describe as an extremely well produced documentary on virtual worlds. Generally you know how it goes, virtual world documentary makes everyone look like a complete and utter geek but this one, this took a completely different angle and was made from the premise of virtual worlds being here, not going away anytime soon so let's see how they're developing and the challenges they face.

Another perfect world by Jorien van Nes and Femke Wolting treated virtual worlds with respect, from a Second Life standpoint Philip Rosedale, Stroker Serpentine and Urizenus Sklar were heavily featured as they gave views on everything from how virtual worlds develop, governments, cyber crime and of course sex.

However this wasn't just about Second Life, World of Warcraft, Eve-Online, Metaplace, uWorld and Lineage were all heavily featured.

The documentary started with the back of Philip's head and then found his face as Philip talked of how offices will not be such a centre of attention in years to come because of the expansion of virtual worlds, how he felt Second Life would look like New York when he first envisaged how it would develop and how he simply wanted it to be whatever it turned out to be without many rules.

We were then introduced to Stroker, the documentary revealed he was a former plumber and he used the tag line "From pliars to pixels". Then we got into the economy issues and this will have piqued the interest of people. There were claims that Second Life is generating seventy million bucks in revenue, Stroker himself admitted to having a six figure income, these sort of figures make people sit up in their seats. { Read more }

We have some great Sci Fi type areas in Second Life, Insilico, Blade Runner City and Devils Moon spring immediately to mind, although the latter seems to have sold out and is no longer such a cool sci fi place. When I first signed up I expected more sci fi type locations to be honest.

However one area where we are lacking Sci Fi wise is Red dwarf. The boys from the Dwarf are back on telly in the UK for three new epsidodes this Easter weekend and although the first one wasn't rib ticklingly funny it was getting there. The problem was that the channel Dave then showed some older episodes and you realised the new episode wasn't quite upto speed but there are two more to come.

However this isn't my beef, my beef is rude people. I'm not even talking about people who are directly rude, I can handle that and appreciate someone calling me a dick to my face, I'm talking about the sneaky rude.

There I was at Meta's office hour tonight when I suggested I'd like to know how much money was being traded at my parcels, especially at my mall. I said that I didn't want to know who paid what to whom, just a total figure.

Someone objected, fair enough, they disagreed. I pointed out that Linden Lab publish a total spend and that this isn't uncommon in RL for malls to publish figures but this person did not agree. { Read more }