Real investments in virtual worlds continue

January 3, 2010 By

I was pretty surprised to see social media blog Mashable is ‘utterly baffled‘ by someone investing a record $330,000 in a virtual space station in the online MMORPG Entropia Universe, despite the fact they themselves quote figures of $600 million invested in virtual worlds in January 2009 alone, and the $2 billion virtual economy in China.

Don’t forget back in 2004, David Storey paid $26,500 in Entropia, then Jon Jacobs invested $100,000 in a virtual space station in Entropia in November 2005, and of course Anshe Chung became a millionaire via Second Life in 2006.

Apparently both David and Jon have made their money back and more. Meanwhile back in 2004, Julian Dibbell wrote Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot about his attempt to match or increase his income by trading in Ultima Online – he also wrote a great blog about the experience.

What’s surprising is that the Mashable author, and probably 50% of those commenting, still express disbelief that investing in a virtual good can be worthwhile, despite the fact that we’re all happy to discuss investments in websites, or even in media companies. If your media company goes bust, you might get a share in a building and some outdated PCs locked on a defunct corporate network, but the real value is in the minds of the employees – another virtual asset!

And given the economic climate, I’m not sure I’d count any investment as being comparitively reliable – but the move is certainly towards investing in ‘idea’ companies. And of course, the rapidly expanding, already massive, social gaming companies such as Zynga.  Pervasive gaming as entertainment is here, but pervasive gaming as a legitimate, recognized career follows whenever a game is designed to allow the exchange of goods by players (or the players themselves find ways to exchange – e.g. Ebay).

It’s another hugely interesting impact of gaming as the interactive entertainment medium which has risen up to compete with traditional entertainment forms (TV, radio, print), and at the same time powers so many new entertainment forms (Facebook’s gaming population is massive, as one example).

After all, in checking back through this blog’s archives, I’ve invested around 3 years in this version of the site, which only exists virtually on my hosts servers, and on a hard drive backup.

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When everyone is virtual, it will be in Grand Theft Auto – not Second Life

May 14, 2008 By

Second Life Avatar by tifotter

Having played quite a few hours of Grand Theft Auto IV, the latest game in the series, I’ve become convinced that future evolutions of the game are far more likely to bring virtual worlds to the masses than Second Life ever will.

I’ve experienced the whole GTA series, including the original 2D games for the Playstation, the original switch to 3D, and the gradual expansion of the gaming universe and variety of missions, side missions, and alternative exploits (Why is it the press always focuses on the hookers, rather than the fact you can play darts, pool, or go bowling?). And now there’s a range of really enjoyable multi-player missions.

It’s a consistent world, with rules loosely based on those of reality – but bent for more fun. All it takes is a mechanism for an ongoing economy, and suddenly it’s a virtual world.

Second Life, by contrast, has the barrier of requiring a reasonable PC, a sign-up procedure, and learning how the world works…as opposed to ‘insert cd and play’.

This might be a risky prediction, but some figures do back it up. March 2008 saw 13 million Second Life accounts registered with no idea of how many were active.

By contrast, GTA IV sold 3.6 million copies on the first day of release, and 6 million in the first week. The previous instalment, GTA:San Andreas hit 21.5 million units in total. (Figures from wikipedia.org)

And with copies of the game costing around £40, people are definitely going to play it until they get their money’s worth. It already became the most played game on Xbox Live for the week of it’s release.

It’s got the fans, the brand reputation, and mainstream appeal on consoles which offer easy online access alongside home entertainment. And I know I’m not the only person who bought his copy on the day of release – and without reading a single review.

If GTA hasn’t become a persistent virtual world within the next couple of years, I’ll eat my copy of GTA IV!

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Don’t swap journalists for users quite yet…

October 5, 2007 By

User generated content (UGC), citizen journalism, blogging. I’m a huge fan of all three when used correctly, but they all need to be handled with care by traditional media companies, whether it’s not serving them properly, or, in the case I’m going to hypothesise about, overestimating their effect.

Way back in June I quoted figures which put submissions to Youtube at 0.16% of users, while Flickr submissions were at 0.2%. Wikipedia was the involvement leader with 4.6%. Which should be one worry to the people I’ve spoken to who believe traditional journalists will be replaced by users in the near future.

Putting this to one side, along with discussions of trust, I think there is a further concern which anyone should consider before cutting journalists in favour of UGC.

And that’s going to be a growing rise in the need for payment for UGC. The oft cited example of OhMyNews already pays for submissions, and some bloggers are now being paid to produce work professionally. At the moment, these are exceptions rather than the rule for User Generated Content.

But there’s an established global market which already handsomely rewards creativity, and which will have an effect on any creative efforts produced. Users of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Rolepaying Games), or users of Xbox Live will already be familiar with the concept of creating virtual items, Forza Motorsport car liveries, or a wealth of other content, and being reward in game currency, or via online auction sites in real money. And then there’s Anshe Chung, the Second Life millionaire…

As increasing numbers of people are playing online games, and are familiar with the concept of virtual capitalism, then they won’t be satisfied with the fame of having their content published on a large website, and will increasing expect fair recompense for their efforts…

And to get the best UGC, to make it worthwhile, you’ll need to be making your site more financially rewarding…

And the worst part will be that your submissions will now come from people who aren’t tied by a contract or a notice period. Instead they’ll be free to submit to any site which appears overnight with a more attractive offer…

(None of this is meant to dissuade you from using UGC on your site… But as with anything, it’s one aspect of the future of online publishing, not the only answer…)

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Web 3.0 – More like Web 3.wtf!

July 12, 2007 By

I understand that a lot of people find it easier to collect groups of websites together under the Web 2.0 banner, and save time explaining every facet of social networking, tagging, rounded edges etc.

But web 3.0?

So far, it seems to be the holy grail of turning the internet into a Tron 3D world where everything is accessible by an avatar floating around.

I’d debate whether 3D really is the next step. There seems to be very little which has an advantage to being in 3D besides gaming. And I think that’s probably proven by the discovery of 3DMailbox.

It’s a free email service which merges Second Life with your email account to allow you to send emails whilst your avatar relaxes on beach.

Aside from the fact my first attempts to actually run the program have been scuppered by the fact I’m on a work spec PC, rather than high-end gaming rig (Apparently my graphic card doesn’t support pixel shading in the right way, causing 3D Mailbox to crash), the trailer and information doesn’t seem to offer any reason why using an avatar to surf my email is in any way quicker, easier to better than using a traditional email programme.

And if it doesn’t make my life easier, less stressful, or more productive, then that just leaves the enjoyment factor. And call me cynical but I’d rather be outside in the real world, or immersed in the likes of Rainbow 6: Vegas shooting terrorists, than playing a mix of Outlook and Second Life…

Having said that, if you do get it to work, and you do find it a revolutionary way of enjoying your email experiences, do let me know.

Remember kids. If you can’t justify what you are doing in a couple of simple sentences which explain why it’s great, then go and do something else.

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Mini ‘Second Life’ on your desktop

May 22, 2007 By

If you’ve a hankering for an online avatar, but don’t have a PC at home, or the time to invest in Second Life, then a new site could offer a solution.

MyMiniLife.com offers the chance to create a basic avatar, and then buy and furnish a home to show to other users, and to get social in.

It’s a really new launch, and I registered yesterday to have a look around. At the moment there’s not a huge amount of people, as evident in the 3D lobby, but there’s a fair number of other people’s houses to browse.

The avatar and house design are all Flash-powered, and aren’t too difficult to use, although some of the house design tools need a little work, and also seemed to have a problem loading after a while. But it all worked enough to give an insight into the system, which is still subject to change in Web 2.0 stylie, but offers a fair bit of promise as a timewaster. One nice touch is that TV’s etc can be embedded with video clips etc, so you’re TV can play a clip of you on Youtube for example.

Definitely worth experimenting with before the crowds turn up

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Building and keeping a community

March 13, 2007 By

Not a day goes by without the launch of a new social site, or the relaunch of a brand with social networking as the new focus.

This isn’t a bad thing, but there seems to be some pretty big problems in between what website creators think is needed, and what website users actually want.

Personally, I see it as the chance to set up everything for the website users to build their own village. You can make the land flat, put a river nearby, or even plumb in gas and electricity supplies. But you can’t force the community to come and live there, unless they want to. (Spot the echo of Second Life in that analogy)

Myspace is often derided for being clunky to use, but it was the first place that community settlers found and made their own. Once it become a sprawling city, the early adopters started moving to the Bebo, Faceparty and Facebook suburbs. The business crowd decided to start commuting to LinkedIn.

If you think about these people moving around the web, you can easily see ways to create better sites. Look at urban regeneration for driving people back to cities (redevelopment/realignment of websites). Look at how cosmetic changes such as trees and flowers can improve an area (Small design changes). Think about consistent navigation (Ever been lost in a big city…the London A-Z is a site map)

With the Web 3.0 hoopla including ideas of a virtual ‘Second Life‘-style web you can walk around, it’s easy to get caught up in the primitive geek fantasy of virtual reality. But people already behave in a way that echoes human traits in real life since man first evolved

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Second Life killer for Sony’s PS3?

March 8, 2007 By

Could this be the virtual world that really takes off?

Sony has revealed details of ‘Playstation Home’ the virtual world for the PS3. It’s got all the usual virtual world hang-outs, apartments to show off your possessions, private chats, and simple online games such as bowling and pool. And you can invite any resident to join in Playstation Network capable games at any time.

Is this the kind of game which will draw in console owners? Generally they’re seen as addicted for first-person shooters and racing games, and anything more around lifestyles and strategy is seen as the PC domain.

Then again, the success of The Sims, Second Life, and even the likes of Nintendogs means there’s money there somewhere…surely.

I can’t wait for the PR agency to start spinning this one…

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Online economies are changing…

January 30, 2007 By

Interesting changes are afoot at the world’s biggest fleamarket and online auction site.
Firstly, the charges for a number of categories will change from March 1, 2007. Listing fees are being reduced and simplified, which is nice at first glance. But, if you’re one of the many, many people who sell comics, DVDs, music and video games, then you’re in for a shock. The Final Listing Value is now up to 9%!
Ebay’s own example shows that selling many of these items will now have an increased cost to the seller, and it seems to suggest that you’re better off listing items for an unfair price to get the maximum cash, rather than offering a fair price. Could this see low-margin sellers looking elsewhere? Take a look at the examples for yourself, and note that they all assume an item needs to be listed twice to sell.

There’s also the news that Ebay is delisting ‘Real Money Transfer‘ items when they correspond to video gaming. RMT is basically the method for selling your gold or other items harvested from World of Warcraft etc, and converting them into real cash.
Interestingly, however, Second Life is exempt, due to questions about whether it is a game, or a virtual world.

The repercussions could be that low margin sellers and World of Warcraft gold farmers both start looking elsewhere to make sales. And coming at the same time, it could give a significant boost to any alternative route to market.
It also suggests that virtual money making could increasingly move towards the likes of Second Life, whose makers, Linden Labs, have already stated their intention to be behind the framework for the 3D Web 3.0.
And finally it highlights the problem of monopolies in the online world, as much as in reality. Do I accept that I’m going to be paying an extra £1 in fees for every DVD and game I sell, in addition to Paypal costs and postage? Meaning that I get less reward for the pain in the backside which is Ebay trading? In addition to the risks that sellers seem to shoulder by using Paypal?

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