Metaverse Identity Crisis, Part 1: Virtual Worlds 08

A couple weeks ago, I attended the Virtual Worlds 08 conference at the Javits Center in sunny Manhattan. Along with 1200 or so other people, I mingled among a variety of virtual world platform developers and third-party virtual world developers, both end-to-end solution providers like myself and more specialized, like CyberExtruder.

Coming out of the conference, I had a good talk with my contractor / lead programmer, Andy. I noted that there seems to be a divide between immersive social virtual worlds and enterprise-solution type virtual worlds. Andy went one step farther, and added traditional online video games as a third space. He noted spaces like Gaia and Habbo Hotel were much less like immersive virtual worlds, and much more like traditional online video games. Further, he predicted that worlds like these, and worlds that were similar to these but still claim to be "Metaverse" spaces, would soon throw up their hands and declare, "Okay, we're games. We're focusing in the game-space."

The three divisions Andy had noted made a lot of sense.

It made a lot of sense - and - did so on a variety of levels. We continued our discussion and I realized it explained many things:
- Why Linden Lab was still behind on Enterprise use
- Why 3rd Party developers like ESheep and MoU were abandoning Second Life
- Why the media didn't understand the point of immersive, social virtual worlds
- Why there's a game vs. platform debate at all and why it is so fierce sometimes
- Why different virtual worlds specialized in different things but still called themselves "Metaverse"

And the crux of the matter, the thing that wraps all of these up into one simple statement:

"The Metaverse is undergoing an identity crisis."

Loyal readers, consider that media, different virtual world platform creators, third party developers, role-players, educators, and the average person who's heard of virtual worlds and never been, there exists a whole host of different understandings of what virtual worlds might be good for. More importantly, there is no single, abiding definition of what the "Metaverse" is. If the Metaverse lacks a definition, well naturally there is going to be a lot of confusion, debate, and disagreement.

Let's look at how different people view the Metaverse:

- Linden Lab believes the Metaverse is an alternate world, supplementing and connecting to our own, but ultimately separate. This is evidenced by my last post where I respond to Philip's telling Freudian Slip when he said the appeal of Second Life was escapism.
- Qwaq, Forterra, and ActiveWorlds see the Metaverse as a business-space, professional, working, tuned to users needs.
- Metaplace, Multiverse, and others see the Metaverse as being an extension of the Internet, to fully integrate and yet maintain a strong level of immersion. (I like this approach, by the way.)
- Habbo Hotel, Gaia, and others see the Metaverse as an online game-space.
- Electric Sheep Company believes the Metaverse is an extension of the Internet. It must be stable and good, and content is delivered to users.
- Millions of Us demonstrates their understanding of the Metaverse in their projects: event- driven, social, and corporate.
- The media is split. Some, like Wired, GQ, ValleyWag, and others, see it in the game-space fashion, mocking furries, griefers, and such, disillusioned that virtual worlds could offer Enterprise space. Not surprising, media like PCWorld, BBC, Fortune, and Gartner all view virtual worlds from a very corporate approach, but realize the infancy of the Metaverse in general.
- The general public? They're all over the map. At the same time, the majority surely see it as game-space, with World of Warcraft and others as their closest reference point.

And yet, they're all referring to "The Metaverse".

I will cover defining "The Metaverse" in Part 2 of Metaverse Identity Crisis, but for now, allow me to describe why it is that resolving this crisis is important.

A Matter of Expectations

First, it is clear that to properly market something, you need to know what it is. If we developers, both behind platforms and third party vendors, want to further grow our industry, we need to be clear what it is we are growing. Are we growing a game-space, a business-space, an Internet extension, or an alternate world space? Or perhaps multiple / all of them? For those not fitting the definition of Metaverse, we should insist that they have another term, to be clear to media, the public, and customers exactly what their expectations should be. Virtual worlds are getting slammed in the media, and this is a direct result of not properly marketing them to their appropriate uses.

Second, in order to properly develop something, the developer needs to clearly understand the context in which it is used. That is, I believe, a common failing of many of the projects in Second Life. For example, if you go into Second Life expecting it to be a one-way marketing conversation, like a traditional website, then you're wrong, and you are letting down your client. I see third party developers leaving Second Life because of this very reason - they don't understand the context, and they instead blame Linden Lab for not adjusting their platform fast enough.

Don't get me wrong - I am very vocal, (well, duh, here) about my suggestions to Linden Lab and other virtual world developers. At the same time, I do my best to understand the capabilities of the virtual worlds I work in, and every one of my projects works within the framework provided. I don't promise my clients more than the platform can deliver, and occasionally, my company says "No thanks". While there's a temptation to take every client that knocks, some clients just have very different expectations, and they would be impossible to meet all of them, or even most of them.

On the other hand, the more a platform developer like Linden Lab understands what "The Metaverse" means and how people want to use it, the more user-base and usage-base they can pull from their technology, and that means more money.

Now, with the importance of resolving this Metaverse Identity Crisis described, Part 2 will expand on the three aforementioned areas of virtual worlds and attempt at pinning down a definition.

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Philip Rosedale @ Linden Lab: SL is a Game For People With A Lot of Time

Alright, so, after reading this article on Reuters about a new CEO possibly coming to Linden Lab within weeks, it makes me all the more reassured that Linden Lab is going in the right direction.

Philip Rosedale, soon-to-be-former-CEO and soon-to-be-Chairperson of Linden Lab, reiterated the future growth of Second Life, and went over the usual stuff.

UNTIL:

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Asked to explain the appeal of Second Life — which has no game-like aspects such as points-scoring, winners or losers — Rosedale said: “The only thing that SL users have in common is that they have a lot of time.”

Users in big cities such as New York or Los Angeles were least likely to spend time in Second Life, not only because they were busy but because they had less need to escape to an alternative, anonymous world, he said.

“Bad weather, oppressive regimes, poor economic conditions — that’s what makes an SL user.”

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Holy. Did I really just read that? Did Philip really just not only dis his user base as shut-ins who need escape, but also by implication knock any business uses of Second Life?

Let's break this down line by line.

"The only thing that SL users have in common is that they have a lot of time."

I think this statement speaks for itself, and, personally, I find this a bit offensive and over-generalizing. But that aside, Rosedale misses the point entirely! Maybe SL has such a steep learning curve that only people really dedicated get past it? And yet, at the same time, I've seen the statistics. There are certainly very active users, but there are casual users as well.

"Users in big cities such as New York or Los Angeles were least likely to spend time in Second Life, not only because they were busy but because they had less need to escape to an alternative, anonymous world, he said."

Okay, let's take this in two parts. First, is the concept that city-dwellers aren't into Second Life. So, tech-savvy people who spend time on blogs, doing social networking on Facebook and MySpace, who talk about YouTube videos at the water cooler in the morning - these same people are too busy? They don't have a need to escape? You mean, with all the stresses of having city life, a high-velocity career, big goals, expensive rent ... they *don't* want to escape? You have GOT to be kidding me.

And then, the other part of it is this bold, WRONG statement that Second Life is about the "need to escape to an alternative, anonymous world".

HOLY. S***.

There, I said it. This comment is perhaps the most flabbergasting, for a variety of major reasons:

1. Tons of people are transparent in Second Life and other virtual worlds, being who they are in real life both in and out of Second Life. Saying that Second Life is about being only an "alternate, anonymous world" is fundamentally wrong. And I've been saying it for years that "Second Life" is an awful name because it fosters this idea, but to hear it from Rosedale was crazy!

2. Escapism? Is that the only reason people are in Second Life? Perhaps Rosedale has forgotten the hundreds of businesses and universities existing, working, learning, and collaborating in Second Life and other virtual spaces.

Seriously, is Philip completely out of touch with his user-base?

Finally, fuzzy logic:

“Bad weather, oppressive regimes, poor economic conditions — that’s what makes an SL user.”

So, right after he explains how technology is still lagging behind what Second Life needs from the average user to have to run smoothly, he says that the places least likely to have good computers or broadband will have the most users. Riiiiight.

I realize in this case, Philip's dream is that virtual worlds might change the world and empower people all over the globe to connect, create, and communication. I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. But to say that the users are all in impoverished countries is blatantly ignoring the empirical data that Zee Linden collects every month about usage statistics.

Did Rosedale make a huge faux-pas? Or, is this *the real* Philip Rosedale, now that he's not CEO, speaking his mind more freely?

I guess I lean toward the accidental faux pas, considering he's always been very much about freedom of speech. But, who can say but Philip?

Well, I went to the office hours of Robin Harper (VP at Linden Lab), and she had this to say:
"Hiro, believe me, Philip is quite sorry he said that."

Of course, she used my avatar name, not my real name. *wry smirk*

And then I was given another quote, that Philip Rosedale "felt that the way I used his remark about bad weather, oppressive regimes and poor economic conditions being things that make a SL user implied tha the thought these things typified SL users and that he had a negative opinion of them."

Evidence of Entrenched Philosophy at Linden Lab?

So I have to wonder though if this is a sneak peak at larger issues? Is this why Cory was fired? Is this why Philip needs to step down as CEO? Is this signs of bigger issues at Linden Lab that need cleaning up?

Let's look at some evidence.

1. "Second Life" implies an alternate, new reality.
2. It took Linden Lab 4 years to get the SL Grid branding to sell Second Life's business possibilities.
3. Users are still called "residents".
4. It took Linden Lab 7 years to get a basic HTML window inside the SL browser.
5. The whole control scheme of Second Life is based on video game standards. WASD keys for controls, right-click menu, third person interaction, etc.
6. Where there are possibilities for more Internet-like controls, they've been overlooked. The profile, rather than acting like an AIM/Yahoo chat profile, read more like character playsheets for a MMORPG. You can't nickname people. You can't build widgets to connect to SL's search, or groups, or chat. There are no text-based interactions like buttons or pull-down selectors - only prims.
7. Consider Second Life originally did not have direct teleports (the equivalent of surfing from page to page on the Internet).
8. Consider Second Life's rampant inability to manage (tolerance of) griefing.
9. Consider Philip Rosedale's words from 2005 SLCC where he said he barely gets in world. And maybe that's it. Maybe he's lost touch with what SL can be about?

It seems to me that this is evidence that there's a "SL is a game" culture that they've been slowly emerging from for the last couple years. Whether this evidence leads to a truth or not, that remains to be seen. There are, however, other virtual worlds which aim to be a "Metaverse" world that take a much more web-centric paradigm for interface and controls. At the same time, they don't have the success of Second Life yet. And so the debate is unfinished.

Does Linden Lab want Second Life to continue to evolve? Do they really want to be a keystone in what will be "The Metaverse". Or, more importantly - do they even have a consistent definition of what "The Metaverse" is? I'm left with lots of questions, because this does not seem like attitude the Linden Lab we all know and love. In fact, if I were working at Linden Lab, working hard to see all the different possibilities of what Second Life is capable, I might feel a little perplexed that Rosedale would make such statements.

And so, I brought the crux of this concern to Robin, and hopefully we will find out whether Philip talked about business and Reuters simply chose not to print it. But, at the same time, I'm left wondering - does Linden Lab have one clear vision for their platform, and are they enunciating this vision clearly?

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EDIT: Addendum

Linden Lab *just* minutes ago announced their new CEO, Mark Kingdon, formerly of Organic, Inc. This likely bodes very well for Linden Lab! Congrats out to Mark and to Linden Lab for making it through the limbo process between CEOs so quickly!

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Philip Rosedale: One of Time's 100 Most Influential

http://tinyurl.com/6hsgaj

For the sake of giving attention to our industry, I suggest you click that link and upvote Philip Rosedale in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2008. Make sure you slide it to 100 and click "Submit".

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