July 24, 2008

Second Life Herald — SL Herald - the literary backbone of virtual worlds?

Mario Gerosa Interviews Urizenus Sklar on the New New Journalism
Does this explain all the damn poems?

by Idoru Wellman, Dept. of Literary Salons and Euro-Trash Intellectuals

Mario Gerosa (Frank Koolhaus in SL) wears many hats (some virtual). He is real life editor of Architectural Digest Italia He has also made headlines here and elsewhere with his virtual world projects that include a virtual tourism agency and a convention for the preservation of virtual architecture. He is also author of several books on virtual worlds including Mondi Virtuali and, most recently, Rinascimento Virtuale (The Virtual Renaissance), published by Meltemi Editore in Italy. Of interest to Herald Readers is the interview with our Founder and Spiritual Advisor Urizenus Sklar, republished in English below the fold by the kind permission of Mr. Gerosa and the publisher. (Yes, I know, it's a bit dated. Uri informs me the interview took place a year ago.)

MG: We are going towards a new Golden Age of virtual worlds. We will have P2P worlds where everyone would be able to create his land without ties. Probably it will be one step beyond SL. And I figure what that could be in the hands of writers: I mean, a writer could use is fragment of world to set a story, and we finally will have a literary dimension in virtual worlds. Is that true?

Urizenus: Actually, we have had a literary dimension in virtual worlds for a long time. Or at least we did until graphic worlds became dominant. Think about the MUDs and MOOs that were popular in the 1990s. There we had entirely text based virtual worlds, and people “built” in those worlds by writing descriptions. Some of the descriptions were very shallow, but others were very robust and literary. You could say that these were worlds that were woven from literary acts.

With virtual worlds like Second Life we *seem* to have lost that. The literary artist has been replaced by the visual artist and the engineer. In some ways this recapitulates what we have seen in “real life” with literary art being eclipsed by visual arts like film and television, but it is more complex than that.

Here is the pessimistic assessment of the situation in virtual worlds: We no long weave virtual worlds from literature but from pixels. The literary project thus moves from one of creation to one of interpretation and evaluation. Even on this pessimistic assessment there is plenty of literary activity taking place. Second Life is full of groups like the Goreans that engage in literary production within the roleplay context.

The optimistic assessment is rather different: It is an illusion to think that the furniture of Second Life consists of the visible objects that we see (prims and textures). Second Life is fundamentally a social space and we are building social objects and institutions by our writing. The “physical objects” – the virtual houses and cars and things – are symbols that we arrange to illustrate our stories. When we create avatars we are really creating characters, and the process of modifying and “skinning” the avatar is really just a small part of the act of creation – it is like adding a couple of illustrations to a book. The creation of the actually character is spread out over many years and is forged in collaboration with other writers. Sometimes they buy your narrative and sometimes they don’t. The criticism we receive -- “flaming” -- is a form of emergent literary criticism. Like the Moliere character who discovered he had been writing prose all his life without knowing it, we are engaged in a great work of collaborative narrative construction, whether we know it or not.

Of course the punch line to all of this is that when we construct narratives for our characters are really constructing narratives for ourselves. We are building our self-identity, and building and organizing our social groups. But that is another story.

MG: You always created a literary allure in the virtual worlds where you live. You created a literary backbone for SL with the SL Herald and you also transformed the Sims Online in a sort of a novel, maybe a dark fable. I mean, you understood from the beginning that virtual worlds need a literary dimension. In the future we will have more and more platforms for Ikea made virtual worlds, where everyone builds his own. Someone will have a certain literary creativity, others not. What will happen to the ones who lack this creativity, they will become the “third worlds” and they will perish?

Urizenus: Let’s start with The Sims Online. I think you are making a reference to the forthcoming book that I co-wrote with Mark Wallace: The Second Life Herald: the virtual tabloid that witnessed the birth of the metaverse. I would resist calling this a dark fable about The Sims Online, but I certainly agree that we wanted the story to have a kind of narrative structure. The thought is that in order to express abstract philosophical concepts to a broad audience you need to frame the message around the kinds of events and activities that we all understand. We didn’t want to write a book that was just abstract musing about virtual worlds, intellectual property, and free speech. We wanted a narrative structure with characters and plot lines.

For a long time I struggled with how to begin that project, and then a friend of mine who makes horror movies in Hollywood told me “you want to begin with the dead body.” And that’s how Mark and I began the book – with the death of Urizenus. The subsequent story was not a “whodunit” mystery, but a “why did they do it?” mystery. Along the way we used the stories and characters of The Sims Online and Second Life to illustrate very deep and difficult questions, but these were woven in as subplots to the main narrative backbone of the story of Urizenus.

As for the Second Life Herald, time constraints make it difficult to be consistent, but when we have the time and energy we try and make our writing not just literary, but a kind of experimental literature. Whether they admit it or not, many of the Herald writers (e.g. me and Mark and Pixeleen Mistral and Prokofy Neva) are influenced by the New Games Journalism, and in addition by the great American New Journalists of the 1960s and 1970s – Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, etc. The puzzle those writers had to solve was to find a way to get at what was really happening during the great youthquake and social revolution of the 1960s. Their solution to the puzzle was to avoid the usual “just the facts” style of journalistic writing and they attempted to get at the heart of the matter by trying to illustrate what it felt like to be there and make sense of the passion and raw sense of wonder people experienced as the world was changing. They also understood that existing literary conventions would not be sufficient to make this happen. They had to reinvent literature and journalism at the same time.

Of course we are now in the same position that the New Journalists were. The advent of virtual worlds like Second Life is bringing about fundamental sweeping changes – if only by their ability to bring incredibly creative people from all over the world and allowing them to play and collaborate with each other. We need to find a way to express what is really happening. You could publish statistics and corporate press releases all day long and not understand virtual worlds at all. The usual journalistic tools are impotent here.

The new puzzle is that we can’t simply replicate the methods of the New Journalists. This is a new world and there are new things to communicate and we have new tools with which to communicate them. The difference between the Old New Journalism and the New New Journalism is fundamentally this: Old New Journalism was journalism for push media. For the most part Thompson and Wolfe and Mailer wrote their stories and that was that. Maybe people responded in print and maybe not, but there was no immediate response and no invitation to play along.

In writing for the Herald it has become clear to me that the stories that we write don’t end with the comments, but in some cases really begin with the comments that the readers submit. The comments are where the stories really come out and where you really see the social fabric of The Sims Online and Second Life. That is where the drama and the jealousies and friendships and great ideas play out, and that is also where you get some of the best and most creative writing.

The task in writing for the Herald is then something like this: Can you write a story that will engage the audience enough so that they will jump in and comment and in effect help give you all the many sides of the story. Sometimes that requires us to be provocative, and often it requires us to be speculative. As we say in our virtual meetings: throw the idea up there and see what comes out in the comments. Things can rapidly spin out of control, but that is also part of the beauty of it. You don’t know where a story will lead or whether the resulting collaborative narrative will be constructive, destructive, boring or positively mind-bending.

In effect our stories are really suggested topics for discussion. In some ways this makes it sound like the Herald writers are holding literary salons, but that conjures up images of refined people drinking tea and sherry and discussing abstract questions. Those kinds of discussions don’t get you very far. We much prefer the rough and tumble discussion you get from drunks in a pub. That is why we opt for a kind of tabloid newspaper format. It allows us to openly reject the constraints of traditional “legit” news media and be as experimental as we choose. The conceit that we were a tabloid completely liberated us in terms of the content and form of our writing, and it also created an expectation that we were going to write stories that touched emotional nerves, covered the everyday drama and scandals, and were not going to trouble ourselves with the latest bogus Linden Lab statistics and bogus corporate press releases.

Now, you ask if the non-literary virtual worlds will perish, but this is maybe a confusion. It is not the worlds that are literary, but rather the people that participate in them. Perhaps the narrative plays out in worlds or perhaps it plays out in the written lore of guilds on their web sites. Some worlds will make this kind of narrative construction natural and others will not. I don’t know if the narrative-friendly worlds will be more successful, but at least they will be remembered and they will make a contribution to the narratives of future online worlds (just like The Sims Online failed as a game but has contributed many continuing narratives to Second Life).

MG: The avatars are going to have more and more a sense of notoriety. In SL there are already celebrities and with Virtual Me this process will be further stressed. What will become the avatars in the next years? Actors? Advertising testimonials?

Urizenus: The idea of using famous avatars in advertisements (and even as characters in videogames) has been knocked around and there may be projects in the works for all I know. If the avatar Anshe Chung can be on the cover of Business Week and the avatar Callie Cline can be one of the 100 most attractive women in the world according to Maxim they can certainly be featured in advertisements for products. To some extent we see this already in Second Life. So, for example, Gideon Television was tapped to be master of ceremonies at a Pontiac Island event, and Coca-Cola has enlisted Urizenus as a judge in one of their contests. I’m sure we will see avatars in advertisements out of world – in traditional push media – but already I have to wonder if that matters. Should we care if push media is paying attention to us or should we just press on and ignore it?

Back to the question of actors, I think there are already some recognised avatar actors, and there are certainly recognised virtual world fashion models. I’m told that even modelling virtual fashion is very difficult. You have to know how and where to walk and pose so as to not “break” the clothing. Of course, in these cases it is actually the typist that has the skill, so maybe these people will be hired to manipulate many different avatars – like the voice dubbing artists in Italy. But maybe machinima movie producers will want to have a recognised avatar in their productions. That is certainly conceivable.

Meanwhile there is a very impressive effort at machinima video in Second Life being undertaken by Douglas Gayeton and produced by a Dutch new media company called Submarine. It is effectively a television show about the adventures of an avatar named Molotov Alva, and it is extremely well made and gripping.

MG: The new virtual worlds are going to be capacious containers where to put lots of things: primarily they will contain users profiles like the ones of My Space. What will happen then to the social networks, they will be eaten and cannibalized by the virtual worlds?

Urizenus: No the social networks will probable evolve into 3D platforms. That is already happening with robust chat platforms like IMVU. People can now create their own 3D space and furnish it with virtual furniture and objects. Paradoxically, some the IMVU content is made by Anshe Chung Studios, so the virtual world builders are helping to turn social networks and chat programs into new virtual worlds.

MG: I come back again to the books. I believe that we will always have books made of paper. But could we think that the virtual worlds will give us an alternative way to read the books? I mean, one century ago we had the first movie transpositions of famous novels. Now, probably the same will happen with virtual worlds, but how? Will there be professional avatars to act? I know that for now it may sound ridiculous, but I think about the theatre of some centuries ago, very naïf. And I also think that these worlds improve very quickly.

Urizenus: I believe there is already a virtual Shakespeare virtual world underway, and I always thought it would be great to recreate the world of Beowulf. There are several directions this could take. One idea is that we could simply use virtual worlds to recreate the fictional world and let people explore it. This would not be a trivial accomplishment. The film directory Ridley Scott (Blade Runner and Blackhawk Down) has described his goal in film making as immersing us in an atmosphere – transporting us to another place. Virtual worlds can certainly accomplish that.

Another idea is to recreate the world and then act out the plot of a story in world. This would be interesting. Suppose we could drop into such a “performance” as invisible point-sized avatars – as microscopic flies on the wall. We could then view the events from an infinite number of perspectival points. We could teleport around the world to watch various subplots unfold, and we might want to view the performance many times to piece everything together. It might even be helpful to have friends scattered around the world to tell us when important events in the narrative are happening.

This also opens up possibilities for the integration of canonical works with fanfiction. We can imagine fanfic writers filling out the narrative in various corners of the virtual/fictional world.

As I said earlier, there will certainly be actors, but of course some of these projects will utilize NPCs – nonplayer characters – some fully programmed and some with artificial intelligence and more than a little unpredictability in their actions.

One assumes that these efforts will introduce literary works to people just as movie adaptations of novels do today.

MG: Until now, in a way or another, the technocrats ruled in virtual worlds. Also in SL, where the creativity makes the difference, the technical geeks are really strong. In the future we will finally have a more humanistic virtuality?

Urizenus: This is the fundamental question facing virtual worlds and it is the question that the Herald has been most obsessed with since coming to Second Life. The western democracies were built by humanists that were deeply influenced by enlightenment philosophy and they sought to construct a world that instantiated important human values like freedom, liberty, equality, etc. Today we are facing a situation where the worlds we are going to inhabit – the worlds where we conduct our social and business lives – is principally being organized by engineers with no serious background in the humanities. Instead of letting human values guide the construction of their world they are letting “sweet hacks” guide the construction of the world. In the end, the world will be coded up in such a way that there is no place for the most central human values. If there is a guiding philosophy it is a kind of philosophy 101 libertarianism which basically says “if the software allows it, then it is o.k.”. Is there hope for another outcome? That remains to be seen. For now it is absolutely crucial that the virtual press stay on top of this question and keep banging away at it.

Of course the rise of the western democracies had its dark side too. In America, for example, the democratic movement initially only involved the participation of a minority consisting of male landed gentry. We need to avoid this mistake if possible – we need to make sure that if we secure important rights in virtual worlds those rights (and rights of equal participation) are enjoyed by all the residents and not just a privileged elite class of users. The virtual press needs to be alert to this as well.

MG: These days we stress the idea of social virtual world, but maybe we should recover the idea of play, a ludic dimension. Shouldn’t we?

Urizenus: Anytime you bring people together they will find ways to play. So while it is true that Second Life is not itself a game, it brings with it the tools to develop lots of interesting games. As you are aware there is a debate in gaming theory between the ludologists and the narratologists. Is it a game or is it a collaborative narrative? Well, obviously it can be many overlapping narratives and games at the same time.

by SLHerald at 07/24/2008 10:25 PM

Reuters-Second Life — OpenSim charts path away from Second Life

SECOND LIFE, July 24 (Reuters) - OpenSim looks and feels very much like Linden Lab’s Second Life. But top OpenSim developers see a future in which their software is a generic platform for 3D software, hopefully interoperable with the Second Life Grid but not necessarily resembling it.

Speaking at the Metaverse Meetup in New York City on Wednesday night, two of the most prominent programmers working on OpenSim — IBM’s David Levine (middle) and DeepThink’s Adam Frisby (left) — plotted a course that diverges further and further from Linden’s Second Life as time goes on.

Levine, an IBM employee known in Second Life as Zha Ewry, was instrumental in coordinating the first Second Life to OpenSim teleport last month. Frisby, while adamant that OpenSim has no formal leaders (consistent with the project’s decentralized, open source ethos), has emerged over the past year as one of the most prominent developers working on the project. The Perth, Australia-based programmer frequently travels the globe to evangelize OpenSim at meetings and conferences.

Last night, Frisby described OpenSim as a product very different from Second Life, capable of being customized to support a wide range of virtual worlds. He said he hoped the parts of OpenSim that emulate Second Life will be removed from the code’s core package and made an optional add-on within OpenSim’s modular configuration.

Levine agreed. “OpenSim is a platform. And by intent, a fairly malleable platform,” he said.

Levine said his vision for OpenSim was a vast array of interconnected worlds, where some provide game-based experiences like Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, but others are social hangouts for avatars similar to Second Life.

“Success in this space means killing a dragon and taking its head to another grid, slapping it down in a nightclub and having a disco,” he said.

That disco — and its cover charge — may have nothing to do with Linden Lab. “What if I want to hook up to an economy outside the Second Life Grid? That’s something I think a lot of people find exciting,” Levine said.

Frisby and Levine also backed an intellectual property scheme for OpenSim very different from Second Life’s. In Second Life, objects can be set with flags like “no-copy” by their creators, which Linden’s servers enforce. But numerous exploits to Second Life’s copy-protection model are known, and brazen theft abounds in Second Life.

In OpenSim, by default, no copy protection will exist at all. “You cannot know what a foreign piece of software will do with a piece of digital content once it receives it,” Levine said. To insert a digital rights management tool into OpenSim is to invite criminal hackers to find ways to circumvent it and undermine the credibility of the software, he argued.

“These things have to be legally enforced, there’s no technical way to make it foolproof,” Frisby said.

When the panel was opened to questions from the crowd, OpenSim’s lack of content protection tools was challenged by Catherine Fitzpatrick, better known in Second Life as the prolific blogger Prokofy Neva. “You mentioned the recipe of calling a lawyer, but most avatars can’t afford lawyers and don’t have access to them,” Fitzpatrick said.

Frisby responded there was no point putting in an intellectual property provision that couldn’t be made to work. “If someone wants to rip off Second Life they can,” he said.

Levine, in response to the same question, said he thought many grids would want to respect intellectual property and may put in optional modules to enforce it. He imagined something like the Second Life Grid would only allow access to its world by OpenSim grids that rigorously respect copyright.

Ultimately, Levine said, OpenSim would need to develop a framework similar to Creative Commons, with boilerplate legal language specifically adapted to virtual worlds. “The user won’t hire a lawyer, they’ll just read the Terms of Service,” Levine told Fitzpatrick.

Despite ambitious plans for OpenSim, the speakers admitted many steps in both law and technology remain to be figured out. Programmers still struggle daily with getting OpenSim to run on different graphics cards, and Levine said he’d seen “at least 17 different proposals” on solving problems like avatar identity management.

“No one has a vision where they say — in five years it will look like this,” Levine said. “People might have some glimmers of that, but no one knows.”

Photo: Eric Krangel / Reuters

by Eric Reuters at 07/24/2008 09:43 PM

New World Notes — Mistress of Puppets

When their owners go away from their keyboard for too long, Second Life avatars are coded to slump forward at the waist, like a puppet with no one pulling its strings. Vidal Tripsa took that visual metaphor for the AFK...

by SLHamlet at 07/24/2008 09:14 PM

Prim Perfect — So how do I get the Primgraph?

Well, there are various ways to get The Primgraph! You can collect the Primgraph inworld from one of our vendors. You should start to see your favourite historical and steampunk stores displaying the vendor and - if they don’t - why not ask them to take our one prim vendor? Or you could buy a copy [...]

by primperfect at 07/24/2008 09:03 PM

Electric Sheep — A question on Liddle’s three stages of technology adoption

I have been reading the book Designing Interactions and particularly liked David Liddle’s simple approach to categorizing the progression of technology development.

He suggests there are 3 stages to technology adoption:

1. Enthusiast Stage:

A small group of users adopt a technology because they love and appreciate technology in an aesthetic way. The fact that the technology may be a bit difficult to use is attractive and fun to enthusiasts. They are most interested in exploiting capabilities with little regard for actual productivity gains or lifestyle motivations.

2. Business Stage:

Once enough enthusiasts are using it, one of them figures out how to do something with it in their work to add productivity. It is in this stage that the technology’s interface are somewhat stabilized and some uniformity emerges. The technology may still require special training but the productivity gains are worth the burden.

3. Consumer Stage:

With the technology now in a growing number of hands for business use, the technology now begins to reach a price point that is affordable for the masses (or those picking up the tab for the masses, in the case of marketers). It is in this phase that the important controls become automatic and the learning curve is fast. The style and the technology’s affect on lifestyle are the key motivations at this stage.

I liked this breakdown as I think it provides an interesting way to look at the current state of the virtual worlds industry. Of the technologies I’m aware of currently available and in development, there seems to be solutions at every one of these stages.

What do you think? How would you classify our industry when mapped to Liddle’s stages?

You can watch an excerpt of the interview David provided for the book here.

by swords at 07/24/2008 08:00 PM

RCE Universe — Five Reasons Your Should Care About 3DXplorer

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of spending some time with Greg Milliken from 3DXplorer. As with many of the great discussions I have had so far at Casual Connect Seattle, the conversation centered around Virtual Worlds and what we can learn from Casual Gaming. It is clear the learning curve and large downloads are limiting the footprint of Virtual Worlds. Our discussion, while viewing the stunning private beta demo (it really is cool) turned towards how 3DXplorer can solve these issues.

Therefore, I present to you the five reasons you should care about 3DXplorer.

No download
3DXplorer runs in your web browser based on standard Java technology. There is no plug-in or software to download resulting in the elimination of one of the key barriers to users seeing your creations. This essentially opens up the entire internet to your world.

Avatar portability
Because there is no propietary software to install you can travel from world to world, space to space, room to room without limitations. Avatar portability is no longer a concern. It is not even a concept.

3d Modeling Import
You don't have to learn a new language or system to create you object and items in world. You can use your standard 3D Software such as Google Sketch-up to import your creations, sell and share them.

Standard Web Protocals
Because 3DXplorer uses standard web protocals there is no reason you couldn't hook into content already on the internet. Virtually anything you can do on the web can now be integrated inworld.

It's Free
It is free to use and create. They do have a paid model once you start making money though.

To me, this is revolutionary. You can create your own world. Your own city. Your own room. Your own items. All of which are now easily accesable by everyone who has access to a computer and the internet. Stay tuned for more news on the private beta...

Nate Randall
Founder, Executive Editor
RCE Universe

07/24/2008 07:52 PM

Second Life Blog — Rolling restart to deploy 1.23.3, Thu-Sat July 24-26

Update 2008-07-24 01:22 : The rolling restart to deploy 1.23.3 to 1/10 of the grid is now complete. We have found and fixed the bug that was causing an increased crash rate in Server version 1.23.2, the version that was initially rolled out earlier this week. We will be doing a pilot roll to about 1/10 [...]

by Prospero Linden at 07/24/2008 06:41 PM

New World Notes — New World Newsfeed: Eshi, Bettina, and Professor Eel in The New York Post

Recent dispatches from the outside world... AN IRAQI'S SECOND LIFE - New York Post Thanks to the sharp eye of Post editor Stephen Lynch (who first saw it mentioned on Instapundit), an abbreviated version of my post, "A Babylonian Scholar...

by SLHamlet at 07/24/2008 04:46 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Early Registration for Virtual World Expo ends tomorrow, Friday, July 25th

Early Registration for Virtual Worlds Expo (taking place Sept 3-4, 2008 at the LA Convention Center) closes in tomorrow, Friday, July 25th. Early reg will save you save 40% ($400) on conference passes. Second Annual Virtual Worlds Expo brings all...

by Christopher Sherman at 07/24/2008 04:14 PM

New World Notes — Open Forum: What Second Life Events Should New World Notes Feature This Week?

This week Charlanna Beresford is taking a well-deserved RL vacation with a respite from writing her Second Life events calendar, Lanna's List, but I'll do my best to highlight events coming up this weekend through to next Wedesday. Know of...

by SLHamlet at 07/24/2008 07:23 AM

New World Notes — New World Newsfeed: Tom Bukowski On PRI's *To The Best Of Our Knowledge*, With Music By ChouChou

Recent dispatches from the outside world... To The Best Of Our Knowledge - Life as Entertainment Tom Bukowski/Boellstorff, author of the acclaimed Princeton University book Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, appears on the...

by SLHamlet at 07/24/2008 06:43 AM

RCE Universe — Gaming 2020 Style

I entered the recital hall of Benaroya Hall to attend a promising talk on the future of the gaming industry in 12 years from now, given by the revered Alex St. John (formerly of Microsoft DirectX) who currently serves as CEO of his own company, WildTangent. WildTangent is an online game creator and publisher, the second largest private gaming netowrk on the web today (second only to Disney). That all sounds dandy to me, and I'm sure it's solicited some ooh's and ahh's from you too, but let's cut to the chase. I've seen the futurists speak at other conferences, and heard the visionaries tell their tales (many of which I happily oblige to agree with), and can be somewhat critical of those suggesting they know where it's all heading. But to his credit, St. John certainly falls into the category of those 'in the know' and I'm keenly interested in hearing him speak.

Reciting in his lucid and casual way the history of media as we know it, from the movie theatres to living room radios to television and console games to pc games, St. John gives an alluring look at how the gaming industry is on track to tackle its own worst enemies. It doesn't help, of course, that many of those enemies reside within the industry's old bread and butter itself. So, without further hesitation, let's cut to the chase.

Death to the console! Or so believes St. John. Frankly, I think he's on to something. Consoles are, let's face it, fragile commodities. They cost billions of dollars to make and rarely generate much, if any, of a profit. St. John singles out a Microsoft man in the house- not just any local Seattle Microsoft man among the hordes of others here, mind you, but The Creator of the XBox... you'd think he's God himself, though my capitalization was a cheap attempt to convince you of that. "Microsoft lost 4 billion dollars in four years of introducing the XBox. They lost 1.9 billion in one year after the XBox 360," St. John tells the audience. Apologies to Mr. XBox man, though his genius can't be defeated. This wasn't exactly news to me, though there were a few raised eyebrows around the room. While Microsoft and Sony may be adament to bring the world THE console it's been waiting for, they haven't been able to do it for a variety of reasons- and the future doesn't look bright despite their stubbornness. "Pretty soon they won't be able to justify the high expense and risk [of their consoles] to their shareholders," St. John sums it up. Aint that the truth.

Another thorn in the side of consoles is the move to online distribution. While consoles can offer some online features, St. John argues that there will always be arbitrary limitations on their online content by the retailers that are selling the consoles and the games, ultimately creating havoc on the consoles and making for a problematic situation.

PC-based games, on the contrary, are wide open. Sure, there's room for piracy and the like, but the benefits far outweigh the risks and they do not take nearly as much capital to make, market and distribute. What's more, they can overcome some of the hurdles that console games cannot. Anyone with a pc can find free to play pc-based games or games that are very cheap, which is obviously not the case with traditional consoles.

What's more, pc's provide the industry with a new business model. Just as television became free to use thanks to adverts, pc games are evolving into this model as well. Utilizing advertising dollars is exactly what St. John's WildTangent has done to the tune of big revenues. No longer is it necessary to risk purchasing a $200 console or a $50 PC- game only to see a). If it even runs on your pc and b). If it's any good. Now there are so many options for free-to-play and other inexpensive options that you can sample, if not have all-out fun. You don't even need to subscribe to many games nowadays. "You wouldn't walk into a candy store, ask for some chocolates, and be shown barrell-sized boxes that sell for thousands of dollars, would you?" St. John asks. Hehe, well in his defense he doesn't know my chocolate addiction, but I'll go along with his argument nonetheless. "You will buy the little, individually wrapped 50cent chocolates at the register. Why? It's cheap! It hits the spot! You don't waste money on what you may not like. And it's all wrapped up and marketed perfectly to you." The man has a point. Just as consoles and their games require a good amount of money to begin with, many pc games do not. What's more, companies like WildTangent team up with advertisers so that people can play many casual pc games for free. That's good for them, good for Coca-Cola and the likes, and obviously good for St. John.

Second on his list to watch for in 2020? Persistant world domination! Yeah, we've known about this for years around here, but much of the broader gaming industry is just catching on to the fact that persistant, evolving and community-organized worlds are addicting! They market themselves organically, growing from word of mouth. WoW proved this fact by becoming the most profitable game in history, raking in some 1.2 billion dollars annually from revenue. That's big, and there isn't a console around that can compete.

What's more, less glossy games ranging from your cell phone games to RuneScape, are also hugely succesful, thus proving that production and graphics aren't really all that the doctor ordered.

But let's look to the biggest whammy of them all, one that is technically a console game but with a decidedly different approach: the Wii. For anyone who has so much as walked by a Wii at their local retailer, you can plainly see that Nintendo did not go for amazing graphics and fancy production costs. Rather, they took a page from an old playbook- the arcade industry. The Wii uses low-tech, off-the-shelf components and offers its audience new controllers, NOT fancy graphics, to lure them in and keep them coming back for more. Nintendo figured out, as St. John argued, that graphics and sound are essentially a dime a dozen- they are cheap commodities that don't really capture many gamers. And just as good old Runescape has shown, simplicity is key to getting people in and making it viral.

I really dig Alex St. John's take on the future of gaming, but I have to wonder where that leaves true innovation. I can get on board with a zero console world. I can get on board with more advertising, which essentially lets many gamers play for free (who doesn't love that?) But still I wonder- if more companies begin to realize that graphics and other realisms aren't the driving force behind growing a few bucks, where then will that leave us, technologically speaking, as we move ahead? And does this description of the future inherently shun the virtual world space, which seeks to mimic more closely than ever the real world with unbelievable engines, graphics and monetization? I'll have to chew on this some more, but it certainly started the day off right with food for thought.


Bonnie Boglioli Randall
aka Svetlana
RCE Universe

07/24/2008 12:22 AM

July 23, 2008

RCE Universe — Good Morning Seattle

I was fashionably late to arrive to the 9am start of Casual Connect, a three-day conference dedicated to all things casual gaming.

I took the number 72 bus straight to downtown and exited in the underground tunnel, the wind blowing my hair into my eyes as I tried to speed dial Nate, my better half. He had already arrived at Benaroya in time for the morning's opening remarks and the commencement of the conference and he wasn't answering his mobile. Wandering around in Benaroya Hall can be rather confusing, even for a local Seattlite such as myself, especially when you throw in a few thousand gamers from around the world. This is the place where locals and visitors usually trek to take in the extraordinary Dale Chihuly glass creations, sip Washington wines and enjoy an evening at the symphony, yet on this morning the place is lively and jumping. While Nate and I have done our fair share of homework in preparation for the week's events, it is fair to say that I spent time wondering who exactly I would meet at a casual gaming conference, and what I might actually have in common with them, being a traditional mmog'er and virtual worlds writer. Surely they must all be like aliens from another planet, somehow having succumbed to the likes of arcade games and solitaire for their entertainment pleasure. I, on the other hand, must be the more evolved species in attendance, representing those who enjoy toting realistic weaponry, changing avatar's clothes frequently, and even making money. I began to invision all of the casual games I could think of- from mobile games like Tetris and BrainChallenge, to classic card games and the cute casual games that always seem to feature a pink bunny jumping about, and for the life of me I wondered what on earth I was doing here. As I would soon come to find out, the people behind the bright green frogs, whacky anime-inspired creatures with mullets and otherwise funny little casual gaming avatars had a lot more in common with me and my practical avatars than I might have guessed. Most of my trepidations disappeared when I entered the Hall and heard the usual shuffling of business cards exchanging hands, the hot coffee pouring out of the taps like water, the clicking of keyboards and the bright lights of bluetooths hooked onto their owners' ears. Ah yes- it's conference season and I know this all too well. A highly polished welcome zine and map sat tucked under my right arm, with my bag and cellphone under my left. I scanned the crowd for Nate, but it proved futile to look for him in the sea of people. The floor to ceiling windows of the eight-story building flooded through the morning sunshine and I'm sure that my left retina won't recover anytime soon from the direct hit of sunlight. I played my cool, approaching the nearest press table and carefully opening up my leatherbound notebook case, encrusted with the emblem of some company that gave it out as swag many conferences and several years ago. Speaking of SWAG, may I add that the goodies found at Casual Connect are surely the best I've ever seen. If free coffee and gifts isn't good enough reason to attend these things, I don't think I can help you... and don't hold me responsible if you dislike my writing style, either. If you want the real insight into the day's discussions and panels, you'll have to follow me from room to room as I post about the very unique aspects of casual gaming. More interestingly, from my own humble perspective, is how much cross-pollination is happening right as we speak between the casual gaming industry and the virtual worlds industry (or better yet persistant worlds) today. With that, I'm off to hear from WildTangent's CEO Alex St. John on the future of the entire gaming industry, casual and otherwise, by 2020. With my Starbucks in hand, lanyard nametag dangling from my neck, and notebook in arm, I think this event could prove intriguing afterall. Bonnie Boglioli Randall Founder, Executive Editor RCE Universe

07/23/2008 11:24 PM

Sloz — Age demographics and virtual worlds

Metrics gurus Kzero have released a new breakdown of the age variances by type of virtual world frequented. There’s no big surprises but the figures do further emphasise the power of the pre-teen and teen market for social virtual worlds. Thanks to Pavig Lok for the heads-up. Related storiesJune 2, 2008 -- K-Zero: more than 300 million registered [...]

07/23/2008 10:35 PM

Sloz — A year ago on The Metaverse Journal

We started our weekly does of virtual world machinima called Weekend Whimsy The first featured video: The Cecil Codex Chapter 5 Random PostsJune 18, 2007 -- A.N.Z.A.C build - an updateJanuary 4, 2008 -- Second Life tips now available for in-world streamingMay 6, 2007 -- ABC Island - meteor strikeFebruary 3, 2007 -- Australian part of photo exhibit [...]

07/23/2008 10:35 PM

New World Notes — Casting Call: Videogame Character Avatars Wanted To Star In Machinima Short!

Been Super Mario in Second Life lately? How about Solid Snake, or say Master Chief? Acclaimed SL machinima creator Lainy Voom and I are working on a top secret machinima project, and we're looking for Second Life Residents who've created...

by SLHamlet at 07/23/2008 08:25 PM

New World Notes — Ophelia's Gaze: What's Virtual Fashion Really Worth?

Exclusive to NWN, Iris Ophelia's ongoing showcase of all things stylish in SL On a recent flight from Paris, I thought about my new pink umbrella wrapped up in the overheard compartment above me, the one that cost €100, and...

by Iris Ophelia at 07/23/2008 06:52 PM

New World Notes — Lash's Romance: Music Video Machinima Done Right

Second Life machinima is awash with music videos of couples dancing together, but "Storytelling" by Lash Xevious, cut to Radiohead's "All I Need", is several notches above most of those; it shimmers with luminous post-production effects, oversaturated lighting, and other...

by SLHamlet at 07/23/2008 06:45 PM

RCE Universe — Big Fish Games Research Study Released

Big Fish Games Founder Paul Thelen’s Keynote Presentation Redefines the Games Industry The Results of a Joint Study with NPD Challenge Current Assumptions About the Core and Casual Game Markets

SEATTLE – June 23, 2008 – Paul Thelen, founder and chief strategy officer of Big Fish Games™ (www.bigfishgames.com), the world’s largest casual games distributor, today revealed new research that challenges the conventional thinking about audience profiles in the video game industry. The results of a recent study show gamers can no longer be classified into the traditional archetypes of core and casual fans due to the rapid diversification of the demographics, game styles, business models and platforms in the U.S. games market. In partnership with NPD Group, Big Fish Games surveyed nearly 3,000 U.S. individuals who play games, and matched the results across demographics, game mechanics, and psychographics. The study identified 14 distinct segments of gamers within 39 genres of games. The casual market was segmented into 10 distinct groups, while four segments were identified within the traditional core market. However, the segmentation calls into question the relevancy of the terms casual and core, due to a great deal of overlap and similarity between various casual and core segments once thought to be disparate. Conventional strategies have normally classified gamers into one of two main groups, core and casual, and by association to their device - consoles for core players, and downloadable or online PC games for casual play. The new study shows that these lines of differentiation are very blurry at best. Conventional wisdom previously held that core and casual gamers rarely play games outside of their favored game style. While the study reinforced the fact that most gamers have favorite genres, it also showed there is tremendous crossover and broad usage across many game genres by all segments. Core gamers engage with casual genres as much or more than core gamers engage with other core genres, and vice versa. The study showed that the “Heavy Action” gamer segment (young males that had a preference for shooters, racing, driving mayhem, fighting, realistic sports, and heavy role playing games) were also most likely to play games in the “Nancy Drew” segment (games typically preferred by older females such as match 3, brain teaser, mahjong, word, hidden object, jigsaw, trivia and puzzle adventure games). Additionally, the study revealed new insights into the level of time commitment displayed by casual gamers versus core gamers. While “Slow Strategists” (fans of turn-based strategy role playing games) and “Fantasy Worlds” (participants in online fantasy MMORPGs) spent the most hours playing per week, some casual segments such as “Tycoons” (simple simulation and tycoon games) and “Clickers” (time management, marble popper and brick buster games) spent more hours gaming per week than the largest of the core gamer segments, Heavy Action. “These results imply that continuing to categorize a gamer as only a core or casual player is limiting in its ability to fully describe the gamer,” said Paul Thelen, founder and chief strategy officer of Big Fish Games, during his keynote speech at the Casual Connect gaming conference in Seattle, Wash. “The ability to break apart the industry into a wide variety of segments provides the ability for companies to focus on the emerging opportunities that are masked by broad generalizations.” Thelen continued, “Saying ‘We are in the casual games business,’ could mean up to a dozen things and without additional specificity it is not much more useful than simply saying, ‘We are in the games business.’” The study further revealed the market opportunity in several casual game segments continues to approach those of core game segments. This is due to the large population of self-identified casual gamers relative to core. Gamers in the largest casual segment, labeled as Nancy Drews, spend less per year than the Heavy Action gamer segment, but there are almost 40 percent more customers in the Nancy Drew segment. Additionally, some casual segments like “Frenetics” (platform jumping and rhythm games) and “Dancers” spend more per year than the Heavy Action gamers. “The gaming industry is far too large and too diverse to be all things to all people on all platforms in all areas of the world. For companies to be truly successful, they need to focus on an audience, a business model and a platform,” stated Thelen in his keynote address. “Going after the casual or core audience lacks the specificity to have any real meaning and will not help define your vision enough to be successful.” He continued, “Big Fish Games focuses on partnering with the top game developers in a few specific, but extremely popular game segments, which has allowed us to emerge as the world’s largest online distributor of games.” The NPD Group will be publishing a report detailing the survey and its findings. About Big Fish Games Big Fish Games is a global leader and innovator in the online games industry, producing and delivering the world’s best games and game experiences. Big Fish Games Studios develops and publishes some of the game industry’s leading brands including Mystery Case Files®, Hidden Expedition™, Azada™ and Fairway Solitaire™. Big Fish Games distributes more games worldwide than any other company via its portal at portal www.bigfishgames.com and offers visitors an expansive selection of content by launching A New Game Every Day!™ About The NPD Group, Inc. The NPD Group is the leading provider of reliable and comprehensive consumer and retail information for a wide range of industries. Today, more than 1,600 manufacturers, retailers, and service companies rely on NPD to help them drive critical business decisions at the global, national, and local market levels. NPD helps our clients to identify new business opportunities and guide product development, marketing, sales, merchandising, and other functions. Information is available for the following industry sectors: automotive, beauty, commercial technology, consumer technology, entertainment, fashion, food and beverage, foodservice, home, office supplies, software, sports, toys, and wireless. For more information, visit http://www.npd.com.

07/23/2008 06:26 PM

RCE Universe — De-Caffeinated Digital Chocolate

I wandered into the stunning Beneroya Hall for Casual Connect Seattle slightly tired and un-caffinated this morning looking forward to hearing Trip Hawkins, CEO of Digital Chocolate speak.

You may recognize him as the founder of EA (Electronic Arts) and creator of the before-its-time 3DO gaming system. Trip now runs a casual gaming outfit called Digital Chocolate. I drag my way up to the third floor "Press and Speaker Lounge" to survey my surroundings and set my schedule for the rest of the week. As I type, three well dressed men saunter by looking faily lost and confused. One of them looks over and asks, "Is this the Speakers Lounge?". I confirm thier suspicion and they can't help but display obvious dissappointment. As they turn to go, I recognize Trip as one of the three amigos. Right now I need coffee (something sorely missing from the "Press and Speaker Lounge"). There are a ton of low learning curve fun to play games for me to try out and swag to the gills. I've got my day sheduled, meetings planned and am looking forward to seeking out those innovators in this space exploring Virtual Worlds. Stay tuned for more updates from Casual Connect Seattle. For now, here are a few pics of the facilities! Nate Randall Founder, Executive Editor RCE Universe

07/23/2008 04:44 PM

Electric Sheep — VentureBeat: virtual goods business model

VentureBeat has a story on virtual goods business models being used to good effect by casual gaming companies.  Given the uncertainty swirling around social network advertising, I have to imagine that almost every casual game developer is thinking along these lines. Even for brands who are looking to use casual games and virtual spaces to bolster marketing and real-world sales, virtual goods can be an effective way to turn a marketing cost center into a profitable effort.
Of course, for both virtual goods and advertising models, you have to invest in building the traffic before you can really start to monetize.

Still, the casual game space has been doing well enough that Zynga “has yet to tap into any of its venture money even though it has a staff of 80 people and other operating costs; it has been profitable through its previous $10 million round as well as this latest one, he [Mark Pincus] says.”

Ravi Mehta of Viximo has some more interesting thoughts on the topic at Virtual Goods Insider.

by Giff at 07/23/2008 02:47 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Heroes Creator Tim Kring To Speak At Virtual Worlds Expo

We're thrilled to announce that Tim Kring, creator and executive producer of “Heroes,” NBC’s Emmy nominated epic saga that chronicles the lives of ordinary people who discover they possess extraordinary abilities, will speak at the Virtual Worlds Expo, Sept. 3-4,...

by Christopher Sherman at 07/23/2008 02:40 PM

New World Notes — Photograph Virtual Ancient Japan For Fun And Lindens

"Gion" is the name of a district in the famed city of Kyoto, Japan; it's also the name of a region in Second Life that painstakingly recreates Gion in its historic heyday. New World Notes partner Koinup is co-sponsoring a...

by SLHamlet at 07/23/2008 12:00 PM

Virtual Worlds News — San Francisco YMCA Adopts Dizzywood for Education

Kids world Dizzywood announced today that it had been selected by the YMCA of San Francisco for the latter's technology curriculum. Dizzywood ties casual games into an educational environment that's also aimed at promoting values like cooperation--a double whammy for...

by Joey Seiler at 07/23/2008 11:14 AM

Virtual Worlds News — Zynga Aquires Facebook Virtual World Yoville After Series B

Social game developer Zynga announced today that it has acquired Yoville, a virtual world app for Facebook. The news comes alongside Zynga's announcement of raising $29 million in a Series B round of investment led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield &...

by Joey Seiler at 07/23/2008 10:55 AM

July 22, 2008

New World Notes — Sim Crashed? Jump Through A Portal! (No GLaDOS Required)

Here's an interesting behind-the-scenes feature from last weekend's Second Life Relay for Life, the community telethon run which raised nearly $200,000 in Linden Dollars for the American Cancer Society. The Relay course was spread over numerous sims, and with about...

by SLHamlet at 07/22/2008 11:49 PM

Second Life Herald — Nate Ninetails -- Post 6 Guy

[Few guys in Second Life are as easy-going, reliable and balanced as Nate. Having him on your friends list means there's always someone to cheer you up, to join you on an excessive shopping tour or to kick your butt in combat. He is talented in many ways and his picture-editing skills make every cheap newbie escort look like a Hollywood goddess. Another SL man who shows that being sexy does NOT require the shape of a gorilla but a unique styling and a healthy confidence. All pictures were taken in Sanctum Sanctorum. - Bunny Brickworks]

When I was born in SL I was a Neko but my avatar has undergone some transformations in the meantime. I love to shop and change and so you might see me as a punk hanging out in urban sims, as Samurai practicing sword fight with Neferi, my partner, who has become an important part of my SL, as sniper playing with my extensive weapons collection and most likely as vampire – a Toreador – bitten and transformed by Mistress Voshie.

I spend my time with the usual activities in Second Life - exploring new places, playing games, shopping or just hanging out with friends. People come and go but some of them have become very important to me, thank you LaTaea for being in my life! I am a very social person and I would say it's easy to get along with me.

Another thing I enjoy is editing pictures, turning simple snapshots into little pieces of art. I can make anyone look good and the good-looking ones even more beautiful. My favorite models are my friends (who benefit from my hobby by getting regular updates of their profile pics) and yes, myself - I openly admit being a bit narcissistic but who in SL isn't?

I seldom do custom work, as I need to be free in my creative decisions. In most cases I already have a special image in mind, then go and get the perfect poses and prop, find the right model and lighting and just click away.

The thing I do whenever I need some peace of mind is building. I would tp to the next sandbox and build urban industrial-style buildings like shops, galleries or residential homes. Standing there for hours, making edges and textures seam perfectly is my personal Zen. Though I know that the quality of my buildings is good, I have no aspirations to sell them. I build them, box them up and store them in my inventory. Dealing with customer requests would be more than counter-productive.

In total, I very much enjoy my Second Life. The one thing I dislike is people bringing their - in my humble opinion - weird RP into public places but I suppose there are as many freaks in SL as in RL if not more. Oh, and drama ... as many signs in SL say 'drama lamas will be shot and mounted - not necessarily in that order'.

by SLHerald at 07/22/2008 11:24 PM

New World Notes — New World Tableau: "Ooops" by Connie Arida

Connie's last Tableau entry featured the denial of death; "Ooops", by contrast, features the denial of gravity, to sassy effect. (Click for full view.) "How did I do it?" she writes me. First task, of course, involved finding a locked-knee...

by SLHamlet at 07/22/2008 11:08 PM

New World Notes — New World Newsfeed: Drew Carey On Second Life (Updated)

Updated, 3:50pm: I just got word from the producers that this Drew Carey episode on Second Life has been taken down for a couple weeks "due to technical problems", so for now, the video link appears broken. Will let readers...

by SLHamlet at 07/22/2008 10:55 PM

Sloz — Call for chapters: book on ethics in virtual worlds

Got a hankering to write a scholarly article on an ethics and virtual worlds-related issue? Then check this out. There’s nothing like a book credit on your CV. Related storiesJune 24, 2008 -- Australian Educational Institutions: what are they thinking now?June 3, 2008 -- Linden Lab release 4th podcast: education and Second LifeMay 22, 2008 -- Australasian [...]

07/22/2008 10:35 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Virtual Worlds Broken Down by Segment

Nic Mitham at K Zero has been pursuing the arduous task of tracking virtual world development and populations for some time, placing the metaverse at over 303 million registered users in May. He's taken the same worlds and segmented them...

by Joey Seiler at 07/22/2008 09:55 PM

Reuters-Second Life — Blog: Avatars beware: Private investigators scouring Second Life

Be careful, that avatar on your sim could be a real-life private investigator, sent in to report on what you’re up to in your Second Life.

Last weekend, veteran private investigator Steven Rambam of detective firm Pallorium came to New York to give a talk about privacy and investigation techniques at the Hackers On Planet Earth conference. After Rambam told attendees how he tracked down one target inside Second Life, Reuters caught up with the private detective to find out what happened.

Rambam’s client told him this story: Twenty years ago as a child, he had been molested by one of his grade school teachers, a trauma he never fully recovered from. “The client believes/d that pedophiles don’t ‘retire’ — I absolutely agree — and he wanted to prevent the target from molesting anyone else,” Rambam said in an email. “We were retained to investigate, gather evidence, and if evidence was found then convince the target to retire from teaching.”

So Rambam started looking into his target — now an assistant principal — and discovered the man was a Second Life user. Pallorium investigators logged into Second Life and tracked down the man’s avatar, only to discover his Second Life identity was a leather-clad dominatrix.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. “The avatar by itself would not have been conclusive evidence of anything,” Rambam said. “The most significant evidence that we gathered was collected old-school: we identified other possible victims, interviewed them, and one person told a story very similar to what we’d heard from our client.”

But Second Life users should be aware, Rambam noted, that investigators are increasingly well-versed at using the virtual world.

Rambam caught a lucky break in tracking down the man. When Kevin Alderman hired private investigators to track the real-life identity of avatar Volkov Catteneo, Alderman had to work from IP addresses. Without giving away the tricks of his trade, Rambam said he came across his target’s avatar name “during a very preliminary phase of our investigation.”

Photo: Eric Krangel / Reuters

by Eric Reuters at 07/22/2008 09:13 PM

Electric Sheep — WebFlock Coverage, some thoughts

We were thrilled to finally announce WebFlock last Thursday.  We had some nice coverage alongside the release and I thought I would highlight a few with side commentary:

TechCrunch and Hollywood Reporter broke the news followed up by an in-depth piece from Virtual Worlds News and coverage at Worlds in Motion. Joey Seiler, with Virtual Worlds News, picked up on an important point when he wrote, “WebFlock is not–not–a virtual world. It’s a tool for developing virtual environments. While other worlds develop content relationships with brands, The Sheep are only interested in taking WebFlock to the brands themselves.” Raph Koster also, not surprisingly, got this distinction.

WebFlock is not a consumer virtual world.  Each implementation is entirely private-labeled, thus registration, art and user experience is controlled by the owner, not ESC.  I’ll write a little bit more about that tomorrow.  A key thing to note is that each space is separate, just like Amazon.com and NBA.com, and you navigate from one WebFlock-powered implementation to another just like you do from one website to another — by going to a new URL.

Right now, I personally don’t think of the Metaverse as a separate layer on top of the Internet that is navigated entirely in 3D; rather virtual spaces will be integrated and embedded right into the Web.  Virtual experiences don’t have to be part of large, sprawling worlds, but rather like websites, can be small, targeted, purposeful, and engaging. They enrich a webpage rather than replacing it.

Tony Walsh also picked up the story over at Clickable Culture and I added a comment there about some of the 3D tools: avatars and environments are built using standard 3D tools like Maya and 3DStudioMax. I also noted the lack of a fully user-controllable camera, which I think is a good thing for mainstream usage right now.  We call the environment “Perspective 3D”, since it has many of the immersive qualities of 3D without the usability complexities or hardware/software requirements.

ESC is not exclusively doing WebFlock work by any means, but the application provides an important option for the market that was missing, and we are excited about where this technology will go.

by Giff at 07/22/2008 08:53 PM

Infoisland — Congratulations to the Infomaniac Racers in Relay For Life!

Dateline: Info Island, Second LIfe Metaverse (Written by HollyJean Allen)

The Infomaniac Racers, a Relay for Life team who’s sole purpose is to raise funds for the American Cancer Society, was recognized for its work in the category of Cancer Awareness. The third place award was given based on a special build that featured links to American Cancer Society web sites, and dispensed information on cancer, its detection and prevention. The build, a ‘campsite’ on the track of the relay, featured oversize books that honored family and friends who have been affected by cancer.

The books were placed in a park-like setting surrounding a lake fed by a waterfall. A winding path guided visitors to the books and the information dispensers. Each of six books were written by members of the Infomaniac Racers. Georgette Whitfield, Amalia Broome, Sinner Sleeper, Waldron Rhino, Buddhistlibrarian Ballyhoo, and Hollyjean Allen. Amalia Broome also wrote poetry to recognize cancer survivors and caregivers everywhere. The site was fully terra-formed by Krull Aeon, and landscaped by Amalia Broome, Judi Newall, and Hollyjean Allen. It was a very moving place to visit.

The team was formed last January, 2008. For the last six months team members worked to generate funds for the Relay for Life campaign. They were one of 89 teams with a common goal. The combined fund raising efforts collected over $200,000 in United States Dollars! Many members of the InfoGroupies made many large donations of Lindens, and gave a great deal of their time walking the Relay track so that the team was represented for a full twenty four hours. This is done to help us all remember that cancer does not sleep.

The team was comprised of Alacrity Lorefield, Amalia Broome, Beliria Lumley, BuddhistLibrarian Ballyhoo, Forelle Broek, Haldin Koba, Honor Reiderer, Judi Newall, Leeorie Alter, Lorin Tone, Lourdes Denimore, Sinner Sleeper, Waldron Rhino, and Hollyjean Allen.

by Abbey at 07/22/2008 08:35 PM

New World Notes — Black Swan Couture: Fashion Inspired By Metaverse Locale

Tomorrow afternoon at 4pm SLT, New World Notes partner Rezzable is presenting a fairly unique runway show: "Fashion Inspired by Black Swan", the strange and dream-evoking Second Life island of imposing statues on rock outcroppings floating just above a forbidding...

by SLHamlet at 07/22/2008 07:22 PM

New World Notes — Second Life Avatar Meshes, Now Exported As AC3D Files

The Avatar Databank, as the name suggests, contains all the UV files for male and female avatars of Second Life, right down to their discrete parts, like eyelashes and crotch. They were created by Zora Spoonhammer, last seen here mapping...

by SLHamlet at 07/22/2008 06:12 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Sony Home a B2B Play

Sony recently announced that it would feature Nike inside of Home, the upcoming console-based world for the Playstation 3, but Home as always been touted as a safe place for brands. As it's on a game console, though, the game-related...

by Joey Seiler at 07/22/2008 03:34 PM

Virtual Worlds News — MTV.co.uk Launches House, Flash-Based World

MTV.co.uk yesterday announced the launch the beta of House, a Flash-based virtual world for socializing and hanging out in a lightly branded environment. Registration is tied through the Flux social network, just as the Virtual LES is now, which you...

by Joey Seiler at 07/22/2008 02:58 PM

New World Notes — Meeting M., Part One: Linden Lab's New CEO On Joining Linden, Improving Second Life, And More

The first time I met Mark Kingdon at Linden Lab's San Francisco headquarters in June, I noticed this framed tile of carpet hanging above his desk, containing his message to departing CEO Philip Rosedale, on taking over his role. Kingdon...

by SLHamlet at 07/22/2008 07:14 AM

July 21, 2008

Sloz — What looks like addiction, but is not - Virtual Addiction, Part 3

I spend hours with my computer. It is my favorite tool. I spend time in and out of virtual worlds; I spend time on and off the Internet, surfing with my browser. I communicate, I work, I play. From the sheer amount of time spent with my machine during the day, according to some measures, [...]

07/21/2008 10:35 PM

New World Notes — Daden Navigator With Dynamic Web Browsing In SL (Sorta)

Though I wound up distracted by their AI-powered spokeswoman, I originally visited Daden Island to see the company's Navigator, an in-world web browser. While it's been possible to stream web pages into Second Life for several months, even active web...

by SLHamlet at 07/21/2008 09:39 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Case Western Developing Dentistry Training Sims

Case Western Reserve University is looking at three new ways to train student dentists with mock patients: face-to-face actors, a Second Life-based training ground, and an immersion theater with virtual patients. Working with a three-year Innovative Dental Assessment Research and...

by Joey Seiler at 07/21/2008 08:34 PM

Electric Sheep — Five barriers to mainstream virtual world use (and how we dealt with them)

Last week we launched WebFlock. It is by far our most ambitious effort ever to reach the masses with many different types of custom virtual world experiences.

We have learned many lessons over the past three years, chiefly among them has been consumer behavior as it relates to virtual world use. As we set out last year to develop Webflock, there were key technical and design issues that we knew had to be addressed in our product if it is to break through to consumers. Here are five of them:

1. Computing power

Only a minority of the Internet population has computer hardware powerful enough to have an optimal experience in virtual worlds like Second Life. Based on our informal research, it could very well be less than 5%.

Better hardware will make its way into the wild and, trust me, we’re ready to flip those switches when it happens. To reach the mass Internet audience today, however, we chose to target 3-4 year old hardware for the Webflock engine.

This is quite the opposite approach taken by virtual world and MMO platforms that target new hardware with their designs and then degrade the quality of the experience for those with lesser specs. Aside from the technical complexities it introduces, this approach carries a risk of undermining one of the key features of virtual worlds which is uniformly representing the shared space to all users.

We decided to standardize on 3-4 year old computing technology, also assuming little or no dedicated 3d processing capability.

2. Sign-up Forms

One of the greatest barriers to having the masses experiment with virtual worlds is the dreadful sign-up form. Virtual worlds are a unique interaction for many consumers and so they are often best understood through experience. As I’ve blogged before, sign up forms must die, especially sign up forms that restrict a users ability to understand the website they are browsing.

Because of the seamless technology decisions we’ve made with Webflock, anyone that lands on a web page can instantly be immersed in a virtual world with a basic avatar and user name. From there, they can choose the pace and degree to which they commit their personal information with the site.

3. Immersiveness

When confronted with the need to support 3-4 year old computers, many of the competing web-based platforms resort to a single camera perspective using a single isometric (2.5d) renderer.

We wanted something more immersive and flexible, so we incorporated multiple rendering systems that range from 2d up to 3d to best cater to a variety of social and gaming experiences within Webflock. The added flexibility of multiple views is great because it takes the manual work out of camera control that exists in some 3d environments and it greatly expands the possibilities for a variety of interaction types.

4. Software installation

There are certainly ways to make software installation easy for consumers through plugins and in-browser setup, but based on our experiences it had to be even easier than that.

Downloading and installing software takes time, it may require special computer privileges (particularly in the case of shared family computers or corporate IT environments), and for many consumers it’s simply the fear of causing harm to their computer resulting in future hassles.

For these and many other reasons, we decided it was important to target Adobe Flash, which is the only standard web browser solution that can render virtual worlds for over 90% of web browsers without any additional software installation.

5. Network access and speed

Too often when a consumer commits to installing virtual world software they are immediately disappointed to find that they have yet another step — downloading all of the content. This can take minutes up to hours depending on connection speed. We decided that Webflock had to load within seconds of landing on a web page so we chose to use progressive download as users around the world.

We also have needed to address access through corporate and ISP firewalls, which we have found to be restrictive of most virtual worlds. Firewalls can be tricky so we have a few mechanisms designed into Webflock for getting through them and will probably continue to evolve this feature set for quite some time.

by swords at 07/21/2008 07:49 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Crisp Thinking Adds Myril Shaw as VP of Business Development

Child safety solutions provider Crisp Thinking announced today that it had hired Myril Shaw as Vice President of Business Development to join its U.S. executive team. Shaw comes most recently from with Adtron, where he served as Managing Director of...

by Joey Seiler at 07/21/2008 06:52 PM

New World Notes — When Will Microsoft Go Big On Virtual Worlds?

At Microsoft Island in Second Life So this month, Microsoft's mortal competitor Google has jumped full into virtual worlds (at least, of the 2D, Web-driven variety); in itself, that suggests Ballmer and company will quickly follow with a response of...

by SLHamlet at 07/21/2008 06:01 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Qube Software Releases Version 2.1

Qube Software announced today the first point release of its games and virtual worlds development middleware Q. The new release includes enhanced scripting and a multi-threaded script debugger Last month Qube announced plans to position Q as a universal client...

by Joey Seiler at 07/21/2008 04:28 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Interview: Scion Expands Campaign in There.com After Interacting with 20,000 Users

Makena Technologies, creator of There.com, announced today that Scion would be expanding its campaign in the virtual world for a third phase. Makena partnered with Trilogy Studios and Metaversatility to introduce three concept cars, the FUSE, t2B and Hako Coupe,...

by Joey Seiler at 07/21/2008 03:40 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon on IPO: Not Yet

When Linden Lab announced that it was looking for a new CEO, ultimately resulting in the hiring of Mark Kingdon, the change resulted in speculation from many, including myself, that the company was looking forward to an IPO. In an...

by Joey Seiler at 07/21/2008 12:52 PM

Virtual Worlds News — Rebel Monkey Hires Darkstar Lead Engineer Jeff Kesselman As CTO

Rebel Monkey announced the appointment today of Jeff Kesselman as its Chief Technology Officer. It's not clear exactly what Rebel Monkey is doing, but it describes itself as a stealth-mode "entertainment company dedicated to enabling new kinds of immersive play...

by Joey Seiler at 07/21/2008 11:44 AM

Virtual Worlds News — Microsoft Looks to Integrate Services with OpenSim

Last week, we noted the savings Microsoft was seeing from hosting its developer events in Second Life instead of physically. The experience prompted members of Microsoft's community to work on a more robust version of OpenSim that integrates with Microsoft...

by Joey Seiler at 07/21/2008 11:21 AM

New World Notes — Second Life Residents Raise Record-Making $200,000 In Linden Dollars For American Cancer Society

Extraordinary, milestone news: this weekend, Rik Riel reports from last weekend's closing ceremonies, 1000 runners from 89 teams raised nearly USD$200,000 for Relay for Life 2008, a collaboration with the Second Life community and the American Cancer Society. This is...

by SLHamlet at 07/21/2008 08:37 AM

Linden Lifestyles — Weekly Roundup: True to Form

Have we ever got it made! Gorgeous clothes for pennies seems too good to be true, but it’s an accurate assessment of the great stuffage out there for the taking. Designing Nicky Ree’s Black Swan Vintage gown made my eyes pop, truly. CJ Carnot and Roslin Petion, Fleur Skins, have created a custom skin to [...]

by Daisyblue Hefferman at 07/21/2008 03:22 AM

New World Notes — Last Week In New World Notes

- Residents talk about talking real world politics in Second Life. - A Babylonian scholar returns to SL, and plants a flag for his country. - I make eye contact with an attractive artificial intelligence, and a strange relationship ensues....

by SLHamlet at 07/21/2008 12:05 AM

July 20, 2008

Sloz — The Watch - virtual worlds in the news

1. Emirates Business 24/7 (UAE) - Why your Second Life is more than Lively. “Virtual history has a habit of repeating itself. Not so long ago, hype surrounding the ‘Second Life’ 3D world seized gamers and companies alike. Now the limelight is on Google’s similar offering, Lively. Google’s virtual world was launched less than a [...]

07/20/2008 10:35 PM

Sloz — Microsoft’s paws on OpenSim?

Am I the only one that experiences nausea at the thought of Microsoft integrating its technologies with the OpenSim virtual world platform? To me, any technology that’s brand-specific is going to cause more problems than deliver solutions when the longer term view is taken for interoperability. Related storiesJuly 8, 2008 -- IBM and Linden Lab take [...]’

07/20/2008 10:35 PM

Sloz — Second Life - Relay for Life 2008

Second Life’s Relay for Life is well underway - it’s hard to believe it’s been a year since the last one. Check the schedule and get involved if you can. Random PostsSeptember 8, 2007 -- VastPark gives glimpse of ‘Worlds Collide’February 27, 2008 -- Cisco’s virtual hospital opensMarch 25, 2007 -- Looking to start a business [...]

07/20/2008 10:35 PM

New World Notes — Lanna's List for July 17-23: Green Home Tours, Bridal Expo, The Wild Card!, and more...

Charlanna Beresford’s weekly round-up of upcoming SL events… Over the past months, we’ve all seen the fantastic energy residents have put into the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life in Second Life. All of the benefits and content creation have...

by Lanna at 07/20/2008 08:22 PM

New World Notes — Can You Talk Real World Politics In The Metaverse?

During mainstream press interviews I'm often asked what kind of political views people in Second Life have. I usually say something like, "On the whole they're apolitical in-world, but to the extent they express their views, they [mostly] skew either...

by SLHamlet at 07/20/2008 08:21 PM

Second Life Herald — Slouching Toward Bethlehem: The Anti-Poet

Spam filter fails -- critic battles emo poetry outbreak

by Sigmund Leominster, new media critic

Following the tragic failure of my spam filter to do its job, I recently received an unsolicited email containing a piece of poetry from what was described as someone with “a poet’s heart and pen.” Here’s a clip from the poem:

I understand the truth disease sees
I say nothing teaches needs
I dream great meaningful beings free my mind
I try to kill only loneliness
I hope great love visits me
I am extra vast and lopsided.

In the spirit of full disclosure - and so you can get to know the depths of my shallowness - I have to admit that I hope there is a special place in Hell reserved for people who think that stringing sentences together in short lines qualifies as “poetry.” I am neither a publisher nor a professional critic but it has always seemed to me that people who want to pretend to be writers – especially when they are patently unqualified – tend to call their meanderings “poetry” in the hope that sympathetic readers will gloss over the vapidity and turgidity of their pseudo-literate ramblings. For some reason that philosophers and psychologists have yet to discover, people allow “poets” far more latitude than they deserve. Mangled metaphor, grammatical grinding and weird words are no substitute for riveting writing.

Being “extra vast and lopsided” makes no sense at all and is, at best, a novel metaphor that should really have stayed buried in the pit of poor prose. “But,” says the apologist, “It is poetic, and an expression of the poet’s inner thoughts, expressed in a singularly unique and creative way.” The word “bollocks” springs to mind instantly, along with a number of euphemisms for excretory products. Turning crap prose into faux verse doesn’t take away the smell.

I understand the truth disease sees
I say nothing teaches needs
I dream great meaningful beings free my mind.

What is that all about? Ha, I’ll tell you what it’s all about. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Maybe some readers can waste their time pretending to see some deep meaning, or more likely invent one, but they’d be better served doing something more profitable with their time – such as repeatedly slamming the refrigerator door on their genitalia or stabbing themselves in the eye with a blunt pencil. In truth, the generation of such vacuous word salad is so easy that I’m surprised there are so few people jumping around on the “poetry” juggernaut. Here’s an example:

My heart sees more than my eyes
My heart knows more than my brain
And my heart is one with my feelings.
I reach but find no-one
I cry but find no comfort
I fall but no hand reaches out to save me.
I am lost
I am alone
I am nothing.

Great poetry? Hardly. Took me no longer to create than the time it took to type the words. A mechanical miasma of moribund mumbling, worse than the alliteration I’ve been tossing out in almost every sentence of this article. Yet if I were to post this on some obscure poetry blog, what’s the betting I would get some folks “oohing” and “ahhing” and offering a “perspective” on what the “poem” means to them? In the royal world of Poetry, the Emperor frequently has no clothes.

Call me cynical - because it’s true - but I believe much of modern “poetry” is the last desperate hole into which the literally misg