Virtual Worlds Should Pay Heed To The Rise Of The Orcs

Earlier this year Mitch Wagner had an article published in Information Week about High Fidelity : Second Life Founder Pursues Second Chance. The article talked of how Second Life had not reached mainstream appeal and pondered whether High Fidelity can. Mitch wasn’t convinced because of the time investment, but he did acknowledge that Second Life got a lot right. However for the real reason Second Life hasn’t reached mass appeal we need to go to the comments on the article and consider the issue of Orcs :

Second Life would have fared better if it had appealed to MMORPG fans, the primary proven market for such activities. Philip Rosedale, you need orcs.

This comment misses the point of Second Life somewhat and yet in doing so, highlights one of the issues for Second Life and any other virtual world. People see Second Life as a singular place, it’s not, but the architecture of the platform can make it appear so, which brings us to another comment on Orcs :

I think the Orcs comment is spot on. It’s one thing to fix the technological elements, but Second Life never appealed to me because it was so open and amorphous. Part of the fun of an immersive experience is having an objective and a set of limitations to work within (or against). An open world where you can do anything sounds great, but then you run up against the limits of your own imagination.

This comment hits the nail firmly on the head. Second Life needs to deliver experiences as well as offering open creativity, people want something to do. This also goes back to the points Mitch made about time investment, people want to pop into a virtual world, experience something and logout. They don’t want to build, they want to be guided. The problem here isn’t Second Life itself, it’s the way people view Second Life as .. well, Second Life. I’ve said something along these lines before, but for Second Life to reach mainstream appeal it requires people to stop talking about Second Life. This may sound somewhat odd but my point is that Second Life should be viewed as the technology. The experiences the places people visit, the places people learn at, the places people role-play, they should be at the forefront of the major discussion, Second Life should be consigned to the geeky conversation about technology.

Now of course virtual worlds offer a sandbox experience and the concept is absolutely brilliant. Virtual worlds such as Second Life, Kitely, Inworldz, OpenSim etc. offer authors, creators, designers the opportunity to build their very own stage and bring their own visions to life. This really is a fantastic opportunity for people who want to get creative, to do so. However there are many many people who want to be guided through an experience, they want to teleport right in to the end product. Virtual worlds do indeed offer great potential but to some, a blank canvas is very difficult to grapple with.

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Second Life Ad Invites People To Make Friends & Play, But Don’t Ignore The Sandbox .. Or The Orcs!

I noticed a fresh looking Second Life advert earlier this evening, one with colour and richness, sun, sand and bikinis. I don’t know if this is new or from last year’s campaign but it has a certain charm and a certain suggestion that may annoy some folk.

Second Life advert example
Second Life Advert

This doesn’t look like a typical Second Life advert, for a start, there are no vampires in sight! The advert has a nice appeal for people to make new friends around the world, emphasising the social side of Second Life. Then it says “Play Now” and in some parts of the metaverse, people roll their eyes.

However, I don’t see this as a bad thing, if people want to play in Second Life then they are more than welcome to, that’s part of a sandbox environment, it’s many different things to many different people.

However, where LL may be missing a trick these days is in not pointing out that Second Life is a fantastic sandbox. Sandbox worlds are likely to grow and the appeal to content creators of different sandbox environments should not be under estimated. Sony Online Entertainment are getting very onboard with the sandbox concept with forthcoming titles such as Everquest Next Landmark of particular interest in that area.

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