Ciaran Laval

April 2, 2015April 2, 2015

Virtual Worlds Survey Report Yields Interesting Results

Back in 2012 some researchers decided that they wanted to conduct a survey on virtual worlds. Now, over two years on, the results of that survey have been revealed and the results are rather fascinating : Virtual Worlds Survey Report – A Trans-World Study Of Non-Game Virtual Worlds –Demographics, Attitudes, And Preferences.

The survey has been published by :

Celia Pearce – Game designer, author, researcher and teacher.
Bobby R. Blackburn – Independent game designer and research consultant.
Carl Symborski – Chief Engineer at Leidos Inc.

The survey doesn’t just focus on Second Life as a virtual world, its scope goes beyond that. However I’m going to focus on some Second Life aspects. The first one that strikes me as very interesting is that the survey results suggest that Second Life residents roleplay more than people who play MMORPG’s. The reason for this, the report suggests, is that people who play games focus on content, whereas Second Life residents focus more on creative and social aspects, such as roleplaying and dancing. Dancing as it turns out is very popular in Second Life.

Another point from the survey results of those who responded from Second Life is that the average age was 37. This isn’t that much higher than the average age I’ve seen reported from surveys about gamers.

Another point about Second Life is more about how the publishers sought responses. They didn’t just go to the official Second Life forum. They advertised on SLUniverse and New World Notes. This suggests that they had a bit of a clue about how virtual communities can utilise websites and forums away from the official sites.

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April 1, 2015

High Fidelity Moves To Open Alpha Phase

High Fidelity, an open source virtual world solution, has until now been in a closed alpha phase with people only gaining access after being invited to participate. However yesterday they unofficially announced that Open Alpha was coming and now that has been officially announced by Philip Rosedale : High Fidelity Open Alpha.

It’s important to read the blog post before diving into High Fidelity because it includes some extremely important points regarding expectations, for example :

This is a very early release, and High Fidelity is still very much a work in progress. The look and visual quality is far from complete, and big things like avatar movement animation and physics are still not in place. There are lots of bugs to fix, and content formats will continue to change. But enough systems are now functional to make us feel that High Fidelity is useful for some types of work, experimentation, and exploration. Having run a small and controlled early alpha to iron out the really show-stopping bugs, we’re now eager to engage a larger group and recruit open source contributions from other developers working on building the metaverse.

Please bear this in mind because it is an early Alpha product and if you’re expecting something like Second Life in its current form then you will be sorely disappointed. However if you are prepared to put up with an early Alpha product, one in which things could change rather rapidly, then take a look at High Fidelity.

Another important thing to bear in mind, especially if you’re a casual traveller, is that at this stage, there isn’t that much to explore. However as High Fidelity moves to this Open Alpha stage, expect that to change.

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April 1, 2015April 1, 2015

VICE Reporter looking for SL players re: “identity tourism”

VICE Reporter Cecilia D’Anastasio is looking for SL players re: “identity tourism”. Cecilia has posted the following on the official Second Life forum and in a thread over at SLUniverse :

Hi,

My name is Cecilia and I’m a reporter with VICE. I’m reporting a story about individuals who have changed important aspects of their IRL identity expression because of their experiences with avatars in games like SL.

I’d love to speak with players who have had this experience. I’d appreciate it if you could DM me and we can set up a time to talk.

Thanks so much.

Best,

Cecilia

Exactly what “Identity Tourism” entails isn’t quite explained. The only addition from Cecilia came in a post on SLUniverse :

I understand that many of you would have preferred more information in my original post. If you have any questions, please send me a direct message and I’ll be happy to address them. Thanks so much.

Whereas the thread at SLUniverse has taken a bit of a cynical turn, shall we say, the thread on the official Second Life forum has quite a few people willingly sharing their Second Life experiences.

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April 1, 2015

Virtually Speaking Science To Talk To Virgin Galactic With A Virtual Studio Audience In Second Life

I’ve talked about Virtually Speaking Science before, but I’m going to talk about it again. Virtually Speaking Science is described as :

Informal conversations hosted by science writers Alan Boyle, Jennifer Ouellette, Kelly Hills and Tom Levenson, who, with their guests, explore the often-volatile landscape of science, politics and policy, the history and economics of science, science deniers and its relationship to democracy, and the role of women in the sciences. Produced by Sherry Reson. Hosted in Second Life by the Exploratorium.

The upcoming showm scheduled for 8pm ET today (I do wish they’d use SLT) features NBC News’ digital science editor, Alan Boyle, speaking to Virgin Galactic’s vice president for special projects, Will Pomerantz, regarding the future of private sector spaceflight. This of course comes in the wake of the tragic accident involving SpaceShipTwo five months ago.

The show can be watched as part of a live virtual world audience in Second Life at The Exploratorium.

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March 31, 2015

Second Life’s Renewed Positive Press Suggests It May Yet Prove Its Critics Wrong

Second Life is starting to receive some positive press again. As we already know, Second Life is staying alive and now Business Insider Australia are informing us that : Second Life was 13 years early to virtual reality — and it’s getting ready to try again. The trying again part may come as a surprise to those of us who haven’t seen it go away but let’s not quibble, the article is another positive one.

The media may have felt Second Life went away and became a place where nobody knows your name, but the reality has been quite different and this is something that the media are actually starting to notice, as The Business Insider article by Matt Weinberger points out :

Second Life hasn’t gone anywhere. With 900,000 active users a month, who get payouts of $US60 million in real world money every year, and a virtual economy that has more than $US500 million in GDP every year, Second Life is still a world of opportunity.

There are two big reasons for renewed interest in Second Life, one is the virtual reality hype currently going full tilt and the other is Linden Lab’s nextgen virtual world, which is making noises before anyone outside of Linden Lab has really seen it.

The Business Insider article touches upon both of these issues, pointing out that with the likes of Facebook, HTC and Sony dipping their toes into the VR market, Second Life’s time may have come at last. Although the article does suggest that VR is more likely to embrace the nextgen world, rather than Second Life itself. However that’s not to say that the article dismisses Second Life as old technology completely.

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