Virtual Worlds – Page 83

April 3, 2015April 3, 2015

Scepticism Of Cloud Gaming May Be The Real Reason SL Go Is Closing

A blog post from OnLive sheds a lot more light on the Sony deal : A Bright Future for Cloud Gaming at Sony. The post also confirms my thoughts that it’s unfair to paint Sony as the evil corporate villain in all of this, because there are some cold hard facts about the viability of the business are explained in the blog post.

One important point to note is that the blog post suggests that OnLive were indeed looking for someone to purchase them, and this section of the blog post spells out the situation quite clearly :

Since 2012, the company has dramatically improved its technology and business models such that all of its 5 services are gross margin positive, ranging from 43% to 86% margin. The fact that we had such positive margins should prevent repeat speculation that we were “crushed by infrastructure costs.” The company also was able to achieve conversion rates from free trial to paid of between 64-78% for its services. Despite these positive metrics, the lifetime value (TLV) of a subscriber was still less than the cost to acquire subscribers (CPA), but they were converging. While we knew we could not get to break-even on our own, we believed that there were many large companies who would be able to get there due to: 1) being able to communicate broadly and inexpensively (lowering CPA), 2) having their own distribution platform for the service, and 3) being able to license the most popular games and MMO’s, the latter 2 would have had the effect of both reducing CPA and reducing churn (thereby raising TLV). Despite these positive developments, we were unable to entice an acquirer who wanted to continue the service, and Sony already had their own service.

Therefore OnLive were seeking assistance in terms of breaking even and whereas some of that assistance could come from companies such as Linden Lab, they needed more companies to jump aboard the ship to make this project viable in the long term.

Step forward Sony. Unfortunately for us SL Go users and those who use OnLive Desktop, Sony have absolutely no need for a streaming service, as they are already running one in the shape and form of Playstation Now.

Continue reading “Scepticism Of Cloud Gaming May Be The Real Reason SL Go Is Closing”

April 3, 2015

Sony’s Gain Is A Loss For Some Second Life Residents

It was with great sadness that I read that SL Go from Onlive will be closing its services on April 30th. Sadness may be an understatement, there was much profanity. The reason for the closure of not only SL Go, but other OnLive games related services is due to Onlive selling patents to Sony as Kyle Orland explains over at Ars Technica.

Sony are of course a corporation and therefore it would be easy to paint Sony as the evil corporate villain. Fans of Science Fiction know where corporations are leading us, but to be fair to Sony they have a fairly decent reputation, therefore they’re not exactly in the same league as the Tyrell Corporation or Omni Consumer Products. More importantly, there’s probably more to this than meets the eye. The details of the deal haven’t been made public. I’ll find it hard to stay annoyed at Sony, especially as my annoyance may be misplaced.

In Kyle Orland’s article there’s a quote from a statement by Sony Computer Entertainment VP of Global Business Development, Philip Rosenberg :

“These strategic purchases open up great opportunities for our gamers, and gives Sony a formidable patent portfolio in cloud gaming,”

“It is yet another proof point that demonstrates our commitment to changing the way gamers experience the world of PlayStation.”

The point being missed there, by a country mile, is customers of OnLive were not playing on the PlayStation. However there may be some good news for those who would like to give SL Go a try, even though it’s closing down on April 30th.

Continue reading “Sony’s Gain Is A Loss For Some Second Life Residents”

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.

Continue reading “Virtual Worlds Survey Report Yields Interesting Results”

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.

Continue reading “High Fidelity Moves To Open Alpha Phase”

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.

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