As we enter 2015 an awful lot of people seem to be getting very excited about the forthcoming VR boom. I do anticipate a VR boom, I just don’t see it really happening this year. Virtual worlds such as Second Life, OpenSim, Kitely, Inworldz are more likely to keep hold of their communities in the short term because, that’s where the communities currently are and the brave new worlds aren’t ready yet.
However some people feel that 2015 will be the year where VR goes big, I’m more in the camp of 2015 being a year of tease and talk rather than mass adoption. However there are new and interesting things on the horizon that will get people interested in VR and they’re not just in games and virtual worlds. Storytelling is a big potential market here as is live music and theatre performances.
Peter Diamindis over at the singularity hub is, not surprisingly, excited about the future of VR : These 11 Technologies Will Go Big in 2015 :
Expect a lot more action on the virtual and augmented reality front. 2014 saw the $2B acquisition of Oculus Rift by Facebook. In 2015, we’ll see action from companies like Philip Rosedale’s High Fidelity (the successor to Second Life), immersive 3D 360-degree cameras from companies like Immersive Media (the company behind Google’s Streetview), Jaunt, and Giroptic. Then there are game changers like Magic Leap (in which Google just led a $542 million investment round) that are developing technology to “generate images indistinguishable from real objects and then being able to place those images seamlessly into the real world.” Oculus, the darling of CES for the past few years, will be showing its latest Crescent Bay prototype and hopefully providing a taste of how its headset will interact with Nimble VR’s hand- and finger-tracking inputs. Nine new VR experiences will be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this year, spanning from artistic, powerful journalistic experiences like Project Syria to full “flying” simulations where you get to “feel” what it would be like for a human to fly.
I’m certainly a big fan of the direction High Fidelity are heading in and with the platform being so open, there’s a lot of potential for people to grasp hold of it, but I think High Fidelity is also a good example of how much ground work has to be done before people adopt. I’m excited about the future of High Fidelity and I certainly expect to see a lot more people experiencing and talking about High Fidelity in 2015 but I don’t see many thousands of people leaving Second Life for High Fidelity just yet.
Over at AD Week Christopher Heing is talking about marketing creativity with VR : How Oculus Rift Is About to Reshape Marketing Creativity Brands are enamored with the potential of 360-degree storytelling. The storytelling angle sold this to me, but the article also talks about Second Life :
Nancy Bennett is a virtual-reality marketing veteran. (Yes, such people actually exist and are about to become hot commodities among talent recruiters.) In the mid-2000s, Bennett had her avatar boots on the Internet-code-built ground of Second Life, constructing cyber experiences for her employer at the time, MTV Networks.
Of course, Second Life never really took off. So with her been there, done that perspective several years later as chief content officer at Two Bit Circus, she does not deal in hyperbole when it comes to the impact the much-hyped virtual reality headset Oculus Rift will have on marketing. Rather, Bennett leans on data. One-third of her agency’s new business in 2014 was powered by the Oculus Rift developer’s kit, helping grow her 2-year-old Los Angeles digital shop from 15 to 35 employees.
When people talk about Second Life never really taking off they’re really talking in terms of mass adoption by the mainstream and that’s something that can’t really be argued with. However the point people miss so often when they talk about brave new worlds is that they recognise that there’s something in virtual communities and communications but they can’t quite figure out what that is. The Oculus Rift may well answer some of the questions, or it may be that the answer is that virtual worlds are simply a niche product. Time will tell.
Over at New World Notes Hamlet Au is taking a far more cautious approach :
Despite hints and rumors suggesting otherwise, the Oculus Rift will not be made available for general consumer use this year.
Why do I say that? Because the guys who run Oculus Rift are smart folks, and they’re going to realize there’s not yet enough VR-ready content or mass market interest even from hardcore console gamers to do a major launch.
I pretty much agree with him, I think we’re far too early in the cycle. However the potential of new technology will see more people dipping their toes into virtual world waters. Linden Lab’s next gen and currently top secret virtual world will hit the alpha stage and set tongues wagging, however that’s not likely to see people leave Second Life en masse and as I’ve already pointed out, High Fidelity is making progress but also demonstrating that progress takes time. The same will be true of Linden Lab’s next gen virtual world.
There will also be other virtual world type ventures appearing, indeed they already are appearing. Project Nebula is apparently still being developed by Kovok, despite the Kickstarter being cancelled.
Project Nebula describes itself as :
A 3D interactive world for PC and MAC, where players have the freedom to use their 3D custom avatar to socialize, play games, explore and customize 3D spaces.
That has a familiar sound, Second Life meets those requirements already and has more in terms of being a wonderful sandbox environment. Whether Project Nebula finally sees the light of day I couldn’t say but it’s clear that people continue to see potential in these concepts.
I’m not saying that Second Life will be around forever, as this year will be its official twelfth night, or birthday if you must, it’s a little long in the tooth. However progress is still being made and will continue to be made. I really can’t see many thousands ditching Second Life for a new shiny this year, not least because I don’t see a new shiny being ready to appeal to enough people. There’s power in communities, virtual or otherwise and Second Life remains in a strong position there.
I’m looking forward to seeing the experiences the likes of Oculus Rift and similar devices bring us and I’m certainly excited about the concept of more immersive storytelling and experiences but the old virtual worlds are far from done yet and will certainly be around for a few more years at the very least.
Hamlet:
“Despite hints and rumors suggesting otherwise, the Oculus Rift will not be made available for general consumer use this year.
“Why do I say that?”
– Simple: it’s what Brendan Iribe, the Oculus VR CEO pretty much said in November 2014, when he stated at the Web summit that the consumer release of Oculus Rift was still “many months” away. Doesn’t take a crystal ball to make a prediction given that.
Iribe also hinted that the company is looking at marketing it as a more complete package. At the time he pointed to haptic systems for feedback. Since then, of course, they’re acquired Nimble and their motion sensor system.
What I’m interested in finding more about – and which has so fall managed to fly under most people’s radar – is that Magic Leap has filed a trademark for virtual worlds utilising user-created content. That sounds exceptionally intriguing.
I seem to recall Brendan Iribe or someone from Oculus estimating the time downwards for when they expected the consumer release to be available. I’m pretty sure I read that on your blog, or something similar. By downwards I mean down to the many months you’re talking about.
However people are getting a bit too excited about it and seem to think it’s just around the corner.
I didn’t know that about the Magic Leap trademark and I’ll be surprised if they get away with that but I’d have to look at the detail to see their angle.
Iribe specifically said “many months”, yet many pundits interpreted his words as “mere months”. Oh well.
People have been over-blowing the OR delivery with each prototype release. And every time OVR have said, “err.. no”, and not listened to. In fact I seem to remember Hamlet leaning in that direction earlier in 2014…
The Magic Leap trademark is just that – a trademark, so there’s nothing to “get away” with. It’s not a copyright, or anything (think the Lab and dio in 2011). Essentially, it means they look to be gearing-up to offer some kind of “virtual world” environment / experience (remembering that they’ve hinted the Magic Leap tech isn’t just about the AR elements we’ve “seen” so far), and are ensuring they’re protecting the name they wish to use.
Let us not forget that Hamlet cited Marlon McDonald’s sensationalist drivel to push for a “no nookie” policy in LL’s next-gen virtual world to “protect” it from this sort of coverage. All this even though, as I had pointed out, in an interview with IMVU’s David Fleck, it was amply demonstrated that IMVU, which is actively promoted with the promise of romance and sex, not only has 10 times more users than SL, but also has never received the flak SL has – quite the contrary.
You’re veering off topic a tad here but yes I think Hamlet’s wide of the mark with his views on adult content. I don’t want this to turn into a bash Hamlet discussion though.
Ah so it’s not like The Worlds Inc. patents then? That was my first fear.