Blizzcon – Ciaran Laval

November 6, 2015

Can Virtual World Ventures Learn Anything From Blizzcon?

Blizzcon 2015 has started, a celebration of all things Blizzard related, including games and a movie. The opening ceremony was broadcast free to watch, although you wouldn’t have got caught up in the atmosphere like those in the Anaheim Convention Centre if you watched it via a stream. This means that many people who haven’t even got a virtual ticket have been able to view part of Blizzcon.

Blizzcon gives fans the chance to meet developers, artists, voice actors, view cinematics, engage in sports, cosplay and apparently there’s a tavern there too. Linkin Park will be making an appearance too, so it’s a costly affair to put together and I can’t think of a virtual world conference that would even scratch the costs of Blizzcon. However that doesn’t mean that virtual worlds can’t pick up some tips from Blizzcon.

The first point to note came to me whilst I was watching the opening ceremony via a Twitch stream. As noted earlier, the opening ceremony was a free to view affair, so it wasn’t a dodgy stream. As we all know, when it comes to Second Life, Twitch are the bad guys. However Twitch does have a rival in the shape and form of YouTube Gaming. Second Life has an auto generated channel there, but there’s also an official Linden Lab channel too, although I’m yet to see any live streaming from that quarter, but there is potential.

So why would you want to stream a virtual world conference via an external service? Well for a start, as much as we love being in the virtual world, watching a virtual world conference via a stream is likely to be more comfortable and less crashtastic than trying to cam in from a neighbouring region because the region where the conference is taking place is full. This should also leave room for me in said conference region to take photos as part of my role as the seeker of truth and justice!

Alternatively a live stream could be viewable on YouTube Gaming and also in other regions via media on a prim type solutions, so regions could share the load but have more people inworld watching the event.

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July 12, 2012July 12, 2012

SLCC 2012 Looks Like It Will Be Just Like Blizzcon 2012

The Second Life Community Convention has been fraught with controversy in years gone by, although it has also been a roaring success, take a look at last year’s event here. Alas this year it looks like the drama, criticism and lack of support from Linden Lab and the wider Second Life Community has finally took its toll.

Fleep Tuque has a long and informative post about the hazaards of organising the Second Life Community Convention, this comes in light of the news that Avacon won’t be organising the event this year.

Fleep points out that the organisers were chewed out for not making the convention more like Blizzcon, well it looks like this SLCC 2012 will be exactly like Blizzcon 2012, because Blizzcon is cancelled this year, but will be back in 2013, will SLCC? I think something may have been lost in humour there, I doubt that anyone at Linden Lab seriously expected an event like Blizzcon, but maybe they hoped for an event that would involve musicians, meetings and fun? Blizzcon has a massive budget so I don’t really think that criticism was intended to come across as bluntly as it sounds.

Fleep also points out that organisers were left feeling jaded due to criticism, this will have been in many forms, there has been criticism over prices, venues, dates, choice of hotel etc. in the past. However this is part and parcel of organising an event, people will always be critical, the way to answer them is to organise a successful event and from what I’ve read of SLCC in the past, they were largely successful but there seems to have been a competiton in values too regarding whether it should be a convention or a conference.

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June 22, 2011June 22, 2011

Looking a Gift Horse In The Mouth

As I am not certified for a SL press pass, I look to the SL press for news and information on things happening at Linden Lab, I used to look at the main blog but that seems to be in sore need of some care and attention. The forums aren’t so bad, and the mesh forum for those interested in mesh, is interesting viewing, even for those who don’t like mesh, it’s interesting viewing! However for general information I keep an eye on the SL press and SL Press member extraordinaire; Inara Pey, has an interesting post regarding SL8B, or more to the point about the lack of Linden involvement at SL8B. I agree with the main thrust of Inara’s post, to quote in part:

“SL8B represents a marvellous opportunity for LL to reach out to the user community and communicate with us – so where are they?

I’m not talking about glad-handing or getting involved in in-depth discussions about who, what, when, where, how and why; rather I’m talking about getting up on stage and giving an overview of what is coming down the road, thing like:

What is happening with Viewer 2?
What is Mesh going to look like? (Given many haven’t see the results from the Beta Grid)
What is happening around service improvements like Group chat and server-side lag issues?”

The SL8B Blog itself is on its own blog, containing far more information about happenings than Linden Lab’s own official blog, have they outsourced the birthday event or something? I know Linden Lab officially take a hands off approach to SLCC.

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