Virtual Worlds
What’s This About?
• Theory and Practice: Paper-Labs-Business• A Quick Introduction• Where did this come from? – Virtual Reality– Games
• Helping You To Think About Virtual Worlds• A Peek Into Trends
Contents • What are Virtual Worlds?• The Larger Picture: Virtual Reality • Frames To look at This:– Tool versus World– Visual Thinking– Emergent Properties
• Trends– Closed Virtual Worlds versus Immersive Web
• What’s Happening Around The World. – The Tour.
The Simplest Definition
• An environment in a computer
• There is something to interact with.
• The User has choices to make.
Familiar Examples
• Games
• Second Life
Second Life Facts
• A virtual world created by its users• Owner and platform provider: Linden Lab• Went public in 2004• Active user base: 1,102,867 (as of April 4, 2008)• “Residents” meet, hang out, create, buy, sell and
explore in-world.• Currency: the Linden dollar. (L$270 = 1 USD)• Daily Transaction about $1 million
Why is it not a game?
• “Games are artificial systems, separate in some way from ordinary life.” Salen & Zimmerman
• “I consider a game to be something that provides us with a common goal, the achievement of which has no bearing on anything that it outside the game.” – De Koven
• “Rules impose limits… put us inside the game world.”
• Second Life has: A fully convertible currency, credit cards, banks?
The Current Meaning
• Simulations of some form.
• Which are not designed to be a “game” in the conventional sense
• However this does not mean it is not fun.
Tools v.s Worlds
• What is Microsoft Windows? • What is a Theme Park? • What is Ngee Ann Poly?
Virtual Worlds as a Tool
• Quotes from Virtual Reality– Eg. Intelligence amplifier
• Visual Thinking as an important way to be creative and problem solve.
• Some problems are just 3 Dimensional
Virtual Worlds as a Tool
• Has This already happened? – Auto-CAD and engineering software.
• Should we teach this in school?
• What is the focus? – Practical– Play with it: Discover, Invent.
Virtual Worlds as System
• SIMS: A Sandbox Game• Second Life: Real people living online lives
• Emergent Properties:– What is Emergence?
• Why should we care?
Emergent Properties of VW
• Learning about systems for users to “create with”. – User Creating his own experience.
• What will come out of Virtual Worlds? – Nobody Knows. – Today: Entertainment, New Economies. – Taking advantage of emergence: Our Opportunity.
3-D INTERNET BEGINS WITH VIRTUAL WORLDS.
Today’s Situation:
Closed Virtual Worlds
Immersive Internet.
Closed Virtual Worlds
• Entering an experience. – Install a programme– Run it– Connect to the internet
• Why? – That was the state of the technology.– Easier to keep tabs on and control users.
Closed Virtual Worlds
• Second Life is the most sucessful
• Many other ‘boutique players’ are entering the market.
• “The Dream” is to link all the closed virtual worlds: CREATING THE METAVERSE
Open Virtual Environments
• Plug-in Based Environment– Unity Plug-in: Paradise Paintball in Facebook
• www.vastpark.com• www.pelicancrossing.com
Open Virtual Environments
• Anyone can access the 3-D internet through a web browser.
• People make their own content and host it on their own websites. – All open source technology. • IMML – Vastpark.com• X3D – Community based open-source
Open Virtual Environments
• A new form of website• User-created content
– Korean example– Vastpark click and drag
They prefer to call it the “Immersive Web”.
Now What?
• We know there are 2 main approaches to the 3-D internet
1)Closed Virtual Environments2)Open Virtual Environments
• What are the approaches companies are taking?
Again I’m focusing on technology.
KOREA. PART OF MY SOCIAL NETWORK.
Cyworld.com habbo hotel The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.
GERMANY. UK.PEOPLE LIKE THE REAL WORLD!
Second Interest’s Virtual Berlin
The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.
SINGAPORE. VIRTUAL WORLD, REAL FACE.
XID’s Tycoona
The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.
CHINA.VIRTUAL AND REAL ARE LINKED.
Cyber Recreation District and the Dotman platform
The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.
AUSTRALIA. DO WHAT YOU WANT. WE’LL JUST HELP YOU DO IT.
Vastpark
The Whirlwind Tour of the 3-D internet.
Other Trends
• The rise of the Virtual Worlds Developer.– Anshe Chung Studios– Second Interest– Metaversatlity– And many many more.
• Professional 3-D content developers are on the rise.
The Corporate Come in
• Who can pay for professional quality virtual worlds development? – MNCs – Universities– Churches
• To advise them, IBM and Gardner are involved in virtual worlds.
Corporate Advisors say…
• Gardner“80% of internet users will have a ‘second life’ (using
virtual worlds)” – Steve Prentice, Gardner Analyst.
• IBM“IBM is helping to drive the growth and adoption of the
3-D Internet with insights and actions that will shape the future of the 3-D landscape.” –IBM site
Working with Second Life and Open SIM.
Pit-falls
• This is a game-based technology.• It’s hard to see it used for serious stuff. – Corporate 3-D content changes the ‘rules’
• At this point, we don’t have a common language to use the interface. – How do I use this to collaborate with others in
projects.
• The technology will take awhile to stablize.
3-D internet leads to Mixed Reality
• 3-D internet will be layered over reality.
• It comes with new technologies in screens and information input.
• It’s part of mixed reality.
The Samsung Labs example.
• (Samsung in California)
In Summary
• There is NO conclusion for Virtual WorldsPotential.
• Closed Virtual Worlds versus Immersive Web• Focus: User-Created Content and Participation• Way to think:– Tool– System with Emergent Properties
My prediction
Today we tell and show each other our experiences.
Tomorrow we let our friends re-live our experiences.
How do we want to take part in this?