Is the Metaversal Category-Killer Dead?
Raph Koster flags an Escapist article in which Allen Varney covers “boutique MMOGs” and the fact that they can not only be profitable but can garner significant niche audiences in a similar manner to very narrowly focused Web sites. This kind of thing is along the lines of some of my thinking about virtual worlds. I’m pretty sure we’ll start to see a proliferation of 3D virtual spaces as time moves on and the tools for building such places get cheaper and easier to use. These will be not just individual islands (or collections of islands) floating in 3D cyberspace, built on a platform that resembles an open-source Second Life, but a metaverse of things like MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach (built on the technology behind There.com), and games and social worlds built on a free platform like Multiverse. Eventually, a large handful of these will come to capture audiences in the hundreds of thousands. The business model is totally viable. It’s working for the games mentioned in Varney’s article, as well as for a game like EVE Online. The Web has shown us that huge “category-killers” like World of Warcraft need not actually kill a category at all; you can successfully launch and run a Web site or a virtual world that aims at a narrower audience. Will the category-killers one day fall away altogether? I doubt it, but perhaps the rallying cry will be something like, “The category is dead! Long live the category!”
Feeds
When I think about this I envision Gibson’s cyberspace with clusters. I’ve always thought of Stephenson’s metaverse as actually being a subsidiary (even though it really isn’t intended to be). Been quite a long time since I’ve read it, but iirc “Snowcrash” was based on one uber-connection shared by everyone. That doesn’t make a lot of sense given that we could expect other pipelines just as we have an Internet 2 running in the background which most of us don’t access. So in my mind, the “metaverse” as described by Stephenson fit in more like a galaxy or solar system in Gibson’s cyberspace.
From a design perspective, Gibson’s is the better idea. It’s the old tree analogy. The tree itself is reflected in the leaves. Stephenson’s wasn’t as elegant imo.
Mark wrote: “I’m pretty sure we’ll start to see a proliferation of 3D virtual spaces as time moves on and the tools for building such places get cheaper and easier to use.”
Amen to that!
I absolutely agree with you. I actually just wrote a post on how platforms like Multiverse are going to enable small-scale virtual worlds for brands, as well. So many brands have been establishing presences in Second Life, but (with a few notable exceptions), it’s seemed a lot like me-tooism. A self-contained virtual world would be a great way to define a brand’s identity and enhance its connection with its audience.