On the set for a documentary about the future of virtual worlds, in Second Life
In about one hour I must give my take on the future of virtual worlds for MetaWorld2, Malburns’ television station. I have exactly 60 seconds, and here are some notes about what I would like to say.
- Of course making predictions about media technology is about as difficult as making predictions about currency fluctuations. People always find innovative ways to deal with new media, often to the bewilderment of those inventing those tools. But anyway, let me give it a try.
- I think the use of virtual worlds for education (in the broadest sense), for collaboration and entertainment will increase. Not only Second Life will continue to grow, but I see new environments catering for the same audience (meaning those who look for open ended environments which can be used for entertainment but also for collaboration, education and networking). For instance Metaplace is something we should cover closely, but also opensim/reactiongrid, Twinity and quite possibly also Blue Mars - and others will follow.
- In this proliferation of environments one can see a movement towards easier access for 2.5 D environments (Metaplace) but also a movement towards even more realism (Blue Mars, MellaniuM…).
- Even though more people will use those environments in a very interesting way, they will not go mainstream anytime soon. They are like the French literary and philosophical salons of the 17th century and 18th century, they are places where ideas are being discussed and tested which will change the world, but they are no mainstream venues.
- The internet of streams will capture a lot of interest: microblogging and micro-vlogging (Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook-status updates etc). Virtual worlds will try to capture this mometum by trying to integrate those social networks and those streams – whether they are 2.D worlds or highly immersive environments.
- Why won’t we go mainstream? Because we are still very early phase, with different technologies and practices – one environment goes for immersion but has very specific system requirements, another is very good in access but not in scalability etc.
- The other reasons have to do with mentalities. An avatar is not a neutral tool, and people have ambiguous feelings about having an avatar. There is also the issue of time and content management. Virtual worlds increase the opportunities for networking and participation dramatically, which is overwhelming for most people. Even the internet of streams has that problem: many people give up on Twitter, the realtime stream on Facebook is not universally appreciated.
- What is needed and what probably will happen is the integration of those tools and environments in interfaces which are very intuitive: think Google’s Wave maybe, and the many variations on Nintendo’s Wii, and on the accelerating development of the mobile internet because of the iPhone. For virtual worlds to be integrated in this movement of more intuitive interfaces, more time is needed.
- We are over-estimating what will happen in the next few years but under-estimating what will happen in about 5 to 10 years time.
Roland Legrand
