The 9 new rules of the virtual web
We have come up with 9 rules about the next generation of virtual worlds. Let's start with a prediction:
In five years the virtual web will be dominated by networks of independent virtual worlds that interlink with websites and mirror worlds... and are accessible via a number of browsers because they utilise open specifications for content discovery, content display, human and widget interactivity, social networking and world linking.
The Metaverse? Forgetaboutit.
The vision of an organised single world (or even a world of worlds) where the rules apply throughout might fall nicely into the Second Life fan club's imaginations, but we don't think it is going to happen. We all owe SL a debt of gratitude for putting virtual worlds on the agenda. On the other hand, gamers generally look at SL and think it's a lame place for middle aged furries and academics. Corporations want to run their own meeting places without fear of flying penises. Media companies such as MTV want to enable their audience to get deeper involved in a variety of media properties and they will generally run their universe of virtual worlds quite separately from external influences. There's no need for a Metaverse.
What's wrong with a Web?
Damn, if someone didn't notice it, the Web has proved to be a good model. Practically decentralised. No government per se. Functional. Scalable. Ah, but not inherently multiuser. Not inherently a seamless experience. Not trustworthy. Not run from our own computers...
So the current Web is not enough. And you can call this new vision for the future whatever you like: Metaverse, 3D web, virtual web, spatial web, whatever. Our current preferred term is the "virtual web".
9 rules...
- It's not about the code
- Open standard formats can enable various browsers to access many platforms and many millions of worlds in the future
- Every virtual "atom" should be addressable across the "Metaverse"
- Atomic portable Widgets are the big future of interactivity on the virtual web
- Meta-games and meta-quests will become the new arena of layered interactivity that causes people to explore
- Virtual world = collaborative wiki
- Content will be widely decentralised and portable across worlds, platforms and purposes
- Trust and marketplaces become decentralised services that can work across worlds and platforms
- Divide and conquer new markets
- What's the 10th rule???
We believe we are entering a post-software world where the technology that built or runs our experience is entirely unimportant. For example who the hell cares if Facebook runs on MySQL or a proprietary database? The only reason it matters now for virtual world platforms is because we're still in the virtual web's equivalent Web 1.0 where the barrier to adoption is still high and there's no standards.
Some people say open source is critical for virtual worlds. We think open source will fade away from high quality public worlds! Why? Two reasons. Firstly, right at the peak of its success, open source will become irrelevant because code itself is irrelevant - only the service matters. Has that peak already happened? Secondly, a persistent multiuser environment accessible via open source browsers is going to have to put up with more than its fair share of hacking because cheats will be motivated to use hacked versions of open source clients that are legally available to download - that causes spiraling behaviour as players aim to equalise the playing field. Proprietary black box libraries actually make sense in most multiuser circumstances where you want everyone sharing the same experience. But before you FOSS lovers shitcan us for being open source haters (which we are not!), let's move onto rule #2.
The games industry isn't noted for its standards or reusable frameworks. We can all learn something from standards such as SCORM.
Platforms will be wise to work out what is unique and broadly useful for adoption by other platforms. Typically pride stands in the way of progress, but we will see if this latest great human endeavour will pluck out leadership or merely greed from our hearts. We will make announcements soon about our .park file format.
Okay, we've been dismissive of a Metaverse and yet there's good stuff to be had from the concept: A Metaverse-wide address system would have a lot of value in making the things within the virtual web accessible and remixable.
If we can reach a practical agreement on an easily adopted, highly reusable multi-world URL system then the industry will grow rapidly. VastPark has one and it might fit such a bill (e.g. vp://domain/world-or-user-or-team-or-widget/), but we don't expect others will jump to anything "not built here". So let's talk about an interoperable "multi-universe" browser concept. If we can agree on a neutral virtual world browser URL prefix, then whatever virtual world browser is loaded will be able to adopt it. For example virtual world browsers could all launch from their own proprietary URL if needed but also use a common one. For example something simple to remember like: vvv:// or mmm:// However it is designed it ought to fix some of the stupidity in the http system and be designed to support multiple domains that contain many multiuser environments and social networks. Opportunists will recognise that this leaves the door open to "sell" virtual web domain names and if someone can sell lunar land or even better, rent domain names then it's certain to happen.
Having an address system opens up new problems, of course. What happens if every virtual atom is discoverable, accessible or remixable by anyone. There needs to be server-side controls. For example: You don't want people choosing to spawn wherever they want in the middle of your game. Especially if they use that as a technique to move around more quickly than other players can by not cheating. So, your game's server will be responsible for allowing or disallowing user position changes and other important aspects of the shared experience within the game. Following a server-side logic model may negate my second criticism of open source, but it then introduces a scalability problem which SL knows all about.
Right now the industry is obsessed with the replication of social networks in the early virtual worlds such as SL, but although games like WoW have other players in the same environment, much of the gaming activity is essentially solo play. As 100 virtual worlds give way to millions of virtual worlds then we must offer better interactivity to users so we don't rely on the cheap interactivity of other people. It really is okay to be alone at home watching a video and the same will become true for virtual worlds. You will be able to have your friends over but it isn't necessary for a good time. And you don't always want to hang out at the SL mall, not unless you've built your business there.
There's a huge opportunity in virtual characters that are highly interactive and portable. These are both the future of personalisation and of brand advertisers developing direct relationships with us that we actually invite into our lives because they will become as entertaining as movie characters.
What causes people to explore new areas in WoW? The thrill of death and further level grinding? When we're offered a reward for completing a treasure hunt of some sort it's a pretty strong lure. Especially when we get it written down on our permanent record of achievement. And a meta-quest system will works particularly well if we can fulfil each quest we accept in our own sweet time, just so long as the system reminds us about the quest when we get close to a potential clue location and if one victory leads neatly onto another quest opportunity. WoW have this shtick licked.
There will be platforms that emerge to offer meta-quest service for the virtual web, where users can create new challenges for players to take on. There are a few websites that already attempt this but it might be a platform such as Metaplace that succeeds in this area. Let us know if there are platforms seeking to do exactly this sort of thing across multiple virtual worlds.
...where the virtual world is controlled like a distributed content management system. For instance, addition or movement of fixed objects in the scene and the loading and saving of the live scene might be granted to a list of editors or decentralised to the users responsible for adding each object or to everyone.
We might have a head-start on this one with MetaWSS. In our view, a decentralised syndication specification is needed that puts control back into the hands of the individual publisher and provides convenience to the consumer, so that there's far less reason to steal content via republishing it. Whatever emerges as the popular syndication specification, it will have to be open so that enough platforms can implement it to make it useful and really claim to be cross-platform.
Multiple currencies, trust and reputation indexes and marketplaces can become services available across worlds. Worlds can choose what services to adopt and provide to their users.
The virtual world industry has been relatively undifferentiated and many categories of virtual world platform will emerge, just as there have been many types of content management systems. Mirror Worlds and Virtual Worlds and MMO all have somewhat different purposes. More categories will inevitably emerge. Widget webs anyone? It's going to divide and divide for the next few years.
If you've actually agreed with a fair bit of this, then let us know what is missing. Everyone loves a good top ten.