What Happened to the Virtual Worlds Explosion Analysts Predicted?

In summary, the closure of Metaplace has not had a significant impact on the media's coverage of virtual worlds.
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A few years back, you couldn’t open any newspaper, magazine or law review journal without seeing yet another article about the crazy things that were going on in virtual worlds. *Today, not so much. *News of the*closure of Metaplace didn’t even make it very far beyond the usual VW blogs… *So what’s happened to them?* [...]http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=virtualnavigator.wordpress.com&blog=11498882&post=24&subd=virtualnavigator&ref=&feed=1

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  • #2
I suppose it takes a huge amount of time to get established in a virtual life, a lot like moving to a new town. Not many people have that much free time.
 
  • #3
Maybe virtual worlds in a sense need to be scaled down. Places like WOW or Second Life are monstrously large. Perhaps virtual world games like the new Sims 3. A focus on just one community.
 
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Greg Bernhardt said:
Maybe virtual worlds in a sense need to be scaled down. Places like WOW or Second Life are monstrously large. Perhaps virtual world games like the new Sims 3. A focus on just one community.

This is pretty much exactly what has happened. Facebook games like "YoVille!" and "FarmVille" are extremely popular now.
 
  • #5
Anyone read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson? Sorry if that's off topic, the thread made me think of it.
 
  • #6
DavidSnider said:
This is pretty much exactly what has happened. Facebook games like "YoVille!" and "FarmVille" are extremely popular now.

That's a good point David. Even my grandma is using FarmVille!
 
  • #7
Evo said:
Anyone read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson? Sorry if that's off topic, the thread made me think of it.

Yep. I read it in high school.

Ever read "Neuromancer" by William Gibson?

The opening line of that book is "The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel"

It's funny, Gibson meant it to mean television static (I think), but almost all the kids who read it today either think it's a half-tone pattern or bright blue.
 
  • #8
Evo said:
Anyone read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson? Sorry if that's off topic, the thread made me think of it.

Yes! Fantastic novel (as are the rest of his). Amazingly forward thinking considering the state of technology when that book was written. The sequel 'The Diamond Age' is almost as good.
 
  • #9
I get the idea that any time the media play with the idea of virtuality, realism gets defensive and takes to asserting and insisting about how terrible it would be that any alternatives to "true" reality would even be considered.

The truth is that virtual realities, worlds, things, or whatever you call them are not alternative realities at all. They are different configurations of the same kinds of things that make up the realities that realists accept as true realities.

I can still remember when the internet came out how the realists had to buzz and buzz about globalization, the global village, etc. all presumably for the sake of making "the world wide web" seem like a threat to nationalism.

Yes, the fact is that information can be sent via internet anywhere with an internet connection in about the same amount of time. The question is why there was even such a big issue made about the geographical locations of nodes on the internet anyway. Actually, I know the answer and it has to do with power, control, regulation, and territorialization.

In reality, virtual worlds are anything that happens on internet, or in the cognitive network of your imagination for that matter. Shopping on Amazon.com is virtual shopping. Communicating on this forum creates virtual discussions.

The problem with the word "virtual" is that it automatically compares something with another, presumably non-virtual version of it. Is an online discussion any less real than an offline one? No, the only thing that changes is participants' relationship to the medium of communication used to facilitate the discussion.

Still, the most interesting issue to me remains how various virtual and non-virtual realities interact with and influence each other. Nicolas Negropante saw the information economy as a revolution in which atoms would be replaced with bits in increasing ways.

I don't know if bits have so much replaced atoms, though, as they have changed the way people see and use them. Virtuality is a reality, but it's neither separate nor in competition with any other reality.
 
  • #10
brainstorm said:
Shopping on Amazon.com is virtual shopping. Communicating on this forum creates virtual discussions.
The virtual worlds turned out to be the wrong metaphor.

Shopping on amazon is like shopping from a catalog, and works very well.
A 3d virtual book shop where you had to 'walk' through the shelves to a particular dept and then search along the shelves wouldn't work as well.

There was a terrible early network system that had a virtual town, you walked along the road into the post office to send an email, then you walked to a library to retrieve a file.
Needless to say it's usage after 5mins of demo was zero.
 
  • #11
mgb_phys said:
The virtual worlds turned out to be the wrong metaphor.

Shopping on amazon is like shopping from a catalog, and works very well.
A 3d virtual book shop where you had to 'walk' through the shelves to a particular dept and then search along the shelves wouldn't work as well.

There was a terrible early network system that had a virtual town, you walked along the road into the post office to send an email, then you walked to a library to retrieve a file.
Needless to say it's usage after 5mins of demo was zero.

A printed catalog could be viewed as a virtual world if you think of the pages as rooms. It sounds like you want to limit the label "virtual world" to apply to navigable 3D images. You don't want to see a hyperlink as a "door" unless it appears to physically open and expand to the size of your browser window to reveal the linked page/room.

You might want to consider watching the introduction credits to any Star Wars movie in which the text, "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away" drifts toward a vanishing point against a cosmic background giving the impression that the words are actually objects moving forward in space.

Once you entertain the idea that words on a page are objects, you might consider the possibility that a page could be a room, etc. Sorry if I sound condescending with this example. It just came to mind in thinking about 3D spatial representations and text.
 

What happened to the virtual worlds explosion analysts predicted?

The virtual worlds explosion that analysts predicted did not occur in the way they expected. While there was a surge in interest and growth in the early 2000s, the virtual world market did not reach the predicted levels of success.

Why did the virtual worlds explosion not happen?

There are several reasons why the virtual worlds explosion did not happen. One major factor was the lack of widespread adoption and understanding of virtual worlds among the general public. Additionally, there were technical limitations and challenges that hindered the growth of virtual worlds.

What were some of the challenges faced by virtual worlds?

Some of the challenges faced by virtual worlds included hardware and software limitations, high costs for development and maintenance, and difficulties in creating a seamless and immersive user experience. There were also concerns about privacy and security within virtual worlds.

Did virtual worlds completely fail?

No, virtual worlds did not completely fail. While they did not reach the predicted levels of success, they still have a dedicated user base and continue to be used for various purposes such as gaming, education, and virtual events. Virtual reality technologies have also seen a resurgence in recent years, bringing renewed interest in virtual worlds.

Is there potential for virtual worlds to make a comeback?

Yes, there is potential for virtual worlds to make a comeback. With advancements in technology and the increasing popularity of virtual reality, virtual worlds may see a resurgence in the future. Additionally, as virtual worlds continue to evolve and adapt, they may find new and innovative uses that could attract a wider audience.

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