I came across a post Robert Scoble made way back in 2006 about “Getting Second Life” because many people “don’t get it”. I felt that much of my point of view on virtual worlds has remained unchanged for over a year. In a field which is thought by some as the future, it feels as though it’s stagnant. So I thought I’d sum my thoughts into a post.
Second life is a sandbox. It has no real purpose. It’s an interesting time waste but it’s only real value is created among the people who use it because they understand it. It’s difficult to hold a conversation very long about an obscure topic with someone who isn’t familiar with it.
The bigger problem is the monitization of the Virtual Worlds. Second Life is still searching for a way to successfully turn their virtual world into a cash cow. They have been getting very large brands to jump aboard to create branded islands where users can roam about and check out the area and be impressioned upon by the brand.
The problem with this plan is that the people arn’t there. The islands are created and they’void of users. There is no reason for users to want to interact with the islands or the brand. It’s not fun or interesting. What’s more interesting then the brand is the other users. The problem is much the same as a social network where the ads have low click through because users are more interested in their friends then they ever would be with the ads that are displayed.
Wired wrote a great article recently that went over the situation that second life is facing. Then there was another article that Tom Novak wrote where he beleives that wired got some points in their story wrong. He explains that there is much to do in second life but you need to learn how to do it first.
I think that’s essentially the problem. The ramp is too steep to learn how to do the interesting stuff. Most users would get turned off by that fact.
The wired article stated that there were around 7million users at the time of writing. That’s a pretty impressive number but because the world is so large you don’t run into many people. The most interesting part of any social network or virtual world is not the world or game itself but the other people in it. I think if the world were smaller it might be a much more enjoyable experience.
There are virtual worlds which are successful but they come at this from a completely different angle- such as The Virtual Hills which is an extension of the Mtv show “The Hills”. It is built off the There engine. Users log in and are confined to a small area and because of this there are many people to interact with all the time. No waiting or looking for folks to talk to. Also because the entire world is branded very closely to the show you are already familiar with the location and vibe of the world before you download and log into the application. The application adds value to the show and then on top of that they add a virtual good market where you can take real world money and convert it to ingame money so you can rent cars, buy clothes, and even own property. In game currency adds a small bit of gaming and competition which fuels the world even more and is a proven and successful model to produce revenue.
Which brings me back to what this post is about. A virtual world which is built as an extension of a real world property from the start are poised for success. I already have a first life; I am interested in ways to extend aspects of my first life in a virtual one. I am not interested in a second life. And even if i was about to start a second life I would want people to to experience it with who exist in my first life. Value needs to cross over from the real world to a virtual world always.
Second life can be fun but the ramp to reaching a point where it gives a steady amount of value turns many folks away. On top of that, brands don’t have a prominent enough position to get the value for their investment to be part of the virtual world. For a Virtual World to be successful it needs to pull value and interest from the real world.
