Comments on: The Sword Cuts Both Ways http://forge.ironrealms.com/2007/06/10/the-sword-cuts-both-ways/ A blog on virtual worlds, games, and digital content, from Matt Mihaly Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:49:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.3 by: Sam http://forge.ironrealms.com/2007/06/10/the-sword-cuts-both-ways/#comment-18073 Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:56:37 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2007/06/10/the-sword-cuts-both-ways/#comment-18073 Well, let's take a look at what keeps players ingame: - Adult content(90% of the users) - The motivation to make money. That usually works through providng adult content. (9% of the users) - The opportunity for limitless creativity, freedom of expression and trying new social concepts. Reaching new groups, working on their own PR and exploring a new virtual world. This accounts for roughly 1% of the user base and 99% of the game's publicity and academic attention. Second Life has a structural problem: Nothing that is responsible for the influx of new people is responsible for keeping them there (hype). Nothing that keeps people there will help them to gain new subscribers (adult content). That is, unless they start to market it as it is - a virtual wild west where nearly anything goes. Welcome to the Internet 1998. Well, let’s take a look at what keeps players ingame:

- Adult content(90% of the users)

- The motivation to make money. That usually works through providng adult content. (9% of the users)

- The opportunity for limitless creativity, freedom of expression and trying new social concepts. Reaching new groups, working on their own PR and exploring a new virtual world. This accounts for roughly 1% of the user base and 99% of the game’s publicity and academic attention.

Second Life has a structural problem:

Nothing that is responsible for the influx of new people is responsible for keeping them there (hype). Nothing that keeps people there will help them to gain new subscribers (adult content). That is, unless they start to market it as it is - a virtual wild west where nearly anything goes.

Welcome to the Internet 1998.

]]> by: Talaen http://forge.ironrealms.com/2007/06/10/the-sword-cuts-both-ways/#comment-18053 Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:55:38 +0000 http://forge.ironrealms.com/2007/06/10/the-sword-cuts-both-ways/#comment-18053 Now that I think about it, I think where Linden really went wrong with SL was marketing it as a service rather than a platform. What I mean is, if they want real-world commercial enterprises to get involved in Second Life, then what they need to do is distribute the software and let the companies host islands on their own servers. Linden becomes the software vendor, and maybe maintains some islands to test upgrades/revisions to software. But the Second Life world at large is provided by the companies out there who want to maintain a SL community as part of their free web offering. So instead of one big virtual world, what you get is a lot of small virtual worlds that have the ability to interconnect. So if I go to Nike's website, I can "dive in" to their SL island there and get all kinds of Nike stuff for my avatar if I so choose. That stuff stays with my avatar, so when I go over to Sony's SL-site later and "dive in", my avatar is wearing/using the cool Nike stuff I picked up before. And so on. This puts Linden in the position of being the software vendor but not actually the people running the "shards". It removes them from the position of having to moderate content. Instead, that's up to the people running the shard in question. SL becomes a platform and, if leveraged and marketed right, really does start to become the 3d web. Or maybe not. But it's kind of interesting to think about, and it seems to me like it might have been a better strategy than trying to operate a big VW where "anything goes, but oops not really". Now that I think about it, I think where Linden really went wrong with SL was marketing it as a service rather than a platform.

What I mean is, if they want real-world commercial enterprises to get involved in Second Life, then what they need to do is distribute the software and let the companies host islands on their own servers. Linden becomes the software vendor, and maybe maintains some islands to test upgrades/revisions to software. But the Second Life world at large is provided by the companies out there who want to maintain a SL community as part of their free web offering.

So instead of one big virtual world, what you get is a lot of small virtual worlds that have the ability to interconnect. So if I go to Nike’s website, I can “dive in” to their SL island there and get all kinds of Nike stuff for my avatar if I so choose. That stuff stays with my avatar, so when I go over to Sony’s SL-site later and “dive in”, my avatar is wearing/using the cool Nike stuff I picked up before. And so on.

This puts Linden in the position of being the software vendor but not actually the people running the “shards”. It removes them from the position of having to moderate content. Instead, that’s up to the people running the shard in question. SL becomes a platform and, if leveraged and marketed right, really does start to become the 3d web.

Or maybe not. But it’s kind of interesting to think about, and it seems to me like it might have been a better strategy than trying to operate a big VW where “anything goes, but oops not really”.

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