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WoW or SL?

March 28th, 2006 (Visited 5946 times) Tags:

Cory Ondrejka of Linden Lab has bet Dmitri Williams 25 cents that Second Life will have more users than WoW two years from now.

I think I am with Richard Bartle, when he says:

This argument reminds me of the CompuServe v AOL arguments of 10 or 15 years ago: “Which of these private, monolithic systems is best?”.

Give it 10 years, and put your 25c on the answer being “something else”.

Hasn’t anyone else noticed that all of our virtual worlds — yes, even Second Life — are more like AOL circa 1992 than they are like the web today?

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categories | The Cesspit. wrote on March 28th, 2006 at 6:02 pm:

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Faith wrote on March 28th, 2006 at 6:31 pm:

[...] Comments [...]

Clickable Culture wrote on March 29th, 2006 at 2:19 pm:

Today's Virtual Worlds Are Yesterday's AOL

Raph Koster asks "Hasn’t anyone else noticed that all of our virtual worlds — yes, even Second Life — are more like AOL circa 1992 than they are like the web today?" Well, Raph, since you asked… Feb. 12, 2005: "Second…

Psychochild’s Blog » Change is in the air wrote on March 30th, 2006 at 11:54 am:

[...] (Raph also pointed out this quote in a blog entry.) [...]

The Daily Graze » In the Metasphere 4/2/06 wrote on April 2nd, 2006 at 7:47 am:

[...] In other Metasphere news, Raph Koster asks, “Hasn’t anyone else noticed that all of our virtual worlds — yes, even Second Life — are more like AOL circa 1992 than they are like the web today?”. [...]

Raph’s Website » Monthly Report, March 2006 wrote on April 2nd, 2006 at 2:29 pm:

[...] WoW or SL? [...]

GRABBINGSAND: LOAD “*”,8,1 and press RETURN. » Blog Archive » Gaming Your Way To The Top wrote on April 24th, 2006 at 8:10 am:

[...] Of course, there are others who disagree and still others who see many of these MMOs as just the latest evolution of AOL. [...]

In the Metasphere 4/2/06 « The Electric Sheep Company wrote on January 7th, 2009 at 11:47 am:

[...] other Metasphere news, Raph Koster asks, “Hasn’t anyone else noticed that all of our virtual worlds — yes, even Second Life — [...]

Reader Comments

Amy Jo Kim said on March 28th, 2006 at 2:27 pm:
Yes indeed.
So which virtual worlds ARE more like the Web?
MikeRozak said on March 28th, 2006 at 2:44 pm:
It’s all about being an operating system. AOL/compuserve were monolithic client, server, service, and content. Early computers (pre Apple ][) also followed this model. This is the most profitable per head, but also limits innovation and market size. IBM certainly didn’t distribute games with its mainframe software.

On a slightly different note: In 1992, didn’t AOL act more like an aggregator, with a chat “world”, a forum “world”, a news “world”, a game “world”, etc.? At the moment, only SOE and the company behind The Chronicle seem to be aggregating many worlds into one package.
Raph said on March 28th, 2006 at 2:58 pm:

Well, as harbingers, I would definitely point at Second Life, but also at things as varied as Habbo Hotel, CokeMusic, social networking services, and so on.

AOL did act as an aggregator, and even published games developed externally, so they were more open than, say, Prodigy was.
Patrick said on March 28th, 2006 at 3:18 pm:
The web itself is a virtual world.
Antheus said on March 28th, 2006 at 3:25 pm:
First two online games I played were Trade Wars and Nethack (not exactly online, but played online).

I’d pay monthly subscription to the BBS + the phone bill. With that I’d also get access to some other social content, such as forums, files, and chat. Granted, I was using BBS for files and some of the popular boards (SWAG was mekka back then). Some BBSes were free as well.

Today, I pay monthly subscription to the MMO publisher + cable bill. With that I also get access to some other social content, such as forums, voice chat, video and audio files related or unrelated to the game itself. Some MMOs are free as well.

The reason for subscription has changed (games as bonus vs. games as actual content), but the model seems incredibly familiar. And the web-based interactive or social content (myspace, as mentioned before) is completely different from both.
Raph said on March 28th, 2006 at 3:53 pm:

And now I see news that SL just landed $11m in funding…
Darniaq said on March 28th, 2006 at 3:59 pm:
Well, you may know my view on this I, too, think of certain MMOGs as AOL whereas others as Google.

I also side on the argument of “something else” in the 10-year time span. But in two years? To me it’s WoW, hands down.

SL would require millions of people having a collective epiphany that online RPGs are not nearly as compelling as something closer to true virtual reality. But considering it’s age, considering who’s been attracted to the genre by WoW, and considering the time frame, I don’t think we’re going to see this mass migration or new influx for SL.
Arrakiv said on March 28th, 2006 at 4:35 pm:
Heh, I have to agree with Richard Bartle also and it seems to me that it would be a safe assumption so.

I’m not to sure how confident he is with that huge bet though. Probably a good thing. I just can’t see him winning, more so in two years. Although, if they just got $11m… That is pretty interesting.
Amaranthar said on March 28th, 2006 at 6:34 pm:
Actually, When the rumors were flying about Raph leaving SOE, SL is where I thought he was going. The reason was that I did a little poking around on the internet and saw where SL got an 8 mil funding in 2004, and looking at who was funding them (Omidyar), and what they were all about, and tying the SL educational possibilities together with what Raph’s been posting about (education in games)….well, it all seemed to tie in quite nicely. I half expected SL to show up with all another round of funding. And this round is right up the same alley. And now, I’m still wondering, despite Raph’s claims.

But think about it. Think about MySpace, the younger generation, education, games, etc., and think about the possibilities for communication and education. World wide. That’s why I said the world was about to become much smaller. Maybe with Raph, maybe without him.
Amaranthar said on March 28th, 2006 at 6:37 pm:
But I’m still stumped on that Chinese thing.
Tess said on March 28th, 2006 at 7:46 pm:
I don’t want my games to be like the web! I mean, do you really want Murlocs and Froglocks teaming up?
Michael Chui said on March 28th, 2006 at 9:59 pm:
I, too, think of certain MMOGs as AOL whereas others as Google.

I’m not seeing the overall analogy here, but specifically: Like what facet of Google? Remember that Google is, despite it all, primarily a search engine. It has a lot more stuff nowadays, but it is still first and foremost a search engine.

The Web 2.0 jive is an important lesson to learn: Do one thing. Do it well.

On a wholly related note: has anyone thought about ways to make a WoW/SL hybrid work? I think it can be done. I just don’t have the time or resources to really pour my thought processes into making it something more than my own ramblings.
Michael Chui said on March 28th, 2006 at 10:03 pm:
Whee, double-comment. But:

I don’t want my games to be like the web!

AOL, Compuserve, etc. were not The Web. None of them were. They were access points. Really shiny, flamboyant, popular access points, but that’s all they were. Gates. Doors. Thresholds. I remember when I started using AOL to connect to the Internet, then closed it to start up Internet Explorer or whatever I used back in the day.

Similarly, think of games as access points into virtual worlds. Think of virtual worlds as Fairie and games as the immersive device to bring you into the Secondary World.

You can draw an analogy to browser wars. And then you’d point to Flock, the social browser.
Raph said on March 28th, 2006 at 10:31 pm:

In 1992 AOL wasn’t even an access point, really. It was more of a walled garden — they all were. It wasn’t until ‘95, I think, that AOL gave Internet interoperability to its users. “The September That Never Ended.”
Cael said on March 28th, 2006 at 10:53 pm:
A black day in Sysadmin’s Lore.

September 1994, Raph. Today is September 4230th, 1994.
Raph said on March 28th, 2006 at 11:06 pm:

Heh, good to know some people know what I am talking about.
Jim said on March 29th, 2006 at 12:03 am:
My gut feeling is that any investment in SL will return low seven figures, at best. But that’s just a gut feeling.

Multiverse has an interesting idea– a bunch of Netscape vets have gotten together to provide aspiring developers a 3D engine, toolset, some art assets, a sample EULA, etc etc etc for free. People get into your game through their gateway. (A nice newbie hose, it’s to be hoped.)

The idea is (it’s still in alpha testing) when you start charging, you have to let them handle the billing, and they get to skim a hefty percentage– on the order of a third to a half of your gross.

I’d be curious to hear from the industry veterans here if that’s a good deal or not, and what kind of chances they give it for working out.
Rik said on March 29th, 2006 at 12:29 am:
User created content vs. Company crated content? Hard to pick one over the other, but I do think the future of computer gaming is user-created. SL vs. WoW? Sorry, WoW has too much of a head start for me to really picture SL as-is overtaking them.
Michael Chui said on March 29th, 2006 at 12:30 am:
Heh. Okay, my age shows. In 1992, I was 7. I wasn’t using AOL. =P I think I was discovering keyboards. No wonder I’m not seeing the analogy.
Matt Mihaly said on March 29th, 2006 at 12:46 am:
Myspace is the best candidate for the multiverse at present.

Discuss.

–matt
Matt Mihaly said on March 29th, 2006 at 12:54 am:
(I meant metaverse, of course.)
Iakimo said on March 29th, 2006 at 5:48 am:
A co-worker recently quit WoW, then bought [i]RF Online.[/i] But last week he told me he hasn’t even played RFO yet because he’s so hooked on MySpace. I went, “Huh?”
chabuhi said on March 29th, 2006 at 6:06 am:
AOL … Spoon-feeding you the “internet” one carefully hand-picked, thought-policed mouthful at a time.

It is only with hindsight that I can feel so jaded.
Trucegore said on March 29th, 2006 at 6:08 am:
A nice rule of thumb I heard on day on the topic of “User created content”, mostly referring to 3d Objects created by users.

“Out of 100, only 10% of user created content is even useable, out of that 10%, 90% is crap, and that last 10% is a stretch…”

Translation: The first 90% is not useable by the engine or has some other technical limitations. Out of the 10% that’s left over, 90% of that usually falls under “doesn’t even fit the game”, because one use wanted to make a care bear with +100 to everything… The last 10% usually ends up not fitting the setting or clashes in some way with the pre-established “Theme”.

Now, considering that if you open this can of worms, you will get 1000’s of submissions, depending on the popularity of your game and player base.

The counter to this point will be said is SL, but SL doesn’t have all those limitations of most MMO’s, it doesn’t impose any them, or really, any other anything… It’s designed to be that way… blank empty spaces with no really …how I say this… “Concept”?

2c
CadetUmfer said on March 29th, 2006 at 6:14 am:
Was gonna say, I think MySpace is the biggest Virtual World at the moment, and I don’t think WoW or SL will pass it. Unless your definition of a VW involved 3D, in which case shame on you, and that’s another rant.

If you’re comparing Virtual Worlds of today to the internet of 10 years ago, then Multiverse would be the future for traditional MMOs. Rather than creating their own content (like the Blizzards of today and the AOLs of 93), it would link users to a wider network of externally-created content.

But really, don’t we already have a “web-like” virtual world? A bunch of loosely-coupled social networks, MySpace, Facebook, Last.fm, Magnolia, Flikr. Unless you’re talking a common way to access all of these, in which case I point you to MS Passport, and this f13 thread.
Brask Mumei said on March 29th, 2006 at 11:06 am:
Trucegore: You are referring to the natural expression of Sturgeon’s Law. 90% of everything is crap.
dhask said on March 29th, 2006 at 3:50 pm:
Second Life’s most limiting factor is the scarcity of resources. In a Multiverse kind of world, resources should be bounded by what users are willing to bring to the table, not by either central server capacity or artificial scarcity for economic reasons.

Like the Web, this can only be achieved by decentralising the virtual worlds. Trucegore reinforces this view, pointing out how difficult it is, politically and technically, to centrally manage user submissions. Imagine how drab the Web would be if all content on it were vetted and managed by a single entity!

It’s also important when using a “90%/10%” craptasticy rule to bear in mind that different audiences have a different idea of “crap.” MySpace is a perfect example. To me, more like 99.9% of MySpace pages are crap. However, as more people I know start using MySpace, my own interest in pages there grows, and more of those pages become relevant to me.

MySpace is a fractal reiteration of the greater Web. Individuals create content, link to other content they like, and after you discover an entry point by word of mouth or other means, you can create your own network of interesting (to you) pages. There is a very low entry cost to adding your own content to the mix.

Virtual worlds are not like that yet. Second Life provides a vastly lower entry cost to adding content than ever before, but in my opinion, it’s still not low enough: the starting handkerchief of land is both hard to connect to and too small for interesting results. It’s the virtual world equivalent of one page containing no more than 5kb of text and images.

Also compare the wealth and variety of text-based virtual worlds compared to graphical virtual worlds. We have the tools available right now for end users to be creating graphical environments — look at FPS maps, Second Life’s content creation tools, and similar devices — but we don’t have the tools to be hosting graphical virtual worlds ourselves.

The “something else” in my view will be the system that lets users easily create their own virtual worlds, and share those worlds with their friends. From there will grow a new Web, whose userbase will rival the userbase of the greatest virtual space currently known — the World Wide Web.
Michael Chui said on March 29th, 2006 at 11:27 pm:
I think it would be interesting if Linden Lab permitted payment in the form of hardware… Someone tell them to think about it. They could wipe the hardware to make sure there aren’t any viruses or anything, and then hook it in, which shouldn’t be terribly hard, I can’t imagine.

Then people would be able to help them grow as they wished. Of course, it’s kinda non-refundable. =P
Almagill said on March 30th, 2006 at 4:09 am:
/aol

Tho have to agree, some games are more AOL than others.

WoW or SL… my money’s on the ’something else’ option.
Corey Bridges said on April 3rd, 2006 at 11:21 am:
Here’s some data and analysis that’s germaine to this discussion. This info is *part* of what inspired us to found Multiverse, but it shouldn’t really feel like too much of a Multiverse commercial.

For those of you who are curious, here’s the punchline in advance: while reading through the info below, change 1995 to 2006, substitute WoW for AOL, and substitute Multiverse for Netscape, and you’ll see what we think about the remarkable similarities that you all have rightly noted:

ONLINE “WORLDS” IN 1995:

* Few big competitors

– AOL: 5Million subcribers @ about $15-$20/month

– CompuServe, Prodigy, etc.

* Expensive to build and launch

– Each based on proprietary technology

– Exclusive content

* No synergy between worlds

– No shared communication

– No shared interaction areas

* Significant friction for new users

– Separate installs

– Separate billing registrations

– Arbitrarily different user interfaces

Then along comes the Netscape platform, bringing or at least enabling these features:

NETSCAPE PLATFORM IN 1995
* Scalable, customizable platform (especially servers)

* Free, easy-to-use tools

* Content standards — HTML, JPG, etc.

* Free universal client — the browser

This platform led to the mainstreaming of the World Wide Web, which, as everyone has noted, changed everything. Suddenly all the stuff below became economically feasible.

WORLD WIDE WEB
* Startups, not existing monolithic companies, drive innovation

- Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Google

* New forms of content

- Targeted or niche content

- Social networks (mySpace, et al)

- User-created content (blogs, podcasts)

* New business models

- Advertising

- Sponsorships

- Commerce transactions

So just to tie this back on-topic, I think it’s going to be a case where a virtual-world development platform makes it economically feasible for people to really kick forward the state of the art.

–Corey (Exec Producer, Multiverse)

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