Lego Universe: From the child on the floor to the user online

Lego has had plenty of forays into the digital space over the years, from video games to products that let users design their own sets, but its biggest is the upcoming Lego Universe, a project begun in 1999 with the goal of bringing users online to not only play, but share their imaginations.

"We see it as a natural extension for us. The technology is developing so that right now we can actually pull off a Lego Universe,” said Mark William Hansen, Director of Business Development, Lego Universe. “Now there's the ability to have that scope and just the very high graphics. The computers in kids rooms—the hand me downs—are stronger than just two years ago. Technology is allowing us to do that today, to have that very exciting gameplay where you can drive down the street and run into a wall and have it break it into different pieces every time. And the MMO space is exciting for us. It's like the child who sits on the floor with the Lego castle and has planes flying around dragons—we're trying to capture what's in his head. So with those universes, rather than just having an individual on the floor, you're bringing them collaboratively in the world."

It does seem like a natural step--and one many toy brands are taking--but it's particularly large with Lego. CEO Joergen Vig Knudstorp has said that eventually Lego wants 20% of its revenue coming from the online space. Hansen said no one has put any specific goals out for Lego Universe, but that the company regards it as a significant, long-term project.

"We're going to come out with a very set amount of content and things like that," he explained. "But you're not going to see it released just once a year. As our products come out and new launches come out, you're going to see it develop over the years. It's a very committed platform for many years to come—our top-level management says it has to succeed for many years. It is definitely a major initiative."

That's why, he says, the company is taking a different route from some other brands. While building a browser-based experience offers an easy (and easily accessible) extension from physical toys to the online space, he believes Lego's downloaded Universe goes even deeper.

"We're not just taking the fast route of a browser game. We want to put out a premium experience for the child," he said. "Other companies have their offerings in the segment they're in, but I think we differentiate very well. We offer a true, 3D world with very deep, immersive play as opposed to top, shallow play."

Lego Universe isn't meant to supplant the retail offerings, though. While it'll be subscription supported--Hansen eschews microtransactions as limiting the experience to the rich kids--physical toys will offer entry points and additions as well.

"We don't want the physical to drop away, and by no means is the digital a replacement for the brand. It's hands on and minds on," Hansen said. " We will tie into the product and items from the boxes. We have boxes that are out there, and some are part of the Universe. It's that connection of 'hey, you have this and get points.' It's not definitive right now, but we'll definitely be making a connection to the boxes on the shelf."

He points out that the physical products have been performing similar roles to the virtual world for some time, as well. While virtual worlds and online games offer deep and lengthy routes to explore stories, Hansen says it's a continuation of the same goal of every aspect of a Lego set, from the box front to the manual. What's changing is that the virtual experience is shaping the way the company views some of its physical toys.

"We design a box product, a castle, and there's a 2-3 page description of the castle with 'The orcs do this and the knights do this.' You have to think about that a lot more for the backstory of a virtual world. And it actually helps to integrate that with the physical world," said Hansen. "We've done a lot of learning of the physical product development from the virtual product online to get that deeper experience. There definitely is innovation back and forth. This is a new platform for us. It gets us closer to the child's play. Now we can actually see, what are they playing, what are their ideas, what are their habits? It gives us those ideas of better products we can offer back into the market."

The biggest difference, though, is the social experience. While I remember building elaborate Lego sets with my friends--there was a particularly epic re-creation of Tattoine with pirate parts that in retropsect was a tad Baby's First Steampunk--Hansen says the goal of Lego Universe is to emphasize collaboration and socialization around creations.

"There aren't that many kids who bring their Legos to a friends house and bring them back again. They don't mix the collections," he explains. "Building online isn't about a child building by themselves. You're building Lego models collaboratively. You're building bricks together simultaneously. People work together to solve quests. There's a lot of social work built in."

That's enough to get me excited (with visions of Tattoine dancing in my head),  but I fall outside of Lego's target 8-12 demographic.  For the younger set, Hansen says the company has gone through "a very big learning" curve since its first digital games in the '90s about what it takes to encourage creativity.

"You don't force kids to build, but if you have the right tools, they aspire to it and they learn new tricks to build better and bigger things. That's the fine line," said Hansen. "You can't give them a desert. We know that. You can't just give them a blank palette, but if you put a car in front of them or a house, they'll say, "Hey, I can build that with Legos." If you look at what Lego does with its core products, it's the same. That's the inspiration. Our products on the shelf offer that story starter—that picture. It's not about rebuilding it. It's 'how do I make my castle, my transportation, my weapons.'"

Of course, safety is essential for a kids virtual world. Hansen couldn't dive into specifics of moderation yet, but he noted that some aspects will be automated. The bigger challenge is that Lego isn't simply monitoring chat, nor are its users old enough to be creating content that merits even a PG-13 rating (There.com's standard). Still, the point is that they should be creating.

"How do you design a world that is safe for kids without making it so tight that kids can't move? We're trying to make a creative space, so we can't tie that down. At the same time, we need to make it safe," he explained. "This adds a different dimension: how do you moderate creative content? We're able to use the technology of how we build it to read the creations. Lego Digital Designer is an application and there's the geometry of a Lego brick so we can read how the models are put together.

Unfortunately, many of those details, and more, won't be available until January 2009: for a timeline? "we'll definitely have something in 2009"; for an international expansion? "We'll eventually go to Asia"; for bringing in other brands as Lego does with its toys? "there are no contracts at this time, but you never know, so you'll probably see something"; and, excitingly, a mobile interface? "You'll find out in January."

Instead, I'll leave with a bit of Lego Universe history and theory:

"It started with we were thinking of mass customization and how we could bring Lego play into the digital space in the '90s," said Hansen. "Dot-com was the big bubble, so we were starting in that area and designing the first applications of Digital Designer. It was all about how we could start making these tools so kids could use them and upload creations to the Internet. It was all about create, share, and bring things alive back in 1999. How would that happen? Virtual worlds. Of  course it wasn't  called that at the time, but the idea of how you can get a real virtual space where kids can create and build and share was there."

Indeed that sounds like some ideas that I came across back then, too. Specifically in Douglas Coupland's "Microserfs" where a group of vested Microsoft employees leave to build their own Lego-and-object-oriented-programming-inspired creation game. It's not clear if "Microserfs" is to Lego Universe as "Snow Crash" is to Second Life, but I like to imagine that Coupland might be interested in joining my Gen X guild for Lego Universe.

"He has been to Lego many times and he definitely has some different theories about what Lego is and should be," said Hansen. "The Lego brick is a language that goes across generations and borders. People understand that you don't have to speak; you can just build and create."

Comments

[Realtime Arts]

A little more background history... Much of the groundwork and original concepts in this area were laid out at LEGO in the years 1996-1999. I had the privilege of working at the company during this time with a great team of forward thinking artists, engineers, and researchers, tasked with exploring the implications of interactive 3D computer graphics for the company, as well as developing software based on and related to LEGO products. This group was called "SPU-Darwin", and was a special project of owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.

One of the major efforts undertaken by Darwin was the development of a fully immersive (yes, with a head-mounted display) collaborative virtual reality system. The first effort was known as the LEGO Virtual Village, and was shown publicly in New Orleans at SIGGRAPH 96.

http://www.talisman.org/~erlkonig/lego/lego-on-sgis/Main.html

Building upon this, we developed a complete representation of the LEGO playset "Batlord's Castle" -complete with mini-fig avatar, body tracking, and physically based machinima tools- which was shown two years later in Orlando at SIGGRAPH 98.

http://www.realtimearts.com/greuel/port/castle

Granted, this effort was a research project, but there we were 10 years ago, walking around inside of a high-resolution virtual world. Our work was widely seen at the time by folks inside and outside the company, but sadly the project was moth-balled during the company's unprecedented restructuring of 1999.

This past summer though, I was happy to attend the Darwin reunion in Billund, Denmark. There alumni were honored by the attendance of both Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen and Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, who each spoke glowingly of the Darwin legacy and the how the results of its work live on in the new generation of digital products being developed today. It was gratifying to hear first-hand that our early efforts have taken root, and it's simply thrilling to see LEGO Universe now coming to life!

BTW, the author of the VWN article was quite correct that Coupland's "Microserfs" was a big influence on those of us in there in the early days, as was the work of MIT's Seymour Papert. But the man with the original vision, and who deserves much credit in this regard, goes by the name of Dent-de-Lion Du Midi. He is the eccentric fellow who one day in 1995 knocked on the door at LEGO and convinced Kjeld of the coming age of digital bricks and virtual worlds!

Christian Greuel
Realtime Arts, LLC