Q&A: Multiverse Executive Producer Corey Bridges on Places, Buffy, Social Networks, and More

At the Virtual Worlds Expo earlier this month, Multiverse made a slew of announcements, ranging from a partnership to develop a Buffy the Vampire Slayer MMO with 20th Century Fox and a virtual Titanic experience with James Cameron to a whole new side of its virtual world, Places, and an integration with social networks.  I caught up with Co-Founder and Executive Producer Corey Bridges at the show to talk about the new announcements.

Multiverse Places

Virtual Worlds News: So what is the motivation behind Multiverse Places?

Corey Bridges: So Multiverse Places is a virtual world that we built ourselves for consumers. It is a destination, a virtual world itself. We built it to solve a deficiency that we saw in the first-generation virtual worlds that almost happens when consumers log in and say, "Okay, I'm here. Now what? What am I supposed to do if I don't know anybody?" So we built Multiverse Places as a virtual world with gameplay built in, so there's stuff to do. In its first incarnation, we've released it in beta, and about every month or so there are going to be updates with more and more gameplay. Right now it's the initial release. You go in and it's basically an excellent looking environment—Times Square is in there—you get your own avatar, you get your own place to decorate. It's a really little start, but what's exciting is coming up. More and more gameplay, more apartments, the Buffy zone, actual games and stuff to do.

And, of course, we're open-sourcing this. That'll be a really interesting development. Building on top of the Multiverse Platform, anyone can create any environment they want, not just a new building or new clothes. That'll be what people start with, but the more ambitious developers can build entire new worlds or zones as part of Places. You're not limited by polygon count or  prims or land size or what you will. It's all whatever you want to host yourself. And with Multiverse, on one server, you can actually have a 5000x5000 mile piece of land and 2000 logins per server. So that's something about the size of Earth with a couple thousand people. That's kind of the next step for user-generated content and personal expression and a lot safer place for brand expression than some of the first-generation virtual worlds.

VWN: Is that how it fits into the overall Multiverse idea? You already have the chance to build different spaces and worlds with open standards. How does this fit in to the strategy?

CB: There are a couple of different ways. We remain laser-focused on developing the technology that enables anyone to get in and build new virtual worlds and virtual world experiences for whatever purpose—entertainment, socializing, business collaboration, what have you—so taking Places and open-sourcing that, that's more tools in the toolbox for developers to build on. One challenge developers had on the platform up until now was "Gee, do I need to create all the avatars and animations and places? My notion for a virtual world was just this one idea. Can you help me with that?" This bootstraps a lot of indie developers with a head start.

Additionally, Places showcases the next layer of technology on our platform, which is deep integration with social networks. The technology that we're using to let you bring your Facebook and Myspace and Linked In profile into a virtual world, anyone developing on the platform can use that. We're building an application that runs on multiple social networks and communities, and all of that technology we're making available to our developers.

The benefit to Multiverse of doing Places is that this is now a consumer world launched on our platform that can begin to serve as a hub for them to come to and have an increasing number of residents or users or visitors or whatever you want to call them on our network. It's an additional value point for developers to say "Oh, okay, Multiverse already has X number of people using the technology." That gives us a virtuous circle: the more users you have, the more developers you get, and then the more consumers, and so on.

VWN: That's something you guys have talked about as a benefit of Multiverse for a while. This seems like almost just a more user-friendly way to get into the network.

CB: It is. We're really interested in seeing how it evolves. I'd love to say, "We knew everything of how Places would wind up," but it'll come down to what the users do regarding navigation. When you launch the Multiverse World Browser, up comes a 2D screen with the network. That will have navigation capabilities within it. You can use that to have your bookmarks or what's new and cool or collaborative filtering. And some people instead will use Places as that navigation paradigm. They'll find a cool world and run through a portal or literally go through a door or hop on the subway or go down to the harbor that potentially transitions them to Places in Time: Titanic.

... And Faces and Spaces (or Facebooks and Myspaces)

VWN: You mentioned that you're building this as a tool to integrate with multiple networks.

CB: We've got bidirectional integration with social networks. You, as someone who goes into Places, can make the ability available to others to see your Myspace page or your Facebook page. I think that's a new and interesting philosophy.

One of the things I always found funny about the first generation of virtual worlds is that they go to such effort to bring people in anonymously and move away from their real identities. Sure, that's great for World of Warcraft if you want to roleplay as Grondar, raised by barbarian trolls to kill, but you have to build this whole second identity. My suspicion is that most mainstream users don't want to be forced into having to roleplay when they go into a virtual space. My theory is that a lot of folks want to do the same thing they do in social networks, express themselves—or at least some idealized version of themselves.

We don't want to get in the way of people with different types of play—dressing up, going to a ball, having some anonymity—so there will be some areas in Places for that. But generally, the idea is that you bring yourself to Places, as opposed to saying "My name is Hero McLinden" and having a picture of your avatar in your profile and a list of places you go in-world. I mean, the first question a lot of people ask in virtual worlds is "a/s/l?" And they're not talking about your virtual age, sex, or location.  That's one aspect of our social network integration—the ability to let people bring their real selves into this virtual world.

The other direction is extending the virtual world into the social network. We have a Facebook application and one for Myspace in development. It's a way to continue socializing in a virtual world fashion when you're logged into the social network. Obviously there are big differences between the two communities: virtual worlds are deep, immersive, synchronous, you spend a lot of time in generally; social networks are asynchronous, light tough, usually they run in the browser. It's quick and light.

To bring virtual worlds into social networks, it would be a mistake to bring all the heaviness in there. Instead, it's our philosophy to bring the type of interaction that's already familiar to people on the social network. So we're starting with bringing asynchronous interaction. Instead of sending a sentence like "Corey has kicked you in the head" with SuperPoke, why not send a postcard of my avatar kicking your avatar in the head. And then you can kick me off. It incorporates the social network interaction, but it's your avatar, with little images or videos, and you don't have to go and use FRAPS or anything. You just say "I want my avatar in this role and this person's avatar in this role," or if it's for someone who isn't a member yet, you can just add in an avatar for them.  Then they can change the avatar from the app, and later you can change your room.

VWN: So it sounds like you're adding more and more of the virtual world to the social network.

CB: It's all about trying to incorporate the social network behavior rather than change it. That'll happen organically. That's been the mistake of a lot of efforts from virtual worlds so far. One is just trying to compete with Facebook or Myspace—that's ludicrous—another is in bringing the wrong kind of interaction, trying to change consumer behavior. Start with what they know.

We're going to add much more activity—you'll be able to interact synchronously with people in the virtual world—but we don't want to launch with that. That's just too much of a head switch.

Multiple Dimensions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

VWN: Is that through your 2D engine?

CB: Exactly, and we're showing off a new version of that. The first game that will actually launch on that is probably Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fans of the show will know that the series ended with just a great, great setup--

VWN: I'm only in the third season right now--

CB: Okay, it ended with a great setup. I don't want to give away spoilers for anyone. It's a great setup for everyone to feel like they're a central part of the story, which is key, because if it's literally a story of one person, that doesn't work for an MMO.

We're launching that first with the Flash front end, the Flash client, and you can play it in the Web browser. Then, additionally, there will be a 2D version of the game. And people coming in from the 2D and 3D side of the game can play together and neither side will necessarily know that the other is accessing it from a different client.  It will grow from there as a zone within Places, a deeper more immersive experience, but we're never going to abandon having a solid Flash experience.

VWN: It seems like that would complicate gameplay.

CB: It makes it interesting. You don't want one side to have an advantage over the other. If they're playing together, you want it to be essentially the same experience. It may look different, but nothing that affects the gameplay. If there's a 2D-only space, though, that can be very different from the shared space and what might be a 3D-only space in Buffy. Thinking that stuff through is what gets us out of bed in the morning, the Buffy people, to enable other folks to go and experiment with what that means to have a shared space and a 2D-only or 3D-only space.

VWN: It seems almost like taking Mario from the old Nintendo and mashing it up with the N64.

CB: Somebody smarter than I will figure that out. And it's fascinating.

VWN: Are you guys working on that or 20th Century Fox?

CB: We're working with 20th Century Fox, but we are actually developing it. We'll be making some announcements specifically who working for us will be doing that.

VWN: So you guys are now also game designers?

CB: You know, we're four years into the company. The platform is really going along smoothly. We're ready to get in there and help develop and build some really cool technology. Not just "okay, build a game," but using this to really take our technology further and do the 2D/3D stuff and get our technology involved. That's when it makes sense for us to get involved and be customers of our own technology—eat the Multiverse dog food as it were.

VWN: Do you have a business model set for it yet?

And we have an actual prototype of the game, in 2D and 3D, so we've been working on this for a while. We have plans and know what the goal is, but there's nothing set in stone. There's going to be a completely free, fun aspect to the game, 2D and 3D, and then there's going to be a monetized aspect as well.

VWN: Are you doing the same thing with Titanic?  Developing and spreading out all over?

CB: Yes. It's a very exciting time. And Titatinc we're not looking to make a monetized thing. It's more about taking the work that James Cameron has already done, really becoming one fo the world authorities on the Titanic. It's taking his knowledge and the assets he's collected over the years and making it something new for learning. It's about a new model for learning, not selling tickets to go on the virtual Titanic. That was key for him.  It's for schools, teachers, researchers. We'll be making announcements about this in the coming months, but it's definitely an educational endeavor.

It's really part of the Multiverse philosophy: this is a new medium. We want to show how that can be used for education as well.

Tying Your Real Identity to Games: Consumer Choice

VWN: How do you look at building these games tying into your real-world identity and this social network integration? Part of the point of Multiverse is that you have the potential for all these different worlds, so how do you balance that?

CB: Having it as a game? That's something consumers are increasingly comfortable with—not to wax weird on this, but the notion of personae. I am Corey Bridges, and sometimes i play games as myself and sometimes I play as someone else. The key is offering the choice to the consumer instead of making it for them. That was the problem of many of the first-generation virtual worlds where I'd just want to be Corey Bridges, but I had to be Hiro Protagonist.

It's all about choice. You want to provide a structured, interesting environment, but you don't want to force them to roleplay.  I think it'll be easy enough for people who come into the virtual world as themselves to then go over and play this game. They're still themselves, but now they're themselves killing vampires. It won't be too jarring. There will be other zones or worlds that are more jarring: they may be in space or underwater or people will inevitably build furry zones. But that's not in the main Places zone. You can do that in your own space and make it rated, but not in the main area.

VWN: So that's part of the open approach, right? But when you say "open source," you mean that people can go and create content and spaces and that, not the client and server, right?

CB: Correct. We're open-sourcing everything that is the world, the assets, the characters, the gameplay. All of that is source available. It's sort of like what Jon [Landau] said earlier [in his keynote]. He sees YouTube as essentially open source. It's built on proprietary tech, but anyone can use that on top to build content.  That's not unreasonable, so we're going to be giving away all the code to build all of that.

VWN: It seems almost like going back to the Second Life metaphor then, of a mainland that users can move to different zones or islands from and create content on top of.

CB: Second Life broke a lot of ground. I've knocked it, but you really have to admit that they really did something innovative. So kudos to them. That said, the way this differs from Second Life is that when you build something in Second Life, it's always in Second Life. It looks like Second Life. It feels like Second Life, whether that's good or bad. With Places, you have way more control. You can change the UI; you can change the underlying gameplay systems. It really is building on something we meant to be a platform instead of just a single-purpose virtual world. It can be as varied as a game or a business application.

VWN: Is that still a focus for you? You mentioned before that you guys were looking at business use of  of Multiverse, but I haven't heard anything for a while.

CB: We're not showing anything here about that, but, yeah, that remains—that grows—as a really important area for us. There's a lot of interest from the enterprise. I think everyone from enterprise paying attention understands that virtual worlds will be a valuable and valid tool, but they're waiting for the killer app, the thing that drives adoption. I think we're going to see that in the next year: something that has an honest-to-god ROI, that's repeatable and real. My suspicion is it will be in one of two direction: training and collaboration. I don't think it's going to be just having a meeting. I have yet to see a really compelling 3D meeting with avatars accomplished smoothly. I've seen some compelling meetings, but it's people working around this or that. It's an issue of interface, how you present the avatars and attention and all of that. I think that nut is close to being cracked. Forterra is doing good work; Qwaq is doing good work' some people doing really good, experimental work in Multiverse for training and collaboration.

VWN: I was just curious because you mentioned integrating with Linked In, which seems maybe less targeted at the Buffy crowd.  Will we see something down the line for that?

CB: Yup.... 

Comments

[len]

And will the Buffyverse come with wooden stakes?

Good. Now find someone willing to build Bewitched. Should be much easier. :-)

http://3donthewebcheap.blogspot.com/2007/10/cult-of-personality-buffyverse.html