Virtual Worlds News

Social Gaming Summit: Monetization and Business Models for Social Games

My laptop battery had already died, but the final panel at the Social Gaming Summit on monetizing social games was too good to not take some notes. David Perry, CCO, Acclaim, who's been putting together a hefty tome cataloging, if I remember right, as many possibilities for gaming as possible, noted that there are 22 ways to monetize a game. He didn't give a list, but there's certainly a range out there. For now, though, the most prominent for virtual worlds and social games seem to be subscription, advertising, and microtransaction, especially when packaged around a free-to-play experience. You just have to make it clear that eventually there needs to be money exchanged, explained Mattias Miksche, CEO, Stardoll

"We've always said this is free and this is pay," said Miksche. "I think a lot of people are missing out by tring to build a big audience around entirely free content and then trying to flip a switch and start charging. You need to have something that people are willing to pay for from day one."

Social Gaming Summit: User-Generated Games in Social Networks

I've been at the Social Gaming Summit all day, but my laptoppower cord stayed at the hotel. The panels have been pretty interesting (especially the one I moderated), though I haven't had the chance to sit and blog through an entire one yet. I couldn't make it through this entire panel before my battery died, but I did get most of the way in. Regardless, with so much talk around the subject of social networks, virtual worlds, and casual games, it's interesting to hear about how users are creating their own activities.

Daniel James, CEO from Three Rings, Jeremy Monroe Director of Business Development from Sulake in North America, Ted Rheingold, Founder of Dogster and Catser, and Cary Rosenzweig, CEO for IMVU, discussed their perspectives. That ranges from Habbos creating their own  pretend shops to IMVU's emphasis on user-created content--Rosenzweig says that almost 100% of its 1.6 million items are user-created, seeing its top ten developers raking in $100,000 over the last year--to Three Rings' Whirled, which encourages users to build their own games from the ground up.

Video Update: MyHollywood Tabloid Virtual World Debuts at Under the Radar; Dizzywood Takes Home Best in Show

4 out of the 32 presenting companies at Under the Radar have ties to virtual worlds. It makes sense since the event is organized around presenting companies that have only recently launched or are yet to launch. The latter is the case for MyHollywood.com, a 3D virtual world aimed at women. Inside the world, women can catch up on celebrity gossip culled from various news sites, take quizzes that are then tied to their avatars, and purchase virtual goods based on real fashion. It's a "casual game in a virtual world that's married to virtual reality,"  said creator Joey Carson.

Out of the others, VIvaty has only recently, though with a notice in the New York Times, gone into private beta; Big Stage, a motion capture specialist with interest in putting self-made animated avatars into games and virtual worlds, is in private beta after a debut at CES with Intel; and Dizzywood, which took the overall Best in Show award, opened to its audience of kids in November and has also gotten some attention from the times. While we may not know much about MyHollywood, it's certainly surrounded with some interesting peers. UPDATE: Hit the jump for a video fo the Q&A session at Under the Radar.

Where 2.0: Augmented Reality, Community Function in Mirror Worlds, and More

I didn't make it out to the O'Reilly Where 2.0 conference this week, but I'm wishing I had now. Fortunately, they've posted some of the video online as a resource (and more from last year) in addition to other bloggers covering the output. There's a large focus on maps and geotools, obviously, but there's plenty of people already talking about the tie-ins that make sense for mirror worlds, virtual worlds, and augmented reality. All the video is at Blip TV, but I'll round up some of the ones I've found interesting and embed them with summaries below as well.

First Scientific Conference in World of Warcraft This Weekend

This weekend will bring the Convergence of the Real and the Virtual (May 9-11), the first scientific conference to be held inside World of Warcraft. Appropriately, the conference will focus on research conducted around World of Warcraft and, more generally, in virtual worlds. Created by John Bohannon, who's behind the Gonzo Scientist feature for the AAAS journal Science and organized by William Sims Bainbridge, co-director of the NSF's Human-Centered Computing, the conference will feature "3 scientific sessions, followed by activities."

Virtual Worlds 2008 - The Evolution of Games and Social Networks: Virtual Worlds Everywhere

It’s certainly not an edgy prediction to say that the lines between social networks, virtual worlds, and games are blurring, but these are the people that are erasing it. Andrew (Roo) Reynolds, Metaverse Evangelist, IBM (moderator),  Sean Ryan, CEO, Meez, Christian Lassonde, President & CoFounder, Millions of Us, and Susan Panico, Senior Director, PLAYSTATION Network, Sony Computer Entertainment America gathered to talk about “The Evolution of Games and Social Networks: Virtual Worlds Everywhere.”

Virtual Worlds 2008 - MTV and Neopets: New Worlds, vMTV 2.0, and a Partnership with Garnier

Kyra E. Reppen, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Neopets, opened up the morning keynote to share her thoughts on the future of the virtual world and her lessons from the first decade of the virtual world industry. "Perhaps it's no surprise that virtual worlds are not just the next generation og games, but the next generation of entertainment," Reppen said. "Audiences are telling us they want us to give them better, faster, and deeper ways to communicate. This is where the future of technology lies." [Ed: Lots of good numbers and announcements below (mostly bolded).]

Virtual Worlds 2008 - Reuben Steiger, CEO Millions of Us: "Remember Why We Love Virtual Worlds"

Reuben Steiger, CEO and Founder of Millions of Us, spoke to the conference today about why he’s passionate about virtual worlds. To begin with, though, he showed off an alternate reality game created for Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. His point is that "the technology is less interesting than the stories. We use virtual worlds as a stage to tell stories that would otherwise be untellable."

Call for Conference Questions - Virtual Worlds By The Numbers: Today and The Future

I'll be moderating a panel at Virtual Worlds 2008 on  "Virtual Worlds By The Numbers: Today and The Future." Michael Cai (Director, Broadband & Gaming, Parks Associates) and Jack Myers (President, Myers Publishing, LLC) will both be presenting new research, and I'm working with Nic Mitham of KZero to present some of his original work even though he'll be home with his new son. That's a lot of information from some very knowledgeable folks. That said, we'll try to leave plenty of time for questions from the audience, but what would you most like to hear about? Feel free to leave a topic in the comments below.

Clever Zebra Gets Back to Roots with vBusiness Expo

We reported in January that Metaversed had turned away from providing news and hosting events like Metanomics to work on Clever Zebra, a solutions provider for free, customizable Second Life builds. With registration now open for the inaugural vBusiness Expo, though, the group is getting back to its roots. "The Expo has its own revenue stream," said Founder Nick Wilson. "At the moment there are two distinct parts to our business, events and development -- we produce a free, open source development kit for corporations (think Wordpress for Second Life..) and organize virtual events."

Guest Post: Viximo's Ravi Mehta on MIT's "It's a Small World: How Virtual Communities Are Changing the Ways We Relate"

This article is a guest post from Ravi Mehta, VP of Publishing for Viximo, a virtual goods start-up.

Last week I attended an event coordinated by the MIT Alumni Association titled "It's a Small World: How Virtual Communities Are Changing the Ways We Relate". The first lecture, "What Kind of World Would You Make: Second Life as Thought Experiment", was given by Professor Henry Jenkins, the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. The second lecture, "Hello Avatar! What Virtual Worlds Mean for Human Communication", was given by Professor Beth Coleman, Professor of Writing and New Media. The event broadcast is available here. So, instead of providing a transcript of the event, I'm going to highlight a few interesting threads that were discussed both during the lectures and the Q&A.

Liveblogging SXSW - Casual Multi-Player Online Games: Serious Revenues

I popped in just five minutes late, but the panel was already in full, fast swing. With a virtual who's who in current virtual world and casual MMO development, Michael Acton Smith (CEO, Mind Candy), Adrian Crook (Consulting Producer Designer, Independent), Joe Hyrkin (VP Sales & Business Dev, Gaia Online), Jeremy Liew (General Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners), Nabeel Hyatt   (Founder/CEO, Conduit Labs) look at current trends and opportunities.

Liveblogging SXSW - Human and Property Rights in Virtual Worlds

With more and more virtual worlds shifting to a free-to-play model, microtransactions and, in particular, selling virtual goods are becoming more popular business models. Independent of the general question of how real-world rights affect virtual interactions, there have already been plenty of legal wranglings over just who owns what in the virtual world. Andrew Schneider (Pres, Live Gamer), Susan Wu  (Principal, Charles River Ventures), Erik Bethke (CEO, GoPets.Ltd), and Greg Boyd (associate lawyer in IP for Paul Weiss) look at the emerging issues.

Liveblogging SXSW - Social Network Coups: The Users are Revolting!

The biggest user revolt of last year was in Digg, but anyone who spends time browsing user forums for virtual worlds knows there's a a near-constant love/hate relationship with the developers. Jeska Dzwigalski (Community & Prod Dev, Linden Lab), Annalee Newitz   (Editor, io9.com), Gina Trapani (Editor, Lifehacker), Jessamyn West  (metafilter.com) look at how to both optimize a revolt and then how to respond to it.  [SXSW]

Virtual Worlds News at SXSW This Weekend and Media Summit Next Week

We're busily getting ready for our own conference (Virtual Worlds 2008, April 3-4 at the Javitz Convention Center in NYC), but the Virtual Worlds Management team is making the rounds this week. I'll be at SXSW Interactive, March 7-11. Though since we're based in Austin, Texas, as well, you can find me here pretty much year round. Let me know if you'd like to get together for coffee and a brief chat or a tour of the best dive bars in town: joey [at] showinitiative.com. Our editor, Chris Sherman, will be at the McGraw Hill Media Summit in New York City from March 12-13. I can't make any promises about his available tours, but he'd be happy to meet up with anyone he's around: chris [at] showinitiative.com. Hope to be hearing from and seeing you.

Liveblogging Worlds in Motion: Striking Gold - How Kids’ Worlds Took the Crown

Kid's worlds are the hot market. [Side plug: Check out Virtual Worlds 2008 for an incredible amount of programming directed at the market.] Veterans Lane Merrifield (Club Penguin),  Paul Yanover (Disney Online), Jason Root (Nickelodeon), and Kyra Reppen (Neopets) talked about what it took to succeed.  A major television network doesn't hurt, but you can still go it alone.

Liveblogging Worlds in Motion: Turbine's Jeffrey Steefel on Balancing Virtual Worlds and Games

I missed the very beginning of the session, so I'm not sure how Jeffrey Steefel, Executive Producer  for Turbine, kicked off, but the bent of the talk was addressing how to make MMOGs more accessibly by, in many ways, looking at the balance between more open, social virtual worlds and traditional AAA MMOGs like Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online. The balance, for Turbine at least, is already more even than you may think.

Liveblogging Worlds in Motion: Nabeel Hyatt (Conduit Labs), TJ Murphy (Warbook/SGN), Mark Pincus (Zynga) on Social Gaming

Ever since Facebook opened its API up to developers to create apps, games, and widgets, indie developers have found success bringing their content to the network's massive audience. Nabeel Hyatt (Conduit Labs), TJ Murphy (Warbook/SGN), and Mark Pincus (Zynga), all working in the field, look at what it takes to succeed when you push your game out on Facebook.

Liveblogging Worlds in Motion: Raph Koster's "High Windows"

Raph Koster was supposed to keynote on why gamers should care about virtual worlds. His question, though, was why should anyone. What dreams have we been missing and how can we get back to them. The point (in a very small nutshell), he says, is that everything we'll be discussing over the next two days is just tools to get to the virtual worlds, and not the point of them. Why do we build theme parks instead of parks? Why do we build clients instead of relationships? And what can virtual worlds do about Darfur?

Liveblogging MetaverseU: Beth Coleman and Parvati Dev with Wm. LeRoy Heinrichs

Beth Coleman is a professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT. Her main interest, at least today, is in ubiquitous computing with augmented reality. Many of the solutions are already here; all we have to do is look for them. Coleman takes us through the examples. Parvati Dev, after leading the Stanford Research Lab, has recently founded Innovation in Learning. LeRoy Heinrichs, still at Stanford, has worked additionally with virtual training in medicine. Together they moved the discussion in a life-and-death direction.

Liveblogging MetaverseU: A Conversation with Brewster Kahle and Henry Lowood on Preserving Worlds

Henry Lowood is driving the preserving virtual worlds project at Stanford and working with the Library of Congress to preserve games and virtual worlds. Brewester Kahle doesn't focus on virtual worlds, but he did, though, found the Internet Archive and helped set up the Wayback Machine-- there's not a much better cred builder for digital preservation. They came together today to talk about digital preservation generally and, because it's MetaverseU, virtual worlds more specifically. From Kahle: "Immortality is something people strive for, even in  virtual worlds." (note: I shifted some sections around to keep the conversation a little more topically organized than chronologically. Hope it helps.)

Liveblogging MetaverseU: TL Taylor, Jeremy Bailenson, Kari Kraus

The second day of MetaverseU had much more of the University in it. While the first day certainly had an academic bent, it also featured  discussions of technology developments, products, and practices. TL Taylor led the second day with a discussion of online embodiment, ranging across game and social worlds. Jeremy Bailenson took a more quantitative approach, quickly running through 9 experiments and studies, looking at identity, avatars, and persuasion. (Amazing and fast!) Kari Kraus then took the stage to look at how people are approaching the preservation of virtual worlds.

Liveblogging MetaverseU: Tony Parisi, Vladlen Koltun, Jon Brouchoud

After a morning discussing the ideas behind virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the future of work, the afternoon featured discussions from a technology perspective of the virtual world. Tony Parisi looked at what steps we need to take to work with Metaverse 2.0, Vladlen Koltun discussed the Stanford Virtual Worlds Group work with Dryad (a very neat collaborative modeling tool), and Jon Brouchoud looked at the tools we use in a social setting can be used to change architecture, the way we work together, and a health facility in Nepal.

Liveblogging MetaverseU: A Conversation with Christian Renaud, Reuben Steiger, and Byron Reeves about Work

To move the conference in a more social direction, the second session of MetaverseU featured an informal conversation between Reuben Steiger (Millions of Us), Byron Reeves (Stanford), and Christian Renaud (Cisco) about the future of work. Reeves researches game-like applications of technology to improve working environments, Renaud helps lead Cisco's development of technology applications for dispersed collaboration (and users it), and Steiger has worked in the virtual world long enough to see the effects first hand.

Liveblogging MetaverseU: Jerry Paffendorf, Mike Liebhold, Ginsu Yoon

To start off the first MetaverseU, we heard from a futurist and start-up entrepreneur,  a researcher focusing on mobile and abundant computation, and the VP of Business Affairs for Linden Lab. Jerry Paffendorf, Mike Leibhold, and Ginsu Yoon discussed their different visions of the future of the metaverse.

Liveblogging the Metaverse Roadmap Project: Big Stage Entertainment

Avi Bar-Zeev says one of his unique qualifications is that he’s worked on both Second Life and Google Earth. Of course, he’s also working for Big Stage Entertainment, which recently demoed facial recognition technology with Intel at CES, as Principal Architect, User Created Content.

“I’m just trying to work on interesting technologies now,” he said. “Find something interesting and then give it 10-15 years, and it’ll get there.”

Participate in the Metaverse U YouTube Project

Henrik Bennetsen, who's helping put together the Metaverse U conference over the rest of the weekend at Stanford, is already roaming the Metaverse Roadmap Project, asking participants the same questions about virtual worlds: what excites them, what concerns them, what predictions do they have, and so on. He wants you to participate at home as well. The end result is to create a time capsule of perspectives on the metaverse from 2008. You can read more about the project here and participate on YouTube here. He hopes to have his recorded results up by the end of the weekend, but things are already pretty busy here. So keep an eye out.

Liveblogging the Metaverse Roadmap Project: Augmented Reality

Following up the morning session on purely virtual worlds, Mitch Kapor (Kapor Enterprises), Mike Liebhold (Institute for the Future), Trevor Smith (Transmutable) led the discussion on augmented reality. Discussions ranged from how to make virtual worlds easier to use (3D cameras), looking at the world through our phones, and integrating the Web with virtual worlds.

Liveblogging the Metaverse Roadmap Project: Virtual Worlds

If you haven't read the outcome of the last Metaverse Roadmap, jump on it. A project of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, last year's event brought together an interdisciplinary group as well as an after-event Web community to discuss the wide potential of the future metaverse. There's not a much better way to start looking at the space. After introductions from Bridget Agabra, Jerry Paffendorf, and Jamais Cascio on the MVR, the first session brought together Sibley Verbeck (ESC), Raph Koster (Areae), Corey Bridges (Multiverse), Eric Rice (EricRice.com) to kick off with 10-minute talks about virtual worlds.

Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo Moves to Los Angeles, To Take Place September 4-5, 2008

We have big changes underway for our big West Coast Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo.  Held last October in San Jose, Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo 2008 will move to Los Angeles and take place September 4-5, 2008. 

Separately, we're gearing up for our annual East Coast event, Virtual Worlds 2008, which takes place April 3-4, 2008 in New York City at the Jacob K Javits Convention Center.  The theme is "A New World Order: The Future of Media and Entertainment"  The event has two tracks: Kids and Teens Worlds and Entertainment Worlds. More on that next week.  Plus the Virtual Law Conference runs concurrently.

Millions of Us Panel in an Hour: "Everywhere and Nowhere - a sense of place in Second Life."

I'm going to be sitting in on a panel in Second Life in about an hour (10am SLT). Hosted by Millions of Us and organized by Celebrity MillionsOfUs, it's titled "Everywhere and Nowhere - a sense of place in Second Life." We'll be talking about the ways virtual worlds cross borders and what issues that raises. You can join us at The New Globe Theatre. My avatar, rather creatively, is VirtualWorldsNews Writer. Feel free to drop by and say hello.

Chinese Virtual Economy to Launch Nov. 8th, VWM's Christopher Sherman to Present at Opening Ceremony

China will launch the Chinese Virtual Economy (CVE) next week at the China International Cultural & Creative Industry Expo (ICCIE) taking place in Beijing November 8 - 11, 2007. Virtual Worlds Management (VWM) Founder and CEO Christopher V. Sherman has been given the honor to present the blessing at the CVE opening ceremony taking place at The Great Hall of the People. (VirtualWorldsNews.com is published by VWM.)  Mr. Sherman is a recognized expert on virtual worlds industry and has helped significantly expand and define the market through his efforts. China Recreation District initially disclosed the plans about the Chinese Virtual Economy at VWM's Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo (VWCE) in October.

Liveblog: Austin Metaverse Meetup and a Conversation about Warb

Joel Greenberg from  Electric Sheep kicked off the evening with thanks to GSD&M Idea City for sponsoring the coffee and drinks and Ellen from Idea City and Peter from Metaversatility for putting it together. We’ve got people from Idea City, Sentient Services, Metaversatility, The Electric Sheep Company, IBM, and general Austin-area metaverse aficionados.

MP3 Recording of Anthony Zuicker's VWCE Keynote Now Available

The MP3 recording of Anthony E. Zuiker's keynote at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo (VWCE) is now available for free download. Zuiker is of course the Creator of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. CSI: NY this week will feature a killer escaping into Second Life - details behind this in his keynote.  This recording also includes the conference intro by Virtual Worlds Management's Chris Sherman and a state of the industry by The Electric Sheep Company's Sibley Verbeck. All conference sessions are available for purchase here in MP3 file format delivered to you on CD-ROM. The recordings are professional, unedited, live recordings that are guaranteed for life.  >> Anthony E. Zuiker's keynote MP3 <<

Updated: Post-Conference News Round Up

After a few days of wishing I could be in more than one place at once, below is a rundown of some of the events, news, and sessions from Virtual Worlds Fall Conference.  If you've got more coverage that you think we should add, just send me an email with a link.  I'll hopefully be adding more from others and myself throughout the week. Updates are posted at the bottom.

Blogging Virtual Worlds Fall: Keynote-Chris Sherman, Reuben Steiger, Christian Renaud

Chris Sherman, Executive Director of the Virtual Worlds Fall Conference and Expo, kicked off the morning by asking how many of the attendees were involved in the virtual worlds industry and how many were looking to get involved, and the audience was split nearly 50/50.  When asked how many had avatars, almost the entire audience raised their hands.

Then Millions of Us CEO Reuben Steiger took over to discuss the “age of the avatar,” a concept that Millions of Us has been pushing as the appropriate way to look at virtual worlds. While Christian Renaud, Chief Architect, Networked Virtual Environments, Cisco Technology Center, was going to discuss the future of virtual worlds, Steiger looked back to the industry’s history.

Blogging Virtual Worlds Fall: Entertainment in Virtual Worlds

The afternoon’s panel on media and virtual worlds kicked off with a question from moderator Jerry Paffendorf: What are your TV-viewing habits and what was your best experience in a virtual world. Only Reuben Steiger, CEO Milions of Us, actually watched TV on the air or cable, admitting that it was “silly amounts of bad TV—I have two kids and no DVR.  Blake Lewin, Vice President Product Development, Turner Broadcasting Inc., admitted the situation was ironic. All were enthusiastic about virtual worlds. That’s one of the common tropes in developing media for virtual worlds: more and more users crave interaction. And studies have shown that virtual worlds users simply replace TV with the online environment. With that in mind, the panel dove into the question of what media representatives need to do to take advantage of the virtual worlds.

Blogging Virtual Worlds Fall: Turner Broadcasting's Virtual Worlds Initiatives

“The living room itself is changing,” said Blake Lewin, Vice President Product Development, Turner Broadcasting Inc. “Media is becoming totally device dependent. Devices are becoming content independent. On my big screen, I’ve got video games, DVR, DVD cable. And users are becoming time independent. People can watch any show any time. There’s a breakdown in the network model and also in the consumption of media. That means Turner has to look at different means of providing programming. One of the ways is virtual worlds.”

Blogging Virtual Worlds Fall: Virtual Worlds in China

“2008 can be considered the year of China,” said HiPiHi Founder and CEO Xu Hui said through a translator,  “With events like the Beijing Olympics, we see increased attention and opportunities in China. We hope to be a part of that.” In a panel on Virtual Worlds in Asia, HiPiHi outlined where virtual worlds had come from in China and where they believed they were going.