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What if there was a virtual world that looked an awful lot like the world right outside your window? A photorealistic world where skyscrapers towered above your head. One where every window you see really has a room behind it. What if accessing this world was as easy as pointing your Web browser or even your cell phone to a site that hosts this information – with no software to install at all? Sound to good to be true? Well, it very well might be true.

LivePlace.com briefly had a video showing such a place on their site. The video was taken down not long after TechCrunch found it and contacted one of the apparent owners of LivePlace.com, Brad Greenspan (he is one of the co-founders of MySpace).
However you can still see this incredible video at TechCrunch’s site, located here.

Not only is this world stunning in its looks (it really is quite realistic looking) but the claim is made that it requires no software installation to run. This would mean near-universal access, with Windows, Mac and Linux all able to access the same world.
Additionally they claim everything is rendered in real time. So what does this mean? It means that the world is not a static one that is simply waiting for people to see it. It is literally being drawn and redrawn as people access the world, make changes to it and even simply walk around it.

Normally this takes a lot of computing power on the part of the user. However, the technology that they are using means that the rendering is done on their side of things and requires little computing power on the part of the device accessing the world. That is why they claim that even a web-enabled cell phone could visit.

It would be easy to see how a world this realistic with this level of accessibility could break virtual worlds right into the mainstream. This could be a massive breakthrough. Assuming that this is whole concept is real.

Of course, this video was posted on their site with no real context. No one from LivePlace is talking and the video is now gone. So for now, we just have to hope that this glimpse into the world is real. Until then, this is just a cool video showing us what virtual worlds might be like in the months and years ahead.

Note: This was written by me and originally posted at the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds

In movies and television there is an idea known as “product placement.” In addition to hitting you with advertisements your favorite characters in movies and TV are drinking coca-cola and eating McDonalds, not to mention using a Macintosh computer.

The result, the advertisers hope, is that you too will use these products. Not just because your favorite actor is using it, but because it is an everyday object – something that you see all the time and therefore become conditioned to think of as “normal.” If, for example, you see everyone on TV using Macs you might assume that in the real world a huge number of people are using them too. This might then, in turn, get you to want and perhaps buy a Mac.

This same strategy is also used in Virtual Worlds. Second Life and There.com , for example, are huge pervasive worlds that also have a lot of real-world products in them. Avatars can wear K-Swiss shoes, for example. In this way, it has the same effect as it does in movies and on TV – while walking around these worlds you see people wearing those K-Swiss shoes. You might then later see that same shoe in a real-world store and decide that you want it. It looked cool in the virtual world, so why not this one? Or perhaps your avatar uses that shoe and you want it so that you can match your avatar. Whatever the reason, you find you want it.

Recently There.com has signed deals with 4 new retailers.  What is making these entries interesting is that they are not building giant islands or areas devoted to their products. Rather they are making these products available for avatars to buy or get through other means in the virtual world in general. No need to go to K-Swiss Island – they are not going to have one. Instead, you can go to a shop on There.com and get the shoes.

The buying experience will feel more real as a result. This form of advertising may prove to me much more successful, as a result, than devoting an entire island to Coca-Cola (as Coke in fact did on There.com).  This, then, is much closer to what is already being done in movies and on TV.

Others have also tried this in the past and I feel this is a better route to take. After all, a McDonald’s themed world or portion of a world doesn’t interest me in the slightest. However, integrate everything into the existing virtual world, rather than creating a whole new area or world, seems smarter and makes the experience feel more realistic. Realism, odd as it may seem to some, is what people are going for in places like Second Life and There.com.

Note: This is written by me and originally posted at the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds

Believe it or not, there is a segment of society that makes a living (or at least a side-job) gathering items in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) and then selling them for real money. So, for example, they might gather up tens of thousands of in-game currency (typically “gold” and “platinum”) and then resell it to other players too lazy to gather the money themselves or just too rich with actual cash to know what to do with it.

This “industry” has been around quite a while now. At first, it started with actual players who had created an avatar who had a lot of items and cash that were either leaving the game or just wanted to make some extra bucks. A former co-worker of mine did just that on Asheron’s Call back when that game was at its peak in popularity. He sold off his money, weapons, armor and characters for real-world money. He earned enough to buy a nice car with the money. That is correct: He bought a car by selling fake, in-game items.

Now, however, this has turned into an industry that makes money; A lot of money. A recent study done by Manchester University puts the money earned as high as $500 million dollars. Games like World of Warcraft, Everquest, and Lineage are all plagued by this problem.

The study also admits that because this selling of gold and items is, at best, border-line legal the number could be much higher.

These “gold farmers” (as these people are called that gather up in-game money only with the intent of selling it later) are in laborers coming out of China. These “farmers” are paid about $150 per month to gather up gold to resell for actual money. It is believed that there are 400,000 such people employed world-wide with 80% coming from China.

Now, being caught engaging in such activities does mean that the account-holder loses their account. But it is hard to prove, particularly if they are selling via a parent-company.

Anyone who has spent any amount of time playing MMOs knows about gold farmers. They send in-game spam shouting about how they have money and in-game items to sell cheap. They send out e-mail spam as well. So knowing that this happens is not a surprise. Seeing how large it is, however, comes as a huge shock.

In my mind it was one thing when my former co-worker sold off his on-line stuff and bought a car. He didn’t play the game with that intent – he was just done playing the game and thought it would be a great way to get some extra cash. No harm done, just some people with more money than sense bought his stuff and all sides were happy.

However, this gold-farming as a profession takes the concept too far. These are not people playing for the enjoyment of the game. These are people playing as a career to raise money and items for other people who for whatever reason want the cool stuff more than they want to actually play the game.

Worse, it is turning into some kind of sweatshop in developing nations.

So is there a solution for this problem? Not really – trading items in-game (for other in-game items) is a legit and large part of any MMORPG. So policing this by the game companies becomes difficult. Perhaps they could monitor those that seem to be trading too often?

But beyond that, those that play the games need to take responsibility and not buy items like this. Get the items through in-game trade or by playing the game. Purchasing powerful items, in-game currency and even high-level avatars just wreaks the game for everyone else (and believe me, everyone knows who you are when they see you, a level-50 guy, asking how to do basic tasks) and is now, officially, socially irresponsible.

Note: This was written by me and originally posted at the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds

Second Life has been used for a lot of things. It has been used by IBM to hold meetings, or for architectural organizations to create test homes or to sell products or test market products. Now, however, it is being used for another purpose that I must admit, never would have occurred to me: To train Border Guards.

Canada is now using Second Life as a training tool for their border guards. As you can see in this amazing video, they have set-up a simulated border crossing where the guards-in-training ask the person attempting to cross the same kind of questions they would ask in a real-life situation.

So rather than just hearing about it in class and then taking a test based on it, now they get a hands-on look at what it is really like, but without endangering the border by having the trainees at real crossing stations.

So has this been successful? Since implementing this program students taking the “interview skills” portion of the test have shown great improvement. The average score went from 58% on that portion of the test to 86% - a 28% improvement. That is a huge improvement.

Clearly using Second Life as a training tool is working exceptionally well in this case. I am sure that other nations are following this news closely and I have no doubt that others will soon follow down this path.

Once dismissed as something for “geeks” and “just a game”, virtual worlds are again proving their worth in the real world. Now they are even helping to protect our borders.

Note: This was written by me and originally posted at the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds

In most all virtual worlds it is possible to own virtual property. That can come in the form of virtual land, clothing, furniture a house even a virtual-based business. Some people end up with a lot of virtual property that in real-world dollars adds up to a fair sum.

So what happens when someone dies in the real world, leaving behind all of this virtual property? Considering that people actually make a living selling items in these virtual worlds, this is becoming a serious issue.

Swedish-based Mindark is looking at this very issue. They are looking at arranging wills for people that play their game. To be clear: These are real wills – not virtual ones. That way property in their virtual world goes somewhere without legal wrangling over a virtual estate.

Yes, we have reached this point.

“There is land in the game of considerable value, which if the player would die, is uncertain who would claim [it],” says project manager Carl Uggla.

That is true. What is also true is that if there is something of considerable value, governments want to tax it.

Enter: The Swedish IRS.

They are looking to tax virtual items. Not just real money made from those virtual items, but the virtual items themselves BEFORE they are even turned into real world money.

I must admit, the Swedish tax code is certainly tech-savvy!

The Swedish IRS says that in doing this it “validates” the business. I guess this means businesses that are not taxed are not valid. I am sure all of those non-taxed businesses are quite sad to hear that.

I understand taxing actual dollars made from the virtual world businesses but taxing virtual dollars?

I guess it is true what the late US President Ronald Regan once said about government’s role in business, “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

I can only hope the other governments of the world are not looking to Sweden for leadership on this. Otherwise I can only imagine the “fun” new tax forms as World of Warcraft players try and figure out if their Sword of Corruption is tax deductable because they earned it while playing the game at their day-job.

Note: This post was written by me and originally posted at the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds

The purpose of this weekly blog post is to introduce the concepts of virtual worlds to those that have never used them, or perhaps even really heard of them. It isn’t intended to get more people to join those worlds or even to provide, necessarily, the latest and great news in the virtual world universe. It is just meant to be informative and hopefully entertaining.

I have explained before why people use virtual worlds. Yet, even still people will look at me wide-eyed (yes,I can see you when you read these posts) and wonder how people can involve themselves in worlds like this. I mean, isn’t the real world enough? What do people get out of these worlds? So let me profile another type of user of virtual worlds. One that you might be able to better relate to.

Ask yourself this question: Have you ever belonged to an organization of like-minded people? Be it the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts when you were younger (or even now) or a professional organization. If you have been (and odds are excellent you have been or are at one point in your life) ask yourself why. The answer is going to be comradeship, networking, to learn new skills – or a combination of all of them.

Virtual Worlds are much the same way. In Second Life, like-minded people from around the world – not just your local area – meet and talk about a variety of topics. Anything from architecture to last night’s math homework, people get together and share ideas, learn new things and even make friends. Just as you would at any other group meeting that was face-to-face.

Oh sure, meeting people face-to-face creates a deeper connection with that other person. There is no doubt. But that isn’t always possible – and the trade-off is that, on a regular basis, you can meet with people from around the world. Typically in an organization – even one with a world-wide reach – this only happens once a year at some big conference. Even then it is only the membership with the time and money to make such an event. Second Life and other such virtual worlds eliminate the money aspect and help mitigate the time part by making meetings faster and allowing them to happen more often.

Still not convinced? You might point out that Second Life isn’t exactly known for being the place where “business gets done” - it is perhaps more known as an … adult emporium let’s say. That is true. That certainly exists there. I am not claiming that any virtual world is perfectly mature (both in terms of platform and its users), however Second Life is being used by companies like IBM and Cisco to do business.

Even World of Warcraft could be considered the new golf. Well, ok, maybe not. However, just talk to the folks in the IT department where you work. Ask them all to honestly tell you if they play WoW or Halo on-line. The one that doesn’t raise his hand is a liar. You shouldn’t trust that person .  I am kidding of course, but you will find a huge percentage do. What might surprise you even more is to ask this same question of the people in your marketing department or accounting and see all of the hands that go up.

Sure ideas are not being traded off while playing that game, but there is still a sense of friendship being formed and it gives people something to relate too, much as golf did and still does.

Virtual worlds remain alien to a lot of people. Hopefully this and other postings will continue to give you insight into why people use them and how they are being used. Perhaps you might even take a look yourself – just to check it out.

Note: This post was written by me and originally posted at the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds

A growing part of the virtual world market is niche virtual worlds. While worlds like Second Life will take anyone and cater to many diverse interests, others are built around a specific interest right from the start.

What is the advantage to doing it that way rather than be all-inclusive?

While Second Life and others might have those niche things within them, they also have a lot of other things. So everything is a bit thin on the ground so to speak. Niche worlds, on the other hand, are filled with like-minded or at least like-interest people. So while they might be smaller overall they will have more people in a given subject area.

For example, Muxlim.com is launching a virtual world within a couple of months. This will be built for people of the Muslim faith. Currently Muxlim is a social network that brings Muslims around the world together to discuss news, events and other items important to Muslims everywhere.

With the launching of their own virtual world they hope to bring this virtual reality to Muslims in nations that might not normally have access to Second Life and other broad virtual worlds due to content and other restrictions.

That is just one example, there are others like Barbie Girls - which is exactly how it sounds: A virtual world for little girls based around Barbie dolls. This is not a small site either - in its first three months of existence it hit over 3 million users.

Perhaps you are really into creepy-looking dolls. If so, there is a virtual world for you! The Doll Palace let’s users create dolls and interact with each other with them.

So if you are considering jumping into a virtual world and are worried at the size and scope of what is out there, don’t worry - there is a virtual world out there for you!

Note: This was written by me and originally posted at the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds

I have discussed virtual crime in the past. The theft of virtual items being the most common. But now we have tales of a lover spurned leading to a murder. And another tale of money laundering through a Korean crime syndicate.

Recently a woman in Japan murdered her husband. Not in the real world mind you, but online. In fact, it appears she wasn’t even married to the man in the real world, just in the game. However, her anger was just as real as if it were a real divorce.

After finding out she was divorced in the game “Maple Story” – apparently with no warning – she went into a rage. Using the login information for her virtual spouse’s account that she got during happier times she logged in and had her “ex” commit suicide. Her former virtual husband was quite shocked to find that his avatar was dead when he next logged in. So he called the police.

Now the woman has been arrested and is facing very real world consequences for hacking into his account. She could be in prison for up to 5 years for this offense.

As to the money laundering. I wrote in a previous article about how there are giant “gold farming” rings in China where near-slave labor is used to gather in-game currency from games like World of Warcraft to then sell that virtual currency to gamers for very real dollars.

Well, it took another turn this week as a large group of Koreans were arrested for helping the Chinese launder the money. Using Korean bank accounts and investing (hilariously) in a paper company the money was moved internationally and kept hidden from authorities until now.

The amount smuggled? $38 million. This is real money folks. The Korean bank account holders took around 3% – 5% of the total take. So at least their fees were reasonable.

Virtual Worlds might be “fake” but as these people are all about to learn, the consequences of their actions are very real.

Note: This post was written by me and originally posted on the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds

Drew Carey recently created a video all about Second Life. In this video he not only shows all of the cool things people can do in a virtual world like Second Life but he interviews some of its more famous citizens.

Additionally he points out how Second Life is a world where people get near-absolute freedom. Has this created anarchy? No. Instead people generally get along quite well. People that want violence can go to an area that has it. People that want to dress like a rabbit can go to an area that has that. People that don’t like those things just don’t have to go to those areas. It is pretty simple.

So check out this video, it is informative and quite entertaining.

Note: This post was originally written by me and appeared on the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds

For all of the success stories with virtual worlds, there are many more failures. Typically, when a virtual world fails, the servers are shut down and those (typically few) fans of the world are left to look for a new world.

But what happens when those fans are truly passionate about the virtual world in which they resided? In some cases, those fans resurrect the world on their own.

Google shut down their virtual world, Google Lively, a few months ago. While there was not enough interest for Google to continue on with the project, those that were interested have started NewLively – a virtual world based on Google’s Lively. This world looks and acts much the same way as the original Lively. Based in Beijing, China NewLively can’t do everything that Lively could do (such as work within Facebook) but it duplicates a lot of the other features.

This isn’t the first time fans of a VW have decided to relaunch something similar in order to keep enjoying what they had with this original world. When Disney closed their Virtual Magic Kingdom, a group of fans quickly put together a new version called Virtual Family Kingdom. It has many of the same features, just with any Disney references removed. Otherwise it is very similar to the original game.
It isn’t always the case, however, where fans recreate the world from scratch. Sometimes they are helped along by the developers.

MystOnline: UruLive was shut down in 2008. The small group of very loyal fans were quite upset by this announcement. However, a few short months later the developer, Cyan Worlds, has announced they would release the source code to the virtual world to the public. By making it open source, the fans can easily create their own worlds based on Myst. No need to reinvent the wheel. The developers had initially thought that they would try and restore it themselves at a future date, however the downturn in the economy got them thinking that perhaps there was another way: Just let the fans control and create the virtual worlds themselves.

So, if your favorite virtual world shuts down, have some hope. A group of fans just might bring it back for a second chance.

Note: This post was originally written by me and appeared on the Rising Tide blog.

Matthew Virtual Worlds