More Musings on Future of Virtual Environments
First, an apology and a warning! This posting is a bit longer than the average blog posting. Sorry about that.
In the last 4-5 weeks I have spoken at some virtual world events and have also been an attendee at a number of other events that have explored various issues around the future of virtual worlds. I have meant to blog a bit about some of this but have not gotten around to it, but now I decided I would sit down and at least share some ideas and thoughts that are (hopefully) relevant for the NVWN project, and WP4 in particular. And, ideally, it will trigger some reactions, especially among other NVWN project team members, but also of anyone else who reads this and wants to comment.
So here we go. First of all, a few thoughts on terminology—and this was also brought up at our Barcelona meeting, although I am not sure we are (yet) very consistent in how we talk about all of this. I almost used “Virtual Worlds” in the title of this posting, but “caught myself” in the last minute, and used what I think is a preferable term: Virtual Environments (VEs). Ideally, I guess, I probably should also have included “3D” as an adjective to qualify this a bit more, because VEs can of course include just 2D, web environments that are not 3D and as immersive as what we in the NVWN are interested in. But I chose not to insert 3D as I think, hope that it is implicit in our (NVWN) discussions, that this is what we are focused on and interested in.
But having said this, I also want to emphasize a point that my friend Henrik Bennetsen takes great pain in emphasizing over and over again: We should not fall into the trap of always thinking that 3D immersive environments are always the best way. In fact, we should not be talking of 2D or 3D, but 2D and 3D, as we will, probably forever, be dealing with a continuum where 2D and 3D will be valid options, depending on what the user need and applications happen to be. So integration of 2D and 3D will likely be an important piece of the “future of virtual environment puzzle.”
In a recent TrainForSuccess session that Anders Gronstedt organized in Second Life, an excellent discussion and dialog took place, not only between his great panelists—Doug Thompson (“Dusan Writer” in SL of Metanomics fame, among other things), Ian Hughes (who spent many years with IBM doing a variety of cool things around VEs, and now has his own operation in the UK), and Maria Korolov (who is Hypergrid business editor)—but also among a great group of knowledgeable attendees. Below are a few points that I found most interesting relative to our NVWN project and especially with respect to “what lies ahead.” By the way, this was also the theme of a session I attended a few nights ago, as the Virtual Worlds (yes, we still use this terminology!) Special Interest Group of SDForum took place in Silicon Valley (these SIG sessions are great for people in Silicon Valley interested in VEs to get together and share ideas and talk; and at this meeting we also had a visiting delegation of technology entrepreneurs from Singapore so we learned about some very interesting things going on in Singapore.
Some issues and some of my observations and comments on some things from the Gronstedt session:
• Towards Browser-based VEs. Yes, most people are excited about the growing use of 3D in browsers, and virtual event platforms (such as Unisfair, Venugen, InXpo, Vcopius and others) are browser-based and others, like Web.alive, Unity3D and others require a plug-in to enable 3D immersive experiences in the browser. And clearly this trend will enable easier access for novices, and will be especially important for those who don’t have the time for steep learning curves required for many or most client-based platforms like Second Life. But, as Ian noted, even 2D web involves some downloads, and Dusan noted that “Web-based VEs do not hold the keys to the kingdom.” So, much depends on what your needs are, what patience you have, whether you are a quick and willing learner, etc.
• Linden Lab (LL) and Second Life (SL). Anders Gronstedt started the session with a statement that I think (correctly) reflected the current perception of most people after the “upheavals at Linden Lab”, namely that they don’t really support enterprises any more. Dusan took issue with this, and made some clarifying points: Yes, LL has moved away from and may not be selling and supporting Second Life Enterprise (SLE), but enterprise can, in Dusan’s view, still achieve much of what they want on the main grid, especially if they take advantage of Shared Media. Also, he feels LL did not give SLE sufficient time to gain any traction in the market place, so few will really know enough about it to miss it! Everyone who commented in Chat also felt that LL priced SLE far above what most organizations could afford, and that this closed the door for almost all small and medium sized enterprises to use SLE (as a “secure and behind-the-firewall” solution.
• Unity3D and other tools and platforms. Everyone seems very excited these days about Unity3D, and in a talk I had with David Helgason, the CEO of Unity3D (now with HQ in San Francisco as they moved out of Denmark), who expressed surprise that his tool set, which Ian felt was what LL should have produced for SL a long time ago, has gained such interest for “serious applications,” i.e. beyond the gaming industry that they are focused on. Anders has previously held sessions in Unity3D and Kyle Gumbo or Reaction Grid has, I believe, explored integration of Unity3D and his Reaction Grid (in Open Sim; see below). And Anders has a session scheduled for December 2 when Kyle will return, but this time the session will be held in Jibe. According to Anders “Jibe is Reaction Grid’s Unity-based platform. They are essentially creating a Second Life style virtual world offering with Unity, a voice service form Vivox, etc. Similar approach that they are taking to OpenSim.”
• Growing interest in OpenSim. We have been seeing this for a while and Maria Korlovn is tracking its development closely, and has also seen growing number of academic projects move over to OpenSim as SL has closed the Teen Grid. Not only is it open source, and thus inexpensive, but allows for more control by users and developers, including region and content backup that you can’t do in SL. And OpenSim also now is offering a degree of “hypergrid” capability—enabling movement from one OpenSim grid to another (i.e. avatars and content can move between different grids)—as a result of hypergrid protocol that Crista Lopes, Professor at UC Irvine has created. OpenSim still is primarily for those who have some technical capability but growing number of developers are now providing services and assistance for organizations that want to create VEs on this platform. At our SDForum SIG this week, Henrik Bennetsen also noted that some might want to use Sirikata as a “front end to OpenSim” so a range of interesting options may open up.
• General State of Affairs in “our industry.” After LL’s reorganization and decision to focus on consumers, i.e. where most of the money is today, and Erica Driver threw in the towel and decided to pursue other business opportunities, many analysts and users of VEs started questioning where things are going, or not going. But despite some setbacks it seems that there is still a lot going on and we are moving forward, even if we may be taking two steps forward and one back. And Dusan and Ian clearly feel there are exciting things going on, and this will also likely mean that entrepreneurs, operating primarily within VEs or using VEs as tools for what they are doing mostly in physical environments, should see VEs as a set of new tools that they can gain significant benefits from.
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