Once again it is time to review my predictions from last year. I attempted to reach a bit more as it seemed inappropriate to be batting over .500. How did I do?
1) A winning candidate in the 2006 US Congressional elections will have campaigned in an MMO or virtual world
Nope. Came close in some ways and it looks like we'll be seeing more interest going forward, but this didn't happen. 0 for 1.
2) Apple's share of the PC market will double to 5%
And then some. 1 for 2.
3) Second Life's peak concurrency, currently at 5000, will reach 20,000
Barely but we did it. Perhaps more interesting is that we had only reached 5k by asking our residents to log in at the same time, so our actual concurrency was more in the 2 to 3k range. Thus our concurrency, like several other published metrics grew by nearly an order of magnitude in one year. 2 for 3.
4) WoW will end 2006 with fewer players than it has today
I think this was wrong, but I haven't seen any recent WoW numbers. Anyone know? 2 for 4.
5) Peter Ludlow won't send me an autographed copy of "Only a Game"
Sadly, I'd have happily lost this one if I got the signed book. Instead, 3 for 5.
6) A Second Life resident will begin selling a service for exporting SL items to a Fab Lab (such as Berkeley's Squid Labs) in order to create them in the real world
At least one that I know of. 4 for 6.
7) A Virtual Research Foundation, based in a virtual world or MMO, will be created to gather games and virtual world research, create research standards, and provide funding to researchers
Alas, this didn't happen yet, although Ted got some great funding to build a game, which is very cool. We'll see what 2007 holds. Hopefully it will be like my prediction about real-time collaboration in a CAD tool, which came 3 weeks late for me last year. 4 for 7.
8) The US Democratic Party, in an attempt to capture the "family values" vote, will demonize games during the 2006 election cycle
Wrong. Although there was some of this, it was not a driving issue in the elections. 4 for 8.
9) A business or service in a virtual world will successfully file for a trademark
Lots of rumors about this but I haven't heard of any that were completed. 4 for 9.
10) A Terra Nova author will testify before Congress about virtual worlds
Dmitri ftw! 5 for 10.
So, .500 for 2006. Next week I'll post my fearless predictions for 2007.
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