WoW wave (noun): The phenomena of online gaming creeping in to the public consciousness evidenced by a deluge of exploratory contacts from journalists, marketing organisations, VCs, TV types, blue chip companies and random others asking what all this online stuff is all about, what it means, what they can do with it, and where the money is.
Ahh it’s just like the mid 90s all over again. Suddenly everyone knows that they have to have a virtual world, or at least be a part of one in some way. Trouble is that they don’t actually know what they are or what being into them would entail.
And WoW as Golf is just one aspect of this. The broader thing that I see occurring is people taking a notion of virtual worlds, generally their idea of what they are or should usually gleaned from third hand experience or some of the media references that are going around, and adapting this to their pre-exiting needs. These being things like brand extension or a need to ‘capture’ an audience.
The potential outcome is an explosion of virtual this, thats and do-dats. The MMO version of blink tags. Worlds that are productised, merchandized, branded and channel marketed. But worlds that are thin. Words that serve the idea of a purpose and are created on mini budgets chasing immediate returns.
I keep saying that no one with a history of MMOs is going to like the mainstream and now I’m more confident than ever.
But I’m sounding too damming. What’s wrong with a world created to serve a product or a brand? It might be a short, narrow experience bereft of the social and ludic complexity of WoW or EvE or ATITD or one of the many others.
But so what?
I like a bag of chips as I walk a long the sea front, I also like dining in Paris. I don’t confuse the two. I know a good fat steaming chip when I see one, a good 3 minute one-hit-wonder when I hear it.
So. Yay for branded worlds, yay for Richard’s vision of worlds as personal expression, yay for boutique worlds and yay for gazillion dollar WoW’s of the future.
Yay for Ren Reynolds! for understanding that a new medium does not have to mean the same things to everyone. A rising tide will often lift all boats. Although I had a mentor that said, "Unless the boats all have holes, and there's not enough bailing buckets to go 'round."
The more worlds there are, the more we'll learn. Bring 'em all on.
Posted by: Andy Havens | Feb 19, 2006 at 18:38
If there are enough bailing buckets, is it okay for the boats to all have holes? =)
Posted by: Michael Chui | Feb 19, 2006 at 21:44
Just invest in automatic electric bilge pumps. That's corporate strategy American style.
Posted by: randolfe_ | Feb 19, 2006 at 22:31
Very good point. The difference between a TV commercial and a multipart movie epic is clear; why not the difference between gamevertising fluff and a rich virtual experience?
Posted by: Mike | Feb 19, 2006 at 23:57
Mike>The difference between a TV commercial and a multipart movie epic is clear; why not the difference between gamevertising fluff and a rich virtual experience?
Ask me this a couple of years ago and I'd have said that the danger would be that some big-brand name comes along, makes a go of a virtual world, screws up big time, and this failure that seeps into the public consciousness - condemning virtual worlds to another half decade of obscurity.
Now, though, I feel we may have passed the point at which the failure of some Coca Cola Kingdom would have had that effect. There are people out there willing to invest who know enough about virtual worlds to recognise them for what they are, not for some marketing opportunity or tie-in or means to monetise geeks.
I just hope we can survive long enough for law-makers to "get it", too, as the damage they could do if they acted from first impressions only is incalculable.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Feb 20, 2006 at 04:23
I'm surprised in looking at some of this that the educational opportunities of a virtual world aren't at the forefront of development. People are willing to put in the work to level in WoW and, I assume, other games. What if the work taught them actual things? Rather than figuring out how to spec their character they spent their time learning astral navigation and basic trig in order to navigate boats to different areas? Or they had to get a grasp of economic theory in order to work the markets?
Home economics is one of those classes that I keep hoping will make a comeback. There's a lack of basic info among a lot of young people: health info, nutriotional info, how to pay off your credit cards. A game like Sims that paid a little more attention to the nitty gritty could easily impart this information. Language learning would probably be pretty easy to figure out how to incorporate as well.
In a fantasyland I'd love to see schools have a virtual world that was grade specific. You're assigned your avatar at a certain grade (4th? 6th?) and it graduated from world to world with you as you graduated from grade to grade.
Obviously some knee jerk fears about gaming and virtual world immersion would have to be overcome for this, I can only see benefits.
Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Feb 23, 2006 at 13:44
Oh there are plenty of game-education and even MMO-education advocates and projects floating about, many of them involving regular posters and authors here.
One fairly obvious place to look might be in seeing how Linden Labs is helping educators use virtual spaces as college-level classroom tools. And, of course, there is the Serious Games initiative, which meets next at GDC next month, I believe.
Make sure Slate's readers know that this is for real and is already happening!
Posted by: Dmitri Williams | Feb 23, 2006 at 15:25
Ren, what was your other idea for sustaining the costs of building and maintaining virtual worlds, if not to have big corporations use this new form of mass media for marketing and advertising?
Were you hoping to swing it with just a lot of sweat equity and utopian enthusiasm like in Second Life?
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | Feb 23, 2006 at 20:33
Ren, re: "But worlds that are thin...."...could you also describe to me a world that you live in, spend time in, and don't just parachute into? Is there a rich world that is compelling for you much of the 24/7, or even 4 hours a day? So that we could understand what you mean by a fat world, and a world that might find other ways of sustaining itself than big corporations and their advertising? I mean, I just don't think Ben & Jerry's are going to be able to swing it.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | Feb 23, 2006 at 20:35
At present commercial MMOs are described by very high fixed costs, very high variable overhead costs, and pretty steep G&A, but extremely high margins for blockbuster winners. Of course, with time technology and technique will bring down these costs, enabling more slow-growth competitors. And there's the whole distribution model barrier...but that will eventually change too.
For the time being it's pretty unlikely that any [commercial] titles will reach blockbuster status except but by the "big release" model.
Posted by: randolfe_ | Feb 23, 2006 at 21:56
Proc >Ren, what was your other idea for sustaining the costs of building and maintaining virtual worlds, if not to have big corporations use this new form of mass media for marketing and advertising?
>Were you hoping to swing it with just a lot of sweat equity and utopian enthusiasm like in Second Life?
I don’t really have ‘ideas’ or ‘hopes’ I’m just observing what I see to be trends. I don’t think that whole world sponsorship models will replace the various forms of revenue stream we see now, I think they will sit along side them.
Posted by: ren reynolds | Feb 27, 2006 at 08:42
Proc > Ren, re: "But worlds that are thin...."...could you also describe to me a world that you live in, spend time in, and don't just parachute into? Is there a rich world that is compelling for you much of the 24/7, or even 4 hours a day? So that we could understand what you mean by a fat world, and a world that might find other ways of sustaining itself than big corporations and their advertising? I mean, I just don't think Ben & Jerry's are going to be able to swing it.
By fat I mean something like WoW. Fat and thin are relative to what we have now. WoW’s fatness comes from things like it’s narrative history. I’m not saying that this is fat in absolute terms but rather the things that I see coming along are thing in comparison.
Think of Coke Studio’s vs WoW.
Posted by: ren reynolds | Feb 27, 2006 at 08:45
I've often wondered if traditional world funding models from volunteer associations like sport teams, charity groups (like the Rotary/Lions/Masonic Lodges) working men's clubs, co-operative associations, trade unions etc might have some relevance.
Basically there would be a model where the alternate world (or online forum) was owned by such an organisation. Funding for the organisation could be through a combination of regular subscription payments, initial high one-off payments (to buy in), volunteer work etc. The problem with this is that it would be hard to get a group together to provide the funds needed to develop a decent AW. I see it more likely if an established AW was going to be closed by it's developer and the players wanted to band together to keep it running.
Posted by: Juan Incognito | Mar 01, 2006 at 21:13