2007 Predictions Review

Well, I seemed to have missed one minor prediction for 2007, but it is still time to review the rest.  Read on to see how I did in 2007.  Did I surpass last year's 0.500?

1) Intel and AMD’s battle in the MIPS/watt game will take servers below 30 watts/core

• 1 for 1.  Per core TDP is now below 16 wats/core and about to plummet again.

 

2) Second Life’s peak concurrency, currently at 25,000, will reach 150,000

• 1 for 2. Second Life was on track for this for the first 4 months before growth slowed. However, concurrency is still at 60,000, making it the largest single shard world.

 

3) Graphics cards will be released with small batch rendering and unified texture memory thanks to John Carmack and others

• 2 for 3. While those specific changes aren't exactly what happened in 2007, thanks to the FPS community, DX10 class cards are worlds ahead of where they were a year ago for rendering highly dynamic scenes.

 

4) A Second Life development company, such as Electric Sheep or Rivers Run Red, will surpass 100 employees

• 3 for 4.  At least 3 solution providers exceeded 100 employees during 2007.

5) Exchanges within MMORPGs and virtual worlds will still not be taxed until converted into real-world currency

• 4 for 5. W00t!

 

6) At least one Presidential candidate will use Second Life to build a community around issues rather than simply holding a single press conference

• 4.5 for 6. This is a tough one. On the one hand, many candidates have had multiple events and built communities within SL, but I haven't seen a real commitment to building an ongoing issue discussion. On the other hand, NPR's Science Friday and SciIslands have built an ongoing, regular science discussion, use of SL to host global warming discussions is heating up. So, giving myself a half-right.

7) AACS will get pwned and at least one major Hollywood studio will experiment with downloading unencrypted DVDs

• 5 for 7. Well, AACS got pwned multiple times and some independent studios have non-DRM download services, but no major studios, so half-right.
  

 

8) Relay for Life will raise over US$200k in Second Life this year

• 5 for 8.  Relay for Life raised over US$120k, so I'm still thrilled for their success.

 

9) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will have more US$ sales on its release day than any book, movie or video game in history

• 6 for 9. HPatDH sold over 11 million copies in the first 24 hours. Even assuming a discounted US$18 average sale price, that passes Halo 3's US$194 million first day.

 

10) Dmitri will agree that I have won my quarter by the end of the year

• 6 for 10. Sadly, the one I really wanted to win. On the plus side, I'll get to teach with Dmitri down at USC in the spring, so that makes up for it somewhat.

So, back to 0.600 for 2007!

Separately, thank you to everyone who's been in contact about my post-Linden plans.  Short answer is that I don't know yet, but stay tuned over at my  blog,  collapsing geography.

Comments

[Lisa Galarneau]

1.

FYI... regarding prediction #8, 2.5 million Club Penguin kids gave their virtual money to charity in the 'Coins for Change' event this month, and the devs gave away $1 million based on the kids' response... more here ... I think the key to improving your average, Cory, is being a bit less specific... 'virtual world philanthropic activity results in charitable donations of $1 million or more'. Can we run a tally next year? Shall we say $10 million? :-)

[Darniaq]

2.

Good point Lisa, about loosening the specificity.

I would also steer clear of the politicians using virtual worlds for real dialog. They don't do that in the real world :) I would expect more virtual presence from them in a non-Townhall/non-stumping sorta way, like Bill Clinton on Arsenio Hall.

I can see a scripted battle between NPCs in WoW between two or more suspiciously-familiar-sounding names, for example :) But few companies can pull that off. It's harder to go from serious to tongue-in-cheek than to always be there.

I can also see more posters in everything from Kaneva to Hellgate: London of whoever wins the primaries.

But in the end, as many people playing now versus a few years ago, it's just much more effective to get one-sided messages out to the truly huge masses out there.

I'd also be interested in any statistic that shows any adjancency between people who actually vote and people who spend their hobby time in virtual worlds. I don't know that I think it'd be that high.

[dmx]

3.

I only had one real prediction, that Second Life would experience a huge backlash as people woke up that the idea of serious business in computer games was a waste of corporate productivity. I *think* I was vindicated on that point.

[Kevin!]

4.

I'd like to hear about *why* Cory thinks SL growth slowed to a crawl. After all, much of his academic work is dependent on the inevitability of a growing Virtual World based on the (then) exponential Second Life experience.

If Second Life becomes a large-but-stagnant hangout for technophiles and sexual deviants, then this strikes a huge blow for the real-world importance of virtual worlds. Considering the recent stagnation, it seems like this failed predication is pretty key.

[greglas]

5.

I'd like to hear Cory's thoughts on that as well, if he's free to give them (and I'm not certain that's true.)

My guess is that it has had something to do with casinos and some more sour media coverage. But I'm all ears.