Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Getting even closer to Second Life's 20th anniversary! I just talked about the topic with FastCompany, who also chatted with Philip Rosedale. Sample:

Three years after Second Life’s launch, another virtual world emerged with a much more guided approach. Roblox also empowered its users to create their own worlds, but put a heavy emphasis on casual gaming. That recipe drew a much younger, but also vastly larger, crowd: At the end of March, Roblox was used by 66 million people every single day. “The reason that Roblox is so big is because it’s basically Second Life, but for little kids,” Rosedale says, somewhat dismissively.

Linden Lab, on the other hand, wanted Second Life to be a place for grown-ups, which is why it tried hard not to be confused with a video game. That was a massive mistake, argues Au, and one that other metaverse platform creators can learn from. Much as in the real world, games function as icebreakers between strangers. “You need some fun activities,” he says. “It should always be a playful, game-like experience.”

Emphasis on "playful and game-like" here; I do not at all necessarily mean MMORPG-style leveling mechanics. As I write in Making a Metaverse That Matters:

This cultural resistance to Second Life not being a game had real consequences which not only hurt user growth, but caused Linden Lab to ignore easy opportunities… The misconception persists today, even beyond Second Life; it is fashionable among many tech evangelists to argue that while the Metaverse may begin with game platforms, it will inevitably slough off its ludic carapace to become an immersive Internet with many multiple- use cases, completely separate from gaming. 

In my view, all this misses a fundamental realization: 

The very act of pretending that 3D graphics are a “world” inhabited by fantastic avatars is itself a game — as primal and basic a rule set as what we formulate on the fly while playing with each other on the playground as kids. 

The grass is lava. Dinosaurs are here and they want to eat us. The pixels on the display screen in front of us are actually a humanoid fox who’s also an officer in Starfleet Command. 

Fixated on turning Second Life into a “3D web,”, Linden Lab lost sight of how virtual worlds and the Metaverse itself are essentially whimsical and playful…

For the same reason that no company has intentionally created a metaverse platform that has reached mass adoption, none has succeeded without a game structure. That ludic framework may be as explicitly gamelike as Fortnite, or as meta as VRChat’s karmic trust system, where continued good behavior earns greater access…

As it happens, games are also the most proven way to satisfy Philip Rosedale’s ultimate goal for the Metaverse to be a platform as openly convivial as Burning Man. For the 80,000 or so souls who attend the Black Rock festival yearly, it may be easy to meet anyone there (most of whom, by a happy coincidence, happen to be various levels of stoned, attractive, and naked). For the rest of the world, it might be a good idea to first play a game together. It’s no coincidence that most Third Spaces, from pubs and bars to parks and beaches, also center games as a primary social lubricant.

Much more here!

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