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- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
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Category: Making the Metaverse
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Skittish, Andy Baio's upcoming "playful virtual space for online events" (go here to register for early access) recently added High Fidelity's 3D spatial audio to the platform, so naturally, I had to get a hands-on (ears-on?) demo from Andy — watch above, but maybe turn the sound down a bit due to my overly booming…
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Very good point by Adeon on the importance of mirrors in VRChat, jumping off from Strasz's video, where he notes, "While vision is key, where that vision emanates from [in VRChat] is even more important. We need to believe that it comes from our own eyes, and that the body parts we see are in…
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Here's a handy guide for growing user numbers and engagement in virtual worlds by veteran game designer Alexia Mandeville (High Fidelity, Facebook's Horizon, Niantic), who was last seen on New World Notes offering tips to Linden Lab on growing Second Life. Her specific focus here is the value of collective experiences which start on 2D…
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Chances are you haven’t yet heard of ZEPETO, a cross-platform metaverse from South Korean tech giant Naver, but chances are you soon will — especially in the wake of Roblox’s poundingly successful IPO earlier this week. Here’s just three reasons why: A company rep tells me Zepeto already has 10 million monthly active users, making…
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Above: Image from ROBLOX's stock filing, data from the first 9 months of 2020 As expected, Roblox's IPO today was massive: What makes Roblox different from other online game platforms is that it lets users create their own games on the platform. Developers receive 30% of the proceeds generated from a game, such as the sale…
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Pictured: Alexia in High Fidelity (as a cloud) Rather than write yet again about what went wrong with Second Life way back when, I recently asked veteran game designer Alexia Mandeville what could go still go right. She's in a very good position to offer her perspective: An SL user herself back in the day,…
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Skittish is "a playful virtual space for online events" now in closed beta, the brainchild of beloved tech veteran Andy Baio, a longtime advocate of Internet-driven creativity. As the video teaser above suggests, it combines the whimsical charm of online games like Animal Crossing, with video sharing and other features associated with platforms like Zoom,…
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As Unreal unveiled its new MetaHuman system for highly detailed ultra-realistic avatars, I happened to be chatting with Oculus / Linden Lab veteran Jim Purbrick, who's been thinking quite a lot about the best avatars to use in a social VR space. "Increasing the visual fidelity of avatars raises the expectations for realistic motion to…
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Apple has posted over 40 job AR/VR openings since last August, which more than any recent rumor swirling about, convinces me that Apple is moving into the AR/VR space. But! 40 or so employees is actually not that much amid a company with nearly 150,000 total staff. (And translates to Apple paying these new hires…
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Speaking of creating virtual worlds with in-game modeling/scripting tools, behold: The Core Invitational Game Jam, awarding $120,000 in prizes to games created on the platform. (Think Unreal meets ROBLOX.) Details: Manticore Games, creators of the Core platform for making and playing games, is calling on all indie game devs, creators and modders to apply now…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 