Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- 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!
about
Category: Virtual Reality
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Some readers have pointed out an apparent discrepancy in my post about the NSF-funded Iowa State University study on VR and gender that I covered last week: The University's summary characterizes the gender difference in stark terms: The study found that the women test subjects ended a VR game early twice as often as men,…
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As I recently noted, an Iowa State University study funded in part by the National Science Foundation seems to confirm danah boyd’s early research that virtual reality tends to make women nauseous: As part of a larger study on adaptation to cybersickness, the ISU researchers recruited 150 participants to play up to 20 minutes of…
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This week we're seeing many stories marking the 10th anniversary of Facebook/Meta's acquisition of Oculus, with some wondering why the VR device (later rebranded as the Quest), hasn't changed the world as expected. Maybe I missed it, but none of these articles have mentioned nor even asked Meta about the vomitous elephant in the room:…
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Watch this cool new VR prototype from Philip Rosedale and his son August, the latest project from his new studio, dubbed IRL (for In Reality Lab). As you can see in the video above, this is virtual reality without a head-mounted display, powered by massive high definition display screens, and an apparatus that keeps the…
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We’re thrilled to share that our original #WebXR game, The Escape Artist, has picked up some @webxrawards noms: Experience of the Year, Game of the Year, Entertainment Experience of the Year, and Developer of the Year! pic.twitter.com/0ZN7nG4Y7x — Paradowski Creative (@paracreative) January 26, 2024 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Update, 3/3: Event is over but awards are announced on…
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Tantalizing new tidbit from the largely reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and MacRumors: While there was speculation about how many people only bought Vision Pro to experience it before sending it back it at the end of the 14-day return window, he estimates that the current return rate has dropped to just 1%… Kuo said that…
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This is a pretty important study from the University of Bath adding some academic weight to what we see in the marketplace: When it comes to virtual experiences, player emotion and agency (i.e. the ability to meaningfully interact in the world) is more important than graphical realism or immersion (field of view): Field of view…
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Above: From Meta VR's Terms of Service Since Mark Zuckerberg is currently doing a viral comparison of the Apple Vision Pro with his Meta Quest line (watch below), I checked in with VR expert Avi Bar-Zeev, who recently tried to a side-by-side review of his own. He hit some small problems on set-up, unfortunately: "Sorry,…
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Meta just reported that its XR division Reality Labs earned $1.07 billion in Q4 2023 for sales of its new Quest 3 headset ($499), along with its Quest 2 ($299), Ray-Ban "smart" glasses, and revenue from its Quest store. So now it's time to play everyone's favorite napkin math game: How many Quest 3s were…
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I'm helping develop a VR action game with unique/experimental gameplay mechanics (but don't tell anyone yet), and put together these rough sales estimates of virtual reality games which fit that category on Steam and Quest: Blades & Sorcery: 4,250,000 copies sold at $19.99 Bonelab/Boneworks: 3,200,000 copies at $39.99/$29.99 Ghosts of Tabor: 705,500 copies at $19.99…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 