Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

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Hypnotic Romance, an SL sim with secluded spaces for couples. Click here to teleport.

The Virtual Worlds Museum. Click here to teleport to their Second Life hub with tribute to sunsetted worlds!

“TV POWWW!” by Tom Boellstorff & Braxton Soderman. Read about the first televised videogame here.

The Fitting Room: Try out new SL fits in a secure, private space. Click here to teleport.

Breedables CoOp, helping the SL pet community grow through shared resources. Go here to get started.

Neal Stephenson: The Metaverse Isn’t Dystopian, the Problem is Monetizing User Data — And We Need Collective Bargaining to Make It Better

December 14, 2021

Really great Kara Swisher interview with Neal Stephenson, who's now on tour to promote his latest novel, Termination Shock. Unsurprisingly, much of their chat focuses on Snowcrash and the Metaverse's white hot influence on current technology. As I wrote last Summer, Stephenson does not (contrary to common opinion), consider the Metaverse dystopian:

Snowcrash is clearly a dystopian novel, although it's kinda poking fun at dystopian novels… the Metaverse I think is kind of neutral, it's certainly part of this dystopian world, but in and of itself, it's just an entertainment medium, it's not inherently bad.

The dystopian potential, he goes on, lies in how social media companies like Meta make money — and their plans to do so in similar ways, in the Metaverse:

They came up with a business model that's not really anticipated in Snowcrash, which is that you can give people a free-to-play application and then monetize their eyeballs and personal data… in retrospect that seems kinda like the obvious play, but I didn't see it coming, necessarily.

So I think that's what we need to be focused on when we're talking about the future of Metaverse-type applications: The business model that is making it possible for people to make money off it.

Instead of allowing that to happen, Neal supports the idea of consumers rallying together, to demand a stake in their future on these platforms:

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Fantastic No-Photoshop Screencaps of Second Life Shot With the Black Dragon Viewer

December 14, 2021

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Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Emeline Laks takes beautiful photos and posts them raw and unedited with the Black Dragon viewer. I love how beautifully she uses light to both unite and separate the two avatars. They are joined by the quality and color of the light, but of course separated by the dark space between them It’s gorgeous and unedited.

For more excellent raw photos, click here:

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Pros & Cons of Real Work Meetings in the Metaverse Vs. Zoom, Slack, Etc.

December 13, 2021

New World Notes readers all being brilliant, there's a good back and forth on the topic of using Metaverse platforms for real world meetings, both pro and con. First here's the Con case from Luther Weymann, who was a successful tech exec before becoming a virtual world fan in his retirement:

People just want to get stuff done efficiently. Which is easier, a Zoom meeting or logging into a virtual world? Why am I looking at avatars when I could be looking at real people? Always a Zoom meeting. Which is more efficient, using web services like banking, paying for your phone, ordering something, or logging into a virtual world to do the same thing? Always the vendor's web service. Which is more sociable, video calling your friends or your mom on your phone or logging into a virtual world and voicing with their avatar? Give me a break! The video call every time. There is a long list of why real-life trumps virtual worlds almost every time.

Now, what makes for a fun hobby? Or a fun way to make some money if you have the skillset? Or if you are single and got nothing to do tonight but watch old TV reruns, isn't a virtual world better than that? Of course, it is. I've been almost daily in SL since my first avatar eighteen years this January 2022. Maybe I don't understand what the future holds.

It seems to me that most humans understand that to get their life things accomplished, it's easier in real life. And to enjoy their downtime, they can try virtual worlds. So, I don't understand how you sell a virtual world as a got-to-use important service.

Fellow reader "lkosov" has a qualified Pro argument in response:

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Top 5 Posts Last Week Including: What Metaverse Weddings Really Look Like (CC: NYT) & a Look at Decentraland’s Real User Numbers

December 13, 2021
In Case You Care, Facebook Horizon Worlds is Here

December 10, 2021

Now in open Beta if you have a Quest 2. I'm maybe cursed by too much knowledge (and don't own a Quest 2 yet), but it looks like Rec Room but with way less user-generated creativity or a leg-less VRChat without the utterly cool ecosystem of community-driven creativity.) But maybe I'm being unfair?

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About 14,000 People Watched Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards in Geoff Keighley’s World in Core

December 10, 2021

I told you about Core hosting a live in-world viewing of Geoff Keihley's Game Awards show which streamed last night, so here's a pretty good data point on user interest right now:

Based on the "total played" count of Axial Tilt (the Core experience where the show was streamed, which also has Geoff in the credits) about 14,000 people showed up for the Awards. (Only a few hundred had played before the show.) That's not too bad, given that Core probably has monthly active users in the mid six figures. It also suggests not many new people joined Core to watch the show from there, but that's not surprising, as gamers are already accustomed to watching it from their streaming option of choice.

Speaking of the Awards themselves:

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Linden Lab Announces Log-In Fix Affecting Third Party SL Viewers

December 10, 2021

I haven't heard back from Linden Lab about users of the Lumiya mobile app having trouble logging in, but this announcement from Alex Linden is probably apropos:

Monday we had login issues preventing certain viewers from logging in to agni. We now have a fix deployed to aditi. If you observed login issues with an affected TPV please take a moment to see if you can login to aditi.

So if you own Lumiya or for that matter any other third party viewer that was experiencing log-in troubles earlier this week, try logging in now and report back here!

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Watch: How VRChat’s Unconventional Design Helped Inspire Its Amazing Creative Community

December 9, 2021

Via Adeon, who knows what's what with VRChat, here's a fairly technical dive into the unexpected miracle of VRChat's design and engineering, based on a year's worth of exploring by tech YouTuber CNLohr. As he explains, many of the development decisions the VRChat team made don't make much sense from a traditional approach, but they were made to enhance the creative freedom of the platform for the user.

As that suggests, it also features a slew of great footage of user-created wackiness, inventiveness, and deep social engagement. Speaking of which, the breathtaking, ever-changing world he mentions at the start, Treehouse In The Shade, can be accessed here.

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Dear New York Times: Here’s What Stylish Marriages in the Metaverse Actually Look Like

December 9, 2021

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

It’s not my place to mock anyone’s wedding photo, even if that photo is featured in the New York Times, but I certainly feel free to mock the New York Times’ Style section touting this particular virtual wedding service. (Pictured at right — seriously.)

Even with images from the days of system layers and flexi, Second Life wedding photos are so much better. (Unsurprisingly, Second Life also has a thriving industry of virtual wedding planners, which I wrote about for Avenue magazine.)

I thought I might collect a few pictures from Second Life, in case the couple from the Times article ever decides to do a vow renewal. Like the couple in the picture below, celebrating their first year with an epic ceremony. (It was posted by the bride Anna Katherine, who hired a team of photographers for the event.)

Second Life also has a great variety of weddings, not just the traditional formal Western ceremony. Here is a beautifully vibrant “Big Fat Indian Wedding”:

It’s by Cereza Chan, an events photographer. She has shot more than one wedding, and this one is gorgeous.

For more gorgeous examples of SL weddings, click here:

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The Trouble with Blockchain-Based Games More about Money Than Fun

December 8, 2021

Good question and concerning answers (if you're a blockchain/NFT booster) from Philip:

Can anyone point me to a blockchain-based game that is being played without the goal of making money?

— Philip Rosedale (@philiprosedale) December 7, 2021

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Besides a few small startup games mentioned there, the thread has few answers. Someone brings up Decentraland, but as I noted last Tuesday, there are far more people invested in that virtual world (100,000+), than actually play it on a regular basis (peak concurrent users under 2500).

With very few (any?) exceptions, games/virtual worlds with a core focus on making real money simply don't succeed on a mass scale. (Hello, Entropia.) Even more concerning, when a money-making game does succeed, it then becomes part of how some players literally put food on their table – making its success and sustained operations an even more crucial thing.

Which reminds me to mention Axie Infinity, one of the few (only?) successful blockchain-based games on the market now. Which very poor people in the Philippines now depend on to survive.

Seriously. Watch below:

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