In Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, real life is intertwined with a virtual overlay that permeates all of society. In the book and film based on it, James Halliday co-created the Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation (OASIS) a Massively Multiplayer Online Simulation Game (MMOSG), and its success made him a billionaire. It's hard to imagine now, but we nearly had our own OASIS with an immersive virtual world where every player had an avatar: Second Life.
[h=3]A Brief History of Second Life[/h]Second Life was launched by Linden Labs in 2003 with the promise of a virtual world that went beyond Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). It was a virtual game universe without the game, allowing all its virtual participants to do whatever they wanted. What was perhaps most surprising about Second Life wasn't its promise of a fully-functioning virtual world, but rather that the media believed it:
There were problems of course, not the least of which being that Second Life essentially overlaid another economy -- Linden dollars -- over the reality-based one. Like in the OASIS, avatars came in a wide variety of forms, but avatar customization had at a cost, much as it does now in many online games. These were just some of the issues that impacted Second Life's attendance, which numbered 9 million accounts in 2007...
At its peak, Second Life had 1.1 million users, just one-twentieth of Facebook at the time. It was also the home of several forms of role-play:
The dirty secret of Second Life was that it was known for a different form of role-play:
All this added up to Second Life not quite fulfilling the OASIS-like vision of a new form of Internet for all.
[h=3]The Death of the Dream[/h]In retrospect, Second Life's reason for existence was always more aspirational. It promised a massive virtual platform where anything could be accomplished, but the Internet already fulfilled that need. There were also technical challenges that Linden Labs didn't anticipated like changes in technology; customers moved away from the CPU-intense platforms Second Life required:
And of course, there was social media itself, which provided a layer of virtuality over real life that is more timely, more connected, and easier to use: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. In a sense, we already have the virtual reality Second Life promised, but our social avatars look a lot like ourselves.
[h=3]Could We Ever Have an OASIS?[/h]Second Life never went away. The platform's monthly active user count is just under 1 million -- not much less than at its height. Second Life is also profitable, primarily from virtual goods transactions. In 2010, Second Life purchased Avatars United, a web community that networks online games and virtual worlds together by allowing users to bring their virtual world avatars outside of their home games. Second Life may not have become the future of virtual reality, but it is by no means a failure.
Fans looking for an OASIS-like future will find a more likely candidate in the Oculus VR technology, which was purchased by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014. Facebook announced last year one way it planned to use that technology:
According to Facebook, Spaces is just one percent of what it has planned for virtual reality. But it seems unlikely that the virtual future will involve the clunky headgear we use today -- or even that used in Ready Player One. More likely, it will be a mobile future that scans our faces using our smartphone's camera.
For now, a virtually limitless virtual world where you can role-play anyone is limited to tabletop gamers' imaginations. We're not quite at OASIS-levels of immersion, but perhaps we don't need to be. With the combination of social media and smart phones, we don't need to go to the virtual reality...it's come to us.
Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.
[h=3]A Brief History of Second Life[/h]Second Life was launched by Linden Labs in 2003 with the promise of a virtual world that went beyond Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). It was a virtual game universe without the game, allowing all its virtual participants to do whatever they wanted. What was perhaps most surprising about Second Life wasn't its promise of a fully-functioning virtual world, but rather that the media believed it:
In 2006, the future was Second Life. Business Week put Second Life on the cover. American Apparel, Dell, and Reebok, among many others, rushed to build virtual storefronts. Reuters even created a full-time Second Life bureau chief. People rushed to sign up and create their own avatars. Blue hair and Linden dollars were the future.
There were problems of course, not the least of which being that Second Life essentially overlaid another economy -- Linden dollars -- over the reality-based one. Like in the OASIS, avatars came in a wide variety of forms, but avatar customization had at a cost, much as it does now in many online games. These were just some of the issues that impacted Second Life's attendance, which numbered 9 million accounts in 2007...
...but at even at peak times (4 p.m. Eastern-presumably, the most avid users don't have jobs) there are only 40,000 users logged on. That means the future of the internet is only grabbing enough people to fill a baseball stadium. While that number has been slowly growing, think about this: If just a little under 1 million users have logged in during the last 30 days, that means there are 8 million others who tried Second Life and haven't felt any need to come back.
At its peak, Second Life had 1.1 million users, just one-twentieth of Facebook at the time. It was also the home of several forms of role-play:
There are many destinations within Second Life which are dedicated to those who enjoy role-playing. Some of these are sexual in nature, while others focus on themes such as fantasy, history, science fiction, or other subjects. Many of these types of worlds have very specific sets of rules that each avatar who visits is expected to follow. Such rules can include things such as a dress code, a code of behavior, and world guidelines. If these rules are not followed, the avatar can be booted from the world by a game administrator.
The dirty secret of Second Life was that it was known for a different form of role-play:
Officially, the number of users in "mature" areas is around 5 percent, she says, but this seems hard to believe. Nearly 40 percent of the most popular user-rated places in Second Life are rated "mature"...
All this added up to Second Life not quite fulfilling the OASIS-like vision of a new form of Internet for all.
[h=3]The Death of the Dream[/h]In retrospect, Second Life's reason for existence was always more aspirational. It promised a massive virtual platform where anything could be accomplished, but the Internet already fulfilled that need. There were also technical challenges that Linden Labs didn't anticipated like changes in technology; customers moved away from the CPU-intense platforms Second Life required:
One of the factors that affected the development of Second Life was the emergence of smartphones and tablets shortly after the launch of SL. Suddenly people wanted light weight apps that they could run on these small devices and SL has never been light weight. It runs best on very high powered gaming machines. People began to say that Second Life was "broken" because it didn't work for them on machines it was never meant to run on at all. It was frustrating to those of us that were using the world with no problems because our equipment met the tech specs and we scrupulously did clean installs of clients.
And of course, there was social media itself, which provided a layer of virtuality over real life that is more timely, more connected, and easier to use: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. In a sense, we already have the virtual reality Second Life promised, but our social avatars look a lot like ourselves.
[h=3]Could We Ever Have an OASIS?[/h]Second Life never went away. The platform's monthly active user count is just under 1 million -- not much less than at its height. Second Life is also profitable, primarily from virtual goods transactions. In 2010, Second Life purchased Avatars United, a web community that networks online games and virtual worlds together by allowing users to bring their virtual world avatars outside of their home games. Second Life may not have become the future of virtual reality, but it is by no means a failure.
Fans looking for an OASIS-like future will find a more likely candidate in the Oculus VR technology, which was purchased by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014. Facebook announced last year one way it planned to use that technology:
Spaces is a digital world exclusive to the Oculus Rift that you can share with up to three other people at a time. Create a 3D avatar of yourself and hang out with digital renditions of your VR-capable friends, talking, drawing objects, exploring 360-degree films and taking photos with a selfie stick.
According to Facebook, Spaces is just one percent of what it has planned for virtual reality. But it seems unlikely that the virtual future will involve the clunky headgear we use today -- or even that used in Ready Player One. More likely, it will be a mobile future that scans our faces using our smartphone's camera.
For now, a virtually limitless virtual world where you can role-play anyone is limited to tabletop gamers' imaginations. We're not quite at OASIS-levels of immersion, but perhaps we don't need to be. With the combination of social media and smart phones, we don't need to go to the virtual reality...it's come to us.
Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.
