SXSW 2010 PanelPicker – Making Virtual Worlds And The Web Collide
(Visited 7414 times) Game talk
Aug 272009
I know, everyone and their cousin has a panel up in the SXSW Panel Picker. Well, we at Metaplace do too, and here it is… go vote for it!
SXSW 2010 PanelPicker – Making Virtual Worlds And The Web Collide.
- Description:
- Until now, virtual worlds have been walled gardens restricted to their platform. This panel will explore how virtual worlds are now bridging to the “real,” web world. Twitter interfaces, embeddable virtual worlds and other bridges are opening opportunities for users to communicate and promote to the outside web.
- Questions
Answered: -
- What has the evolution of virtual worlds been in regards to access to the outside web?
- How far have virtual worlds come in opening to the outside web?
- What are the biggest benefits to this bridging?
- Are there downfalls?
- What are some of the case studies of this happening in virtual worlds now?
- How will updates and innovations in browser-based technology further this initiative?
- What does the future look like for virtual worlds in relation to the web?
- Can this opening of virtual worlds to the web be monetized?
- What are the biggest changes in gaming and virtual worlds to come from this?
- How will this affect the non virtual world user?
9 Responses to “SXSW 2010 PanelPicker – Making Virtual Worlds And The Web Collide”
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I’m kind of torn here. I’m not much for walled gardens, but if ever there is an appropriate place for a walled garden, I wonder if it’s in games.
What I mean is, sometimes there are wide open sandboxes and sometimes there are specific elements of gameplay. A game to me is as much about the constraints, the rules and the limitations as anything else. So in a way, they’re supported by walls.
Granted, virtual worlds aren’t always about gameplay, but they are quite a bit of the time.
For me, I’m not torn at all. MMOs need to open up to the web and in a big time fashion. To date, the big ones have been dipping their toes in the water and not much more. WoW Armory, EQ2Players.com are all fine for viewing read only data but what about the player that is at work and wants to adjust an auction house price. The iPhone app doesn’t cut it for this and the walled garden designs seemingly aren’t ready for that level of integration.
For our game, we’re proposing building the game with a nearly completely open web services API that is used to access the world simulation. Of course this bring with it unique challenges in the form of security and attack surfaces, but these challenges have been solved by companies that put much more sensitive data online through web services so games are not different in that regard. Consider the amount of personal data on Salesforce.com that is made available to its subscribers through web services. That’s the degree of integration possibility I’m talking about only salesforce.com is a CRM application and our game is a MMO.
I think the days where the 3D client is the primary head end to a game are coming to an end and in that regard I say it’s about time.
Oh one more thought on that line. I believe that the way to fight player churn going into the future is to make access to the game so ubiquitous in the player’s lives that every other game they try to play leaves them wanting for the information that your game provides at their fingertips. Switching to another game costs the player far more than simply installing and subscribing to another game. All the work they put into their vendor spreadsheet that’s updated daily from a web service is no longer used. All the work that they put into their web site with direct feeds from the game server is now left abandoned. Maybe there’s no iPhone app for managing their crafting business on the new game. The new game doesn’t update Twitter or Facebook the same way or it requires them to create another user id for the game instead of simply using an OpenID that they already have. If you integrate with a pile of outside services, make the world always at their fingertips then switching costs go up dramatically reducing churn or at least reducing subscription churn. They might not play anymore but they’ll keep the account open and pay you simply to keep all the scaffolding they built up and running on the odd chance they want to come back.
[…] Ages of Athiria, I want something different and I eluded to this on his blog post in the comments. Metaplace is a virtual world platform. Ages of Athiria is a virtual world. […]
Derek, curious how far you intend to go with this. I’m just a player, not a developer bone in me carcass. But one of the things I’ve always wanted was real depth in a regional way, in a huge game world. In other words, one aspect would be a running history of “that valley”, or “that side of the river with the desert region”. This means, whatever the players do, or encounter, or unearth, it should be somehow documented. And then possibly used for future happenings.
So a liche rises, is defeated. He may come again. His goals may not change. What is revealed from his first appearance may be important for his later appearances.
With what you are talking about, it’s easy to see that a guild could easily document what’s happened in their region, and then having this available through the game to newcomers. But what happens if this guild goes away? Their web site gone? Do you intend a feature where that guild can send their article to an official archive?
Then have access to that archive through any of the means of connection to the internet?
Same for player run events on the docket?
What about notification of special events? Say there’s a surprise liche attack on a city. Automatic notices in text messages? Could I get a text on my cell phone from someone live in game, through a service for mass notifications?
@Bones – I want to answer your questions but the answer might take me pages to describe so I am going to let it sink in and perhaps I’ll distill a good enough answer for you shortly. The short answer is Yes to your questions as they are all encompassed in a neat little “information exchange” system we’ve prototyped for our game. Since our game almost completely relies on player actions to create local history timelines, it’s very important for us to make sure that the events of that history are recorded and passed down in some fashion.
Well, it seems that exciting times are approaching for games, of all sorts. The current MMO scene seems stagnant, as does all gaming. But I’m not really all that tuned in, just my impression of things.
All this, both Kressilac’s and Raph’s, and looking at all the odd little things going on, that’s where true innovation shines, when people are “going where no man has gone before.”
Exciting times indeed.
Sorry about the name change there @Bones. I didn’t even notice that it happened. Kressilac == Derek Licciardi in case you didn’t get it. The two names are virtually interchangeable for me.
I didn’t even notice, since I know you by both names from following your game site over the years. But the main thing is, I understand what you are shooting for a bit better. And I think it can help move MMORPGs along and into a new, ummm, sphere (?) for players. Moving towards that “next gen”, so to speak.
Just as Metaplace will help move gaming in general into the next sphere, and into an exciting time of exploration in game making. And I expect Metaplace to also have an answer to that problem with the big guns controlling advertising, by it’s very nature. Giving “word of mouth” to the internet in a big way.