Podcast – TLDL (where L is for Listen) – here are some highlights from the conversation. Podcast is here
James au Wagner, best selling author of The Making of Second Life (Harper Collins) and more recently Making a Metaverse that Matters (Wiley) joined co hosts Dirk Lueth, co-ceo and co-founder of Upland, and Dean Takahashi, gaming journalist to talk about all things metaverse.
Snowcrash provided a blueprint for developers
Wagner agrees that the book Snowcrash by Neil Steveson genuinely provided developers with a blueprint to build. “It was a reference guide,” he says and he reckons it even inspired the developers of Roblox.
Wagner says there is no real definition for the metaverse: “Nobody can say with clarity what it is or what it isn’t. Having said that some metaverse platforms are even bigger than Stevenson could have imagined – consider the 14 billion users on Roblox or the Travis Scott event that attracted 12 million people.”
The metaverse is diverse and serendipitous
Wagner remembers giving a talk after his first book came out and he randomly clicked an avatar in Second Life of this ‘little old black dude playing blues guitar’. When Wagner clicked on the bio of the character he discovered it was a real life musician, Charles Bristol, who was in his 80s. Somehow he just ended up in the metaverse and that’s what makes the metaverse so diverse and serendipitous.”
He also acknowledges that the level of computing required to execute Star Trek-like holodecks where the characters can instantaneously change worlds is a long way from the current metaverse experience.
The metaverse does not need hyper visual graphics
“It’s also worth noting that visual fidelity is not the main driver for users signing up for games such as Roblox or Fortnite. Instead, the responsiveness of the physics is more important. Consider Minecraft – it’s huge largely because of the fact users can create content that is responsive to the real world. It doesn’t have to have hyper real graphics.
“Sometimes with hyper real 3D graphics you can run into a lot of issues, what I call the immersion photo (or follow?), because only a small percentage of people actually enjoy fully 3D immersive experiences all the time. Often people prefer abstract representation where they still have powerful creative tools.”
Wagner sees two main barriers to mass adoption – one of which is the immersion issue and the second is that usage falls off by age, typically sharply after the age of 24 years. He believes presentation is more important than hyper visual fidelity. He has questioned many gamers, especially children, and discovered that they really want an avatar that is not like themselves per se but it can be different and they can explore different aspects of their personality.
Go slow on monetization – build your community first
One key message from Wagner is that metaverse is all about communities having powerful tools. “However, while monetization is important, you don’t want to introduce it too quickly. You need your community to thrive on creativity before you even think about money.”
Wagner contracts the success of Roblox over for example Decentraland and Sandbox. “Their first motivation was monetary which has limited their user growth because the early adopters were people hoping to make a profit. A lot of the developments have become like ghost towns as a result.
These platforms attract more spectators than users.”
Sometimes success online is gaming. “Maybe that is a more real way to look at the metaverse – or not to even call it the metaverse. Consider a virtual world with millions of active users using highly customizable avatars and creation tools integrated into a real world economy. There’s a chap in Japan who connected his VR chat with a giant robot so he could steer the robot with a VR chat. That’s a very distinct action, but it’s also not the same as gaming. And in many games you can’t create.
User generated content for modding is the future
“I see a future where open source versions of popular games such as GTA which allow for UGC and mods that will keep it popular and growing.”
Wagner recently saw a young girl in her twenties from Jamaica who co created a Roblox experience called starving artists. It’s basically a roleplay game where you actually create art, like Doodles, in the experience and sell the art. She’s already had upwards of 100million visits.”
