Virtual Worlds, now & later
Jeremy Snyder,
Metaversum/Twinity
Friday, February 27, 2009

About me
Community & Ops Manager at Metaversum
Twinity: the leading mirror world
3 years in virtual worlds
Speaking/writings at: Metaverse U, State of Play,
Metaverse Roadmap, FMCA, Life on Line
Friday, February 27, 2009

What are virtual worlds?
Fundamental common elements:
Persistence - what’s in there, stays in there
Multiplayer - it’s boring by yourself
Online - umm, where else?
Maybe inspired by Neuromancer & Snow Crash
“Gameless games”
Friday, February 27, 2009

The tech stuff
All game technology
MMO foundations - most proprietary, some open-
source emerging, but very early
Basically everyone uses Linux
Open source as much as possible! (MySQL, Jabber...)
Brace for mass bandwidth!
Friday, February 27, 2009

Twinity
Virtual world built on virtual copies of real cities
Friday, February 27, 2009

Second Life
Flickr photo (cc)
Pathfinder Linden
“imagined and created by its residents”
Friday, February 27, 2009

World of Warcraft
Flickr photo (cc)
juanpol
The leading MMORPG (outside of China!)
Friday, February 27, 2009

Habbo
Flickr photo (cc)
pixelsebi
Biggest kids-oriented world globally
Friday, February 27, 2009

Stardoll
Flickr photo (cc)
Gary Hayes
Very large paperdoll world for girls
Friday, February 27, 2009

Others to know
Adult-targeted:
Kaneva, vMTV, There.com, vSide
Kid/teen-focused
Club Penguin, Whyville, Gaia Online, WebKinz
Game side (MMORPG)
Warhammer, City of Heroes, EverQuest
Friday, February 27, 2009

Toughest questions
Business model - subscription, microtransactions, etc.
Legal - who has jurisdiction over a virtual world?
Tax - if people make money, do they have to pay taxes
on their earnings?
Content - adult content, violence
UGC - who owns what in-world!?
Friday, February 27, 2009

Future of virtual worlds
Economic downturn - prepare for a shake-out
Just like the first wave of the web
New business models, a la the web
Tech advances: broadband, GPU, CPU, software
Answers to the questions, at some point...
Friday, February 27, 2009