So over at Worlds in Motion, I've been playing Millsberry, a cereal-based (yeah, you heard me right) virtual world for kids by General Mills. I've also been talking to some interesting people on where the road for online worlds and social networking is leading -- and from the looks of things, it's going to lead right into a tidy merger with the gaming superhighway.Lots of gamers I talk to are pretty disinterested in purely social MMOs. This is 'cause most of 'em are for kids; check out the worlds I've visited in the Online World Atlas and see what I mean. Even when aimed at our age group, or at adults, like this Red Light Center "adult" MMO I've been meaning to check out (except the sleazy music keeps scaring me away), online games and social worlds are not really targeted at gamers. There's WoW, of course, and a smaller demographic is inclined to play EVE Online or Entropia -- but only those who play them would not call them "hardcore"-oriented. When you're that immersed, you tend not to realize how inaccessible they are to the average casual gamer or non-gamer.
Even though I write about this stuff daily, I only play it 'cause I have to -- even some so-called "casual MMOs" I've kinda enjoyed, like Puzzle Pirates, don't sustain my interest in the long-term the way, say, my favorite video game series (or even video game series I only kinda enjoy) do. Generally, gamers don't "get" why Second Life was considered such a fancy newfangled deal to some; we've been playing online for years, only with something to do besides wander around and talk to people. And, y'know, less bondage sex. Or people in fursuits. And generally, the same people who love to play those little facebook games or dress up sexy avatars in social worlds aren't the same people who are spending every night this week playing BioShock, like lots of us are.
Lately though, virtual worlds and social networking sites with certain game-like components have been acknowledging they can take a page or two from the game industry; concepts like earning points or currency, customizing one's look and exchanging goods with other players translate strongly between both spheres. In that vein, I talked to a guy named Nabeel Hyatt this morning whose company, Conduit Labs, is working on a still-mysterious gameworld project that aims to the gap where Web 2.0 social stuff and games don't quite reach hands.
I also talked to Charles River Ventures' Susan Wu -- her company's put money into "onto something" kinds of sites like Twitter, and has also just invested $5.5 million in Conduit Labs. "The distinction between what Facebook and an MMO looks like is going to disappear," she told me. "All social interaction online will be driven by game mechanics."
So, a little more biznessy content than my usual audience tends to be into -- but maybe the idea's that you guys and the biz world won't be so far apart for long.
[I found the image by random Google image search -- aren't those great? I like it; it's by an artist named Sam Brown, and his/her site is called Exploding Dog.]
