Sincerely, hey, y'know, whatever you're into, I don't judge (see my Formspring anonymous question repository, where someone asked me if playing Bayonetta naked is wrong). But the big virtual worlds boom seems like it's all but done to me -- y'know, kind of like what I thought might happen in an environment driven by ideals that were a little bit too eager to throw out established best practices and declare gaming, online social behavior and the web itself "over".
When I spoke at Worlds in Motion cautioning excited virtual worlds gold-rushers not to get too lost in a fantasy of actualizing Snow Crash and to pay a little more attention to the way users were already doing things I fielded an impassioned argument from someone who basically said I was wrong. That person made their living selling virtual something-or-other in Second Life. I wonder how their business is doing these days.
Anyway, back then, the loudest voices in favor of the new paradigm's triumph were those who had already had tons and tons of the Kool Aid (and who had put millions and millions of dollars behind the ideas). It kind of reminds me of the echo chamber around Facebook gaming right now. Don't get me wrong -- I think Facebook gaming is a lot more relevant and viable than the "3D Web" and "virtual life" fantasy ever were, and I think Twitter really has changed the world forever, but there's definitely something of a bubble forming.
I reflect on this bubble in my latest editorial at Gamasutra. The virtual worlds craze wasn't entirely wasted time, of course -- I parse out the permanent lessons that we learned and the way we've incorporated them into new media, too. Caution and pragmatism, entrepreneurs!
