The Metaverse Blogger

The Metaverse is constantly expanding at an alarming rate - new 3D virtual environments are popping up across the colorful scene like weeds, invading every nook and cranny of the internet that at one time thought of the 3D chat as a novelty. Programs like Second Life are becoming normal conversation in households and on college campuses alike, and each day it seems we hear of companies announcing development of new 3d chat programs, such as ExitReality. The choices are endless for new users of the Metaverse, people seeking out the best place to strike up new homes, but the competition is getting fierce for the budding developers.

Recently I begun to think about the disadvantages facing new developers in the virtual environment spectrum, as opposed to the gaming world. I consider myself an independent game developer, working on my own project Ashianae’s Journey, so the topic of indie developers of any kind seems to hit home. In the Indie Gaming community, it can be fairly “easy” to break into the community and snag a nice following of users by coming up with unique game play, consuming environments and storyline, and generally making the game itself fun; gamers are apt to discover new gems and spend a few hours (or few weeks) discovering and exploring a new place. This same willingness to explore new territory does not seem prevalent in the 3d chat and metaverse communities. In order to snag users for virtual environments, programs need to shout and scream about what makes their new environment better than the other guys’.

Not only do these new environments need to provide cutting edge, wicked features for potential users to enjoy (and er, become interested in), they need to in many ways play catch up with all of the existing platforms, if they seek to capture any of those markets. Features like building in a virtual environment, chatting with friends, and providing easy means of exploring are essential to the success of any environment, and are things all of the established players already have. I bring this up primarily because it seems that many of the newer 3D chat programs I walk around in have yet to catch up on these bars, possibly because they’ve focused so much of their time into their cutting edge features.

In many ways the above is not true for online games. Even if WoW, usually the measure for “cool” MMORPGs, has a wicked trading and economic system, this doesn’t mean that ever RPG that follows in its wake is required to focus on the economic system. Said RPG could perhaps, focus heavily on PvP in innovative ways that WoW has yet to touch. In online worlds however, users, especially those potentially migrating from other virtual environments, have begun to expect all new programs to meet a certain bar of features that many new 3d chats have yet to incorporate.

Likewise, the established companies are at a severe disadvantage if they are unable to match and beat specific innovative features in other environments, because of limitations of their current systems. These established environments then become locked into a system that may or may not be able to compete with the newer virtual environments. This is to say that the challenge and implications of these new players on the field impacts the metaverse as a whole, creating a fierce, competitive, cut throat industry in the online world. At the end of the day, will the new kids on the block (ExitReality, Just Leap In, Vivaty, etc) be able to play catch up and successfully implement features that bring them up to par with the existing applications? And on the other side of things, will the big players (Active Worlds, Second Life, There) that currently exist be able to keep up with the vibrant and determined development of these new kids?