Philip Rosedale: SL Revealed The Limits of What We Can Do Online, But Will Still Change the Real World -- Someday

Philip Rosedale recently discussed with Reuters the latest changes to Coffee & Power, his new startup which uses location-based smartphones to leverage real world work collaboration, and in the conversation, said that Second Life showed him "the limits of what we can do online". However, he added this fascinating insight, which suggests he has not "given up" on Second Life, as some people sometimes claim. Rather, he says this:

I believe [SL] will have a far more profound implication on the nature of human existence, of work, of commerce, then frankly anything we've seen so far on the Internet. But the amount of time between now and then is very hard to say.

Watch the whole un-embedded video here. If we define Second Life in the broadest sense possible, so something like it exists on new platforms not yet released, and posit a whole new generation raised on virtual experiences (and I include technology like tablet and Kinect-based gaming here) I think he may quite possibly be correct. But as he somewhat suggests, that point is probably up to ten years down the road. Discuss.

Hat tip: Strawberry Singh.

Comments

[Isadora Fiddlesticks]

Second Life is a platform that is far ahead of its time...people still have a hard time defining what it is and what to do with it...so right now the latest is that it is a GAMING PLATFORM. Ok, that works on some level...but deep down, we all know that SL isn't just made to end up as just another gaming platform.

[maxwell graf]

For all the talk of SL being a gaming platform, It surprises me that there is and always has been such a massive lack of games to play here. Granted there are some, and a number of attempts, but the "playability" of most of them falls far short of whats available outside of SL. I've wanted to develop games in SL for years, and even made a rough attempt with DeathRace2000 on the Rune sim a couple years ago, but quickly ran into the wall of possibilities. With the limits of LSL and the ever-present lag here, games just never reached the potential that many of the amazing and creative minds here are capable of. I have hopes that the new gaming tools initiative will change that, but no amount of new tools is going to take away the limits of LSL or the lag, which leaves me wondering how it is going to pan out.

I had hoped to see gaming take off in BlueMars with the use there of the cryengine, to no avail. I am hoping yet again to see gaming development be a part of CloudParty, and am doing some basic tests there on the mechanics and physics of gameplay, with some positive early results. How it all pans out remains to be seen, though it has a lot of potential in that area.

[Metacam Oh]

The problem here is the kind of freedom and innovation and upbeat world changing attitude that Philip champions and still thinks exists for SL, does not, and that's all a result of his companies policies.

Because of this, Second Life will be known like the Colecovision instead of a brand that innovated throughout time and really change and open lives, but Linden Lab has yet to even declare what they see their own product to be.

Do they want to be Farmville, or do they want to be the future 3d space of the internet?

Like Fleep recently just said, and I myself said ages ago, they don't appear to be interested in the latter. If they want to knock down walls and change the world they need to stop forcing people to host their Second Life land with them. Its highway robbery.

They need to let people mod Second Life. If you want to be Farmville fine, keep the code closed, but if you think Linden Lab a single entity is going to be able to provide the wide array of features and coding needed to provide the things that would spark this move to the 3d internet. Thinks we cant even think of right now. No one uses the virtual world the same, and a cookie cutter one size fits all version that Linden Lab insists is their future road map is never going to take us where we need to go to keep this thing evolving.

Right now, in my humble opinion, only his company is holding everyone back from letting Second Life evolve into something people want.

[Cube Republic]

Second life is a video game platform. I know lots of people have vested interests in it, but this alone does not stop it being what it is. The lack of games, as in someone telling you what story to play or read or interact with does not stop it being a game platform. The game most people play is social interaction, and they invent their own characters to do so. On a basic level is like children playing with dolls.
Philip comes out on a regular bases with some far flung statement about how second life has or will change humanity. Heck I've even watched a 30 min youtube of him talking passionately about this. But at the end of the day it's marketing patter and hype for a game of make believe dolls.

[Osprey]

Given the elasticity of the concept of 'game' and the word's limitless definitions I think this argument is fruitless. Life is a game. Or maybe only hopscotch is a game. *shrugs*

[Little Lost Linden]

"I've wanted to develop games in SL for years, and even made a rough attempt with DeathRace2000 on the Rune sim a couple years ago, but quickly ran into the wall of possibilities."

Mr. President Frankenstein, you can't call off the race, the American people won't stand for it! Sure it's violent, but that's the way we love it. Violent! Violent! Violent!

That would be a great SL mini game if not for the restrictions of SL.

In similar news, a few months ago the kickstarter project for a reboot of Carmageddon made the goal amount needed for production of the game. Carmageddon was a great DeathRace2000 inspired PC game many years back. Hopefully the reboot is as good, or better.

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/18314/carmageddon-reincarnation-makes-kickstarter-goal

[Dizzy Banjo]

I think the key thing for me is in his full statement :

"I believe Second Life AND THE THINGS THAT COME OUT OF SECOND LIFE will have a far more profound implication on the nature of human existence, of work, of commerce, then frankly anything we've seen so far on the Internet. But the amount of time between now and then is very hard to say."

I think those things will actually be different projects, things inspired by SL, which fold some of its concepts, along with many others, into new visions.

[Gaga]

The one thing that Second Life was really good for was role play which doesn't need a whole bag of tools or video gaming gadgets. We had enough of what we needed years ago. We had boats, weapons and combat meters that worked fine for most of our needs. Seems to me the more they load the system up with for the sake of their idea of gaming the more lagged and difficult it becomes. Rosedale is as blinkered as ever as he has grown older and richer. Second Life is in decline because they never valued what they had and supported it. The real change is going on else where now and it costs a whole lot less. That is why land is being abandoned at an increasing rate. People can role play else where at a fraction of the cost.

[foneco zuzu]

Gaga,it will take time and i don't even know if i desire to see SL being replaced by another!
All the thieves, spammers, griefers or putting it simple, the trash of virtual worlds, are in SL, i do not wish to see them on any other grids!
And let's remember that, there are still to many of the good ones, and that quite a few depend on Sl to make their Rl income a less painful one!
To bad that LL as always, don't even recognize, its importance as a solidarity and supportive Universe!
For sure some real life ones know it!

[Gaga]

@foneco

I am always thinking of the small people trying to scratch a living or off-set the high LL cost of land to build their virtual dreams. There is a geek element that want more and more gadgets while the bulk just want to relax and have fun with social interaction and role playing.

We have to live with the endless and disruptive updates which keep the system in an almost endless beta state which, frankly, just generates problems and lag,,, endless lag!

SL was built by people contributing countless hours of work and fortunes in money but all I see is geeks destroying it for their novelty video gaming.

I love to role play and sail a boat as part of that role play but all I see is Second Life being destroyed by the headlong drive towards video gaming. Why don't they just launch a new grid for all that stuff?

Why don't they leave the traditional Second Life as an interactive medium for social gaming and role players?

Hell, I want to shoot all the video gamers for wrecking my world!

heh

[foneco zuzu]

And indeed if any wishes to see how Sl could be a great role playing game, just visit Lani regions on Osg (I don't know if it is already a independent grid all i know is that i can go there from Osg;))
Sadly Gaga, we don't matter, we really are not more then a nuisance to LL!

[Ajax Manatiso]

I think Phillip is absolutely right. The problem is LL wants to suck as much money out of it as fast as they can -- thinking only about today and not tomorrow. I know educators and business people who would like to "use something like SL but without the exorbitant costs and instability" But LL is totally and completely short-term revenue driven. Thinking of profiting in the long run or anything about "the big picture" is completely alien to them. Suck the juice out of it now and don't worry about tomorrow until it comes around.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Because change is the only constant in life. That which does not change stagnates and dies.

I think the product named Second Life run by Linden Lab could be the nucleus for a true metaverse for five, ten, fifty, a hundred years into the future -- IF that's what they want. But if they do, they're going to have to adapt, evolve, and innovate like a mother pheasant plucker.

For starters, you can't take the tier model off the table and say, "it's not going to change so stop talking about it". You WANT to attract innovators and creators and ESPECIALLY academics conducting original research. Act like it.

For another thing, you've got to tear down the walls of the garden and start proactively and aggressively building bridges. If you can't walk your Orc through a designated portal in World of Warcraft and land at a Second Life dance club, then the developers on both sides just aren't trying hard enough -- or worse, they don't grasp the enormous upside in synergy for everybody involved in such a project. Community is the key to player retention, and community is what SL is all about, baby.

Philip's not crazy. The path for SL to move far into the future is narrow and trecherous, but it does exist. All that's missing is the will to push forward.

[Gaga]

You are right there, foneco. I own a region in the Lani Global sci-fi cluster of regions on OSgrid. It's called Outlandzero and form a crash site for role play. I have a few more regions that are associated with my 2 RPG regions in Second Life. We often grid hop in the course of playing out storylines. It's great fun and we don't need too many gadgets. I even have a standalone mega region of 9 sims which is connected to OSgrid by hypergrid travel.

Here is the thing. Linden Labs, in my view, is killing the golden goose for short term gain and the decline in land (3000 regions in a little over 2 years) is a good indication something is wrong.

It's not too late. Many of us are spreading our wings to and making the most of Opensim and Second Life - it's hard to abandon the old home. But the open Metaverse is growing steadily and it offers something very special to role players. We get to control our sims and what innovations we will accept. We don't have a corporate profiteering dictator telling us what we shall have.

Latest thing is LL will block the TPV's from accessing both SL and OS. How petty is that? But it makes no difference because too many people have interests in OS as well as SL just like I do. Linden Labs can build an iron curtain around if they must but bit late. The horse has already bolted and many more are slipping through the cracks.

LL should be deciding if they want to be at the center of the open Metaverse or a dying bystander. A lot of folks have already made the choice and grid hop back and forth regardless so they can enjoy their social interactions and role play in peace and in ways that has never accurd to Linden Labs. They are so money focused they can't see the wood for the trees..

[shockwave yareach]

Second life is many things at once. The conflict comes when people try to boil it all down into a single word. You can no more do that than you can condense the entire Library of Congress into a single type of book. Heck, you can't accurately describe the entirety of the library as being either fiction or non fiction without being half wrong. So why the concern with the labeling here?

SL is a game and many other things. It has great promise. Or it did have great promise before LL decided to crush all the fun aspects out of the world so the CEO wouldn't be laughed at for running a "game" company. The promise now is that the current leadership will do some fun things for us if we are just patient. We have BEEN patient, and we have pointed out every boneheaded disaster the lab was doing and the ruin it would bring. Well, here we are in the ruins, and our patience is used up.

Today we find SL isn't the fun wild west free of consequences that we joined anymore. It's not an investment anymore since we don't "own" anything anymore. So we are giving up on the dream, after many years and lots of money flushed down the loo. It costs too much, and it delivers too little. Perhaps the improvements coming down the pipe will make us sit up and take notice. But there are grave bad feelings in the customer pool today, and it'll take much effort by the lab to make us happy paying customers once again. And frankly, I don't believe the lab remembers how to be customercentric anymore.

[Iggy]

So much for the last gab-fest here, Hamlet, where many of us claimed that Rosedale, Cory, and other Alpha-Lindens wanted only to build a DIY game platform.

I admit I stopped reading this post at the word "Someday" here, then recalled the words of John Fogerty:

"Well, I'm here to tell you now each and ev'ry mother's son

You better learn it fast; you better learn it young 'cause someday never comes, someday never comes."

Then I went back and read the rest. Utopias fail. But that does not mean the world does not change. What *were* our expectations? Rather like those NASA dudes in 1967 or so who promised us a Mars base and a million living in orbit by 1999. I was a snotty-nosed NASA brat and drank that Kool-aid (or was it Tang?) too.

[foneco zuzu]

Indeed we have to many things we love and will not risk to loose!
Sl is one of them and the friends we made there as well as the places we visited and more!
My hope still on the future of SL is on its community, be the adult one of Zindra (By far ignored and despised, by far much more creative and enthusiastic any can think off), or the Mature one of Mainland or the Land Barons that still fight for having not only their pockets filled, but also for Sl to strive and grow and reach more and more.
For the creators that risk all days, like Gala Phoenix, for the Artists, for the Real Life that are helped cause SL creates a gift, to not think only in Us!
SL IS NOT A GAME.....It's a legacy of wonder and of the best Human kind as to offer!
Don't turn it on the ghetto of the loosers and let other lead!
Its till time to act, do it LL before its to late, or feel the guilt upon your shoulders of the lost opportunity of making History!
Believe in your users dreams, respect them, listen to all, no matter how insane we look!
We will be there!

[JoJa Dhara]

what is that on his shirt???? ;-)

[Dartagan Shepherd]

It's an overdone sales pitch, consistent from one startup to the next, the pitch remains the same.

SL is a country, it's going to change the world, love machine will change the workplace, as will coffee and flowers.

My screwdriver has been building and changing the world, one screw at a time.

[Chartist]

I am still wondering if there is a market for something like SL. It's open-endedness, the freedom to create, the lack of formal structure or guidelines...

Is there even a market for that? If SL was the test case for this question (and to date, it has been) then isn't the answer "no"?

[Iggy]

@Dartagan, nice metaphor for SL educators like me, who drank the Linden Lab Kool-Aid Philip and his A-Team poured out.

Except we were not the screwdriver...

[Iggy]

@JoJa, that thing on Philip's shirt is the coding engine for Linden Lab's next text-based adventure game: Gutenberg, The Rise of Qwerty.

[Joker]

Tony Robbin's junk....

[foneco zuzu]

As i posted here!
We are the best asset any company will wish and dream, to have, its time to prove it once again, lets make Hosoi Ichiba Sims one reason that is worth fighting for!
http://www.flickr.com/groups/685024@N20/
And:
http://www.zazzle.com/hosoisouvenirs

[Gaga]

@foneco

It would be a shame to see those beautiful sims close. I shall have to find time to visit them. Will they be re-built in an Opensim grid?

[foneco zuzu]

We wil loved that, but as you can see on Ener blog, i doubt we will see them there, for our shame, cause it wold be an amazing aquisition.
As most was done full perms, it would be easy if LL allowed the use of oars!
As it does not, she is asking if any used and ca tell if its worth, that program that some posted in there!
I have to be honest, personalty i wish all land builders, to give open sims a try, as their creations will be preserved forever, besides some that still many really didn't understood yet, any that is placed in Sl becomes LL property, no matter what! A sson as you import some into World, it becomes theirs!
ON Open sims, it's yours, be on your own computer or a server!
But so0me jewels must reach ALl!
And we can't deny the fact that despite all, SL is still the place!
So I rather prefer to see this jewel alive on Sl, even if i know that the obvious choice was to be build on Open sims!

[Mary kristen]

I have never expected such great features at this rate. It is really more satisfying and reliable for me and takes away all the points in terms of...

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