New World Notes

Why Would People Wear VR/AR Glasses When Most of Us Don't Even Like Wearing 3D Glasses to Watch Movies?

3D glasses for 3D movies! They're lightweight, they're cheap, they make cool immersive 3D effects possible, and... they're rapidly losing popularity:

After releasing disappointing second-quarter earnings late Wednesday, IMAX Entertainment CEO Greg Foster said in a conference call the giant-screen company would cut back on 3-D releases to rejuvenate the business... “It’s worth noting ‘Dunkirk’ was showing exclusively in 2-D, which consumers have shown a strong preference for,” Foster said on the call... As it moves to ditch 3-D, IMAX has recently opened its first virtual reality centers, where people strap on eyewear of a different kind to jump into immersive VR experiences using high-end rigs like the HTC Vive. And while Hollywood produced a record 68 3-D releases last year, the MPAA reported an 8 percent drop in attendance to those films.

IMAX's aforementioned VR experience, by the way, is actually not very popular at all, but that's a topic for another post.

What's striking is that 3D movie glasses have been around since 1952, have vastly improved throughout that time, provide access to all kinds of great content, cost just an extra $3-6 dollars or so compared to seeing the 2D version of the same movie. And yet... most of the public... just doesn't want to wear them... for even 90 minutes. Yes, 3D movies gross a disproportionate amount of money because of the higher ticket prices (which is the main reason Hollywood pushes them), but in terms of absolute consumer numbers, the vast majority opt for 2D over 3D. (And per above, even that revenue is shrinking.)

Turns Out You Can Export Mesh from Second Life to Sansar (Kinda Sorta)

Let Harley Schylo show you how (above) and note that she has to run the SL mesh through Blender before actually bringing it up in Sansar. (Starting around 2:10, where you get a pretty nice view of Sansar's building UI, not to mention a slow-ass walking avatar.) 

Mesh experts, help me out: Could this potentially be used for importing unauthorized mesh from SL to Sansar? Also: Does this make you interested in importing your favorite mesh into Sansar? (The intermediary massaging in Blender makes me think not so much, but I'm not the mesh man, man.)

Palmer Luckey's Belief in Virtual Reality's "Inevitability" Seems Non-Falsifiable

Palmer Luckey and I had a really interesting conversation on his Facebook post announcing that it's "inevitable" VR will rule the future. Since Luckey is a pioneer of virtual reality's latest wave, I'm copying it below with some light edits. I think it shows that this belief in VR's dominance is non-falsifiable, i.e. an article of faith that can't be altered by contrary facts, but I'll leave that up to the reader:

WAGNER JAMES AU: If it's inevitable, how come hardly any Vive/Oculus owners even use them on a daily basis? 

PALMER LUCKEY:I think you mean "If it's inevitable, how come hardly any Vive/Oculus owners even use STEAM on a daily basis?" The answer is CONTENT!   

WJA: There's already 1800 VR-compatible games on Steam, way more content than a console has at this stage of maturity. Yet somehow there's less than 2000 Steam users playing a VR title at the moment. Why?

 

 

Flickr Photographer of the Day: The Sci-Fi Second Life of Dragonlila

Dragonlila is a fantastic SL Flickr photographer that Cajsa just recommended to me from her voluminous list of great virtual image makers she follows and often writes about here. Shadowy, dense, perfectly composed, most of Dragonlila's pics feature a sexy bionic woman doing what she does in the virtual world, often with a girlfriend, or sometimes, a bionic dolphin. Yes, really:

Latest Sansar Promo Showcases VR Work by Commercial Studio Anrick

While Linden Lab's last two promo videos for Sansar showcased indie developers Blueberry and Max Graf, this latest video spotlights the work of Anrick (led by a dude with the same name), a London-based studio that's developed VR games for Google Daydream and also commercial VR projects for Prius, Lexus, and other impressive brands. Notable that a company of that caliber is already working in Sansar, which is very much an unproven platform (compared to, say, Google Daydream, which is still niche itself).

Since very few indie developers can work on this level, and very few people own high-end VR rigs, Linden Lab is probably dependent on companies like this, and backing from major sponsors to produce Sansar content. 

Worlds Adrift Adding User-Generated Gameplay Mechanics to Island Creator

It's been awhile since I wrote about Worlds Adrift, the upcoming single-shard, open world sandbox MMO, so I'm pleasantly surprised to read that the island creator system will soon enable users to add interactive, mini-game features -- basically enabling an island owner to become his or her own dungeon master for their island: 

This means that on top of creating wonderfully-looking places of lore, exploration and awe, the creators will also be able to weave gameplay within the islands. Initially this will be rather simple: a type of surface players cannot grapple on; dangerous spikes that hurt on contact; and automated turrets that seek and fire until cleverly disarmed. Over time it will be expanded with doors, switches, wires, power-sources and the like, enabling the construction of puzzles and mechanical engineering that will challenge the creativity and, when well used, go as far as creating minigames and game modes within certain islands.

Really fun tools for the players to build with, and for Worlds Apart developer Bossa Studios, a smart way of encouraging their users to make far more interactive content than the company itself could ever create. 

Another tutorial after the break, for how to build fricking turrets:

Play a Zombie Survival Game on an SL Sim Called White Rock

From Minty Minx comes this combination machinima and gameplay promo for a zombie survival game on the island of White Rock -- click here to visit in person and start playing.

Nice to see zombie shooters in Second Life evolve over time. A few years ago, the zombies were little more than lurching cardboard cutouts, but these show a fair amount of (undead) life. It's using the Grim Combat system, which comes complete with a heads-up display, scoring system, and (for the deluxe edition) the zombies themselves.

There are more people reading Palmer Luckey's Facebook post about the "Inevitability" of VR than are actually using VR on Steam

Despite or because of Steven Spielberg's ambivalent views on VR, Palmer Luckey just publicly announced on his Facebook wall that virtual reality is inevitable. Which is a nice new case study on the vast chasm between desire and actual reality:

• Number of followers Palmer Luckey currently has on Facebook: 14,737
• Number of people on Steam currently using VR-compatible software: 2,015

In other words,  there are likely far more people reading Palmer's pronouncements on the inevitability of VR than are actually using VR on the top PC platform for VR. Which might make some people wonder how inevitable this inevitability really is. There's something like 750,000-1.5 million Oculus and Vive owners overall, most of whom have a Steam account (especially as the Vive is automatically integrated with Steam), yet somehow at any given time far less than 1% of them are embracing the inevitable.

I put this point to Palmer in the Facebook post, asking: "If it's inevitable, how come hardly any Vive/Oculus owners even use them on a daily basis?"

Let's Watch the Long-Awaited Ready Player One Trailer, a Story About VR Directed by Someone With Trepidations About VR

Directed by Steven Spielberg and co-written by Ernest Cline (who wrote the bestselling novel it's based on, partly inspired by his visits to Second Life), here's the long-awaited first glimpse of Ready Player One. And though Snowcrash first coined the concept, it's the first major Hollywood movie to depict the metaverse -- a place (as the protagonist puts it in dialog that could have been lifted from a Second Life ad), "A world where the limits of reality are your own imagination."

It's funny to read excited online reactions to the trailer from VR enthusiasts, with the top comment in the Oculus' subreddit being, "This movie will cause a lot of interest into VR if it's a success." But who wants to live in a future of mobile homes stacked on top of each other, where the OASIS is desirable only because "It's the only place that feels like I mean anything"? And Spielberg himself has expressed much trepidation for a future defined by VR. He believes it'll threaten filmmaking:

6 of the Top 10 Grossing PC Gamers for June 2017 Are MMOs

Interesting stats from game revenue analytics company Superdata, which contradict the commonly held belief that MMOs are over. In fact, in the PC market, 6 out of the top 10 money makers are MMOs: Fantasy Westward Journey Online II and Dungeon Fighter Online (both huge MMOs in Asia), World of Tanks (where player "avatars" are tanks), and World of Warcraft (13 years old and still earning!) Also in the top 10 is ROBLOX -- sort of a Second Life meets Minecraft sandbox MMO directed at teens and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which is an MMO-ish in the DayZ vein: