Linden Lab: Social VR is "The Future of Spectator Sports", Promises A Major eSports Partnership Next Month

Do you want to watch an immersive 3D experience while in another immersive 3D experience? Linden Lab thinks you do. Interesting new interview on the Cheddar (LOL) news network with Linden VP Sheri Bryant, who drops hints of a big eSports partnership with Sansar coming next month, announcing, "We believe social VR is the future of spectator sports." In terms of eSports, she mentions incorporating elements from a live game into the Sansar experience -- for example, a dynamically updated, 3D game map. (I assume like in those "war rooms" in the Star Wars movies, where the battlefield is represented in a cool holographic map.) 

Maybe social VR is the future of real world spectator sports (which very much remains to be seen) but I'm not sure why Linden Lab keeps insisting this is the case with eSports. So far, their existing eSports partnerships don't seem to be increasing Sansar usage. But to be fair, it's still early days. The deeper problem is this seems to misunderstand the popularity of eSports viewing on a platform like Twitch:  

The advantage of watching, say, a Fortnite match on Twitch, is that it enables light engagement with a heavy experience. Rather than play Fortnite yourself, which isn't always possible (say you're stuck at work or in in the school library), you can still half-watch a video stream of a Fornite match while multitasking, occasionally typing snark and smacktalk into the text window. Social VR is itself a heavy experience, requiring deep engagement and major computing resources -- you can pretty much do that, and nothing else. I suppose there could be some appeal for a subset of extremely hardcore eSports gamers who might want this full eSports immersion, especially during major matches. But on a regular, casual basis? Kinda think most will mostly stick to Twitch and Discord.

Comments

[sirhc desantis]

No transcript ( and yes cheddar hihi cheesy and smells unless done right ) == no care.
Gave up on web equiv telly a decade ago.

[Iggy 1.0]

That's "Experience."

Yes, our future is so bright we only need two Es.