New World Notes

Three Spectacular Shots of Second Life Avatars in Silhouette

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Fabrizio Gigamon, also Known as Mr. G., seems to explore the nature of man in the universe. His “Jekyll and Mr. G., Mr. G., Mr. G.” shows us a visual representation of the multiplicity within all of us. It makes me think of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself, 51” with one of my favorite quotes. “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” Bob Dylan was inspired by that poem to create “I Contain Multitudes.” However, Mr. G. was inspired by Pink Floyd’s “Set the Course for the Heart of the Sun” which refers to watching the watcher. I think this is a good example of how artwork can mean different things to different people.

Two more dramatic SL silhouettes below:

Inside VRChat's Informal Economy: An Estimated 350+ People Make Real Money from that Metaverse -- Many Likely Earning a Full-Time Income! UPDATE: More Like Over 1000

Above: One of nearly 1,000 VRChat-tagged items being sold on Gumroad

UPDATE, 9/29: There are over 33,000 items for sale on Booth, a Japan-based content selling platform like Gumroad. Hat tip: A snarky anonymous reader who's cued me to update my estimate of people who make money from VRChat. Conservatively estimated, that's over 650 individual creators, bringing our total tally to roughly over 1,000.

VRChat the company has yet to roll out its long-promised monetization options for creators -- but VRChat the community has went ahead and created an informal, unofficial economy of its own across many platforms. By my rough but conservative estimate, over 350 are making at least a side income from their VRChat content -- and of that number, likely over 30 are making a full-time living from VRChat. 

That's in addition to notable examples like StudioCyFy, a company started on the strength of the developers' VRChat game worlds, and "Jar", who recently announced she was creating VRChat worlds on a full-time basis.

"Over 350" is an educated guess based on a tally of top content creation platforms:

• On Patreon, over 160 creators are creating VRChat content (worlds, avatars, etc.) and have at least one patron.
• On Gumroad, nearly 1,000 VRChat-tagged items are being sold on the platform; primarily avatars, many selling for $50 or more. Assuming individual creators sell an average of 10 VRChat items, that's about 100 creators on Gumroad.
• On YouTube, over 90 channels are devoted to YouTube content and have 10,000 or subscribers. (Indicating a dedicated YouTuber with a large enough subscriber base to monetize through advertising and direct sponsorships.)

So that's at least 350 VRChat content creators earning some kind of income from their VRChat content!

But how many of them are making a full-time living? That's a controversial (and interesting!) question, but here's some back-of-envelope tallies to help us reach a safe base number:

Myth's Amazing Monochromatic Portraits of Male Avatars

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Myth’s photos are mostly black and white. They are universally excellent. I love “The Cellist” and love that he links to an excellent performance of Astor Piazzola’s “Oblivion” by Stjepan Hauser who is more well-known as part of the 2Cellos duo who perform “cello-rock” and were the focus of a documentary. The music is beautiful and so is the picture. I love how realistically his hands are posed and how the star of the picture is the cello. Just as it should be. 

For more is it live or is it Second Life pics, click here:

How the Pandemic Helped Make the Metaverse Respectable, the Rise of the Metaverse Generation, and Why Metaverse Communities Matter Most

In preparation for my live audience Breakroom interview with Matthew Ball, I'm blogging his must-read, nine part metaverse primer over last Summer and this month.  My take on Part 1 (introduction to the framework) is here,  my coverage of Part 2 (hardware) is here, with Part 3 (networking) coverage here, Part 4 coverage (computing) here, Part 5 (virtual platforms) here, Part 6 (open standards) here, Part 7 (payments) here, and Part 8 (content) here.

The final section of Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, “Evolving User + Business Behaviors and the Metaverse” (part 9) covers the growing mainstream acceptance of the Metaverse and Metaverse activity, which he directly pins to the pandemic:

For decades, “gamers” have been making “fake” avatars and spending their free time in digital worlds while carrying out miscellaneous tasks and pursuing  non-game-like objectives such as designing a room in Second Life (versus killing a terrorist in Counter-Strike). A huge portion of society, if not the majority of it, considered such efforts to be weird or wasteful or anti-social (if they didn’t look down on it outright)... [Since the pandemic,] millions of the above skeptics have now participated in (and enjoyed) virtual worlds and activities such as Animal Crossing, Fortnite, or Roblox as they sought out things to do, attended events once planned for the real world, or tried to spend time with their kids indoors. Not only has this destigmatized virtual life, and “the Metaverse,” but it might even mean an extra generation will participate in it.

I’d quibble somewhat to say that skeptics haven’t necessarily converted into Metaverse users. (Hence the befuddled “What is this Metaverse thing anyway?” tone of most mainstream media coverage.) What’s more, the usage rates of the leading virtual worlds were massive even before the pandemic. (Fortnite for example already had 350 million registered users in early 2020, before COVID swept the planet.) What the pandemic definitely did do is make mainstream skeptics much more open to the idea that there might be more to all this than mere digital time-wasting.

This mainstream embrace is evidenced in all the major brands and media companies increasingly interested in getting into the Metaverse game, as Matthew notes:

More users and engagement naturally leads to higher revenues for developers, and in turn, more investment and better products. But over the past year, we’ve seen two other significant injections into “Metaverse revenues.” The first is the rapid legitimization and investment into purely virtual assets, most notably via cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The second is investment from major non-gaming brands and talent, from Prada, Ford, and Gucci to Neymar Jr. and Travis Scott. This investment also helps virtual platforms further diversify away from their historical focus on “game-like” objectives like win, shoot, kill, defeat, and score and towards more broadly appealing activities such as create, explore, identify, express, collaborate, and socialize.

To capitalize on this growth in revenue, content, and users, companies like Epic are creating experiences that stretch across multiple games, a Metaverse vision painted most vividly by Ready Player One: 

Ultimately, we should view Epic’s tests in cross-title assets and achievement unlocks as similar to its precedent setting efforts in cross-platform gaming and IP mashups. The company seems to believe that by reducing the friction to accessing different games (via free-to-play monetization), making it easier to bring your friends and items across these games, and giving players a reason to try/play these games, players will spend more time gaming, with more people, across more titles, and with greater spend. 

Again I have to wonder why the Valve/Steam Metaverse shoe has yet to drop, because it’s best placed to create a seamlessly immersive experience across the many games on its platform. But put a pin in that for now.

To close his Primer -- and my comments on it -- Matthew concludes by writing about the very young “iPad Native”/ “virtual world native” generation who made ROBLOX an unexpected phenomenon, and will in turn define the experience of the Metaverse in coming decades:

I Love These Second Life Homages to The Splashing Scene from Flashdance

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

When I saw Cascabel Czarny’s Flashdance homage, I immediately wondered if anyone else had done the same. I love how the backdrop makes it seem so much more part of a show. The hair is realistically wet, the water is gorgeous, but those lightbulbs in the back make the picture stand out. 

For more Flashdance water pics, click here:

3D File to IRL Manufacturing Could be a Killer Applet for the Metaverse

In the search for the Metaverse's killer app, here's a possible one proposed by "Kyz", who once made a good living from creating virtual world content before moving to physical items:

Probably true that anything digital is the meat of the Metaverse. I don't think car companies in SL or elsewhere managed to sell more cars. It may have helped bands a bit. Didn't seem to help movies market better. Maybe some fashion. Unless everyone is there it's not going to be a sales vehicle.

This is roughly right. Second Life-based expositions for car companies like Nissan didn't generate much sustained traffic (let alone actual sales), and apart from some one-offs like this SL campaign for a Harry Potter movie in IMAX, all the many SL-based marketing campaigns for movies didn't lead to increased theatrical ticket sales. I deeply suspect marketing campaigns on new platforms like ROBLOX and Fortnite (such as this ROBLOX campaign for In the Heights, a recent movie that bombed in the box office) have met a similar, low ROI fate.

So if RL marketing isn't a compelling killer app, is there another? Kyz proposes one, based on their own RL work experience:

Top 6 Highlights Last Week, Including: Raph Koster on His New Metaverse, a Metaverse Parody of Bo Burnham & What's Its Killer App, Anyway?

• What’s The Metaverse’s Killer App, Actually? My Take On Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, Part 8
• Watch: Hilarious VRChat Parody Of Bo Burnham's "Welcome To The Internet" By YouTuber With Successful Career As A VR-Based Musician
• Linden Lab Hiring Senior Product Manager To Shaping Future Of "Original Metaverse" Of Second Life -- But Mobile Experience Only A "Plus"
• Creator Advertises His 1930s-Era Second Life Fashion With Satirical Norman Rockwell Cosplay Pics
• Raph Koster On How His Upcoming Metaverse Is Unlike Steam
• In A Virtual World Economy, User-Generated Content Prices Are Controlled By The Company, Not The Market (Comment Of The Week)

SL Style & Houseware Shopping Ideas from Thais Akerman

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Thais Akerman’s “Kitchen” post for her blog appeals just because it is the opposite of all the usual kitchens that are almost always too neat. This one reminds me of the summer kitchen my aunt and uncle had down by their two-acre garden. The counters were scavenged and had no doors. Instead, my aunt made a bright, colorful curtain uncannily similar to this one. When they harvested, everything was cleaned, peeled, and canned down in the summer kitchen. The compost piles were down by the garden as was the root cellar so everything was to hand. And of course, my aunt and uncle ‘borrowed’ me during the harvest. All the remaining items are listed in her blog credits, but my mind is fixated on the counters. 

• PITAYA - DIY kitchen Countertop  @Kustom9

For an eggcellent fashion piece, click here:

AI Makes Movie Posters Based on Short Description. Guess Which!

"Each of these images was generated by AI based on a brief text description of a movie. Can you guess the movie from the image?"

Some of them are incredibly obvious, while many (most?) seem utterly insane, but also with some elements that appear to be intuitively insightful. This project from Noah Veltman, who creates data visualizations and apps for Netflix's Science & Analytics group. (Which may explain why I often get totally odd recommendations in my Netflix queue.)

More fun with AI and culture below:

What’s the Metaverse’s Killer App, Actually? My Take on Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, Part 8

In preparation for my live audience Breakroom interview with Matthew Ball, I'm blogging his must-read, nine part metaverse primer over last Summer and this month.  My take on Part 1 (introduction to the framework) is here,  my coverage of Part 2 (hardware) is here, with Part 3 (networking) coverage here, Part 4 coverage (computing) here, Part 5 (virtual platforms) here, Part 6 (open standards) here, and Part 7 (payments) here.

Part 8 of Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, “Content, Services, and Asset Businesses in the Metaverse” raises the most questions for me from the entire series. Overarching them all is the fundamental one: 

Does the Metaverse actually have a scalable, sustainable killer app beyond user-generated games and immersive socialization that already happens within Metaverse platforms?

Now I’d personally be happy if games and socialization is all (or mostly all) of what the Metaverse is used for -- these are two great and fundamental aspects of the human experience, especially when they’re democratized! But in their zeal to make the Metaverse the Next Big Thing, the investor community is searching for more ways to make money from them.

For instance, as Matthew mentions, marketing/ancillary sales of major media/fashion brands:

The largest activations in Fortnite to date have been Marvel, followed by Star Wars and the NFL, and the NBA continues to lead in NFTs. These sorts of franchises have endured for decades specifically because they work everywhere and dominate our endless imaginations and fandoms. Brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton are equally likely to thrive; humans constantly seek out opportunities for signaling and self-expression. 

But to take two of these: Fortnite’s Marvel and Star Wars activations in 2019 were huge, but Epic's revenue still somewhat decreased that year. As for real life fashion brands entering the Metaverse, this puts them in direct competition with grassroots virtual fashion brands, and I’m skeptical that the former can (or should) prevail. (Remember when Armani opened an official shop in Second Life, but was beat out by the local competition?)

How about the crossover of real life music stars? As Matthew notes: