New World Notes

Listen: Kent Bye & Me on Making a Metaverse That Matters for Voices of VR

Just had a great conversation on Kent Bye's excellent Voice of VR podcast (stream above) around Making a Metaverse That Matters, and since Kent is an expert on the topic, we get into a super deep dive. Here's some highlights, including our debate around Meta not doing any research (far as I can tell) into sex differences in VR nausea:

• 9:10 -- How I got started with all this, and my approach to writing the book.
• 12:00 -- Why I have a strict literary definition of the Metaverse.
• 15:00 -- Unpacking some of the concepts which make virtual worlds and the Metaverse powerful.
• 17:00 -- What happened with Second Life when it was once touted as the coming of the Metaverse?
• 22:00 -- Why it's just as important to talk with the community creators as it is the platform developers.
• 23:00 -- My take on the "Metaverse is dead" media narrative.
• 29:00 -- The Second Life economy as the best model, as compared to cryptoverse / blockchain-based platforms, and compared with Epic/Fortnite's new model, and how it relates to creating for the sake of social motivation.

SL Fashion Friday: Male Avatar Styles from Slayer Tanaka

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

Slayer Tanaka is the fashion blog created and maintained by Takeo, a blogger/photographer with great style and a devotion to detail. N° 2683 is a headshot highlighting an animesh capuchin monkey. Wow, pet followers have come a long, long way since the floating eye. I knew this, but every once in a while something will come along and make me go WHOA! 

I love his eyebrows, too. Second Life is the place for eyebrows like that because no one is getting that close to my eye with a razor. For the full credits, be sure to click through to N° 2683.

• Skin/HDBrows/Hairbase: STRAY DOG (Marketplace . Facebook . Flickr) Paul Skin Tone 04, Paul HDBrows, Paul Hairbase @ Man Cave June 17th - July 11th
• Capuchin: REZZ ROOM (Marketplace . Flickr . Facebook . Discord) Capuchin Streetwear Animesh @ Man Cave June 17th - July 11th

For more great fashion click here:

 

VRChat's Recursive Room Is Among the Most Brain-Melting Metaverse Experiences Ever. Creator Thad Gyther Reveals How He Made It!

Watch a tour of the Recursive Room above at 07:32 

I finally got a chance to chat with Thad Gyther, creator of the brain-melting Recursive Room of VRChat, which puts you in a room within a room within a room. (Watch above to see what I mean.) Since launching last January, it's been visited over 50,000 times, Thad tells me.

Occasionally VRCers ask how he created it, but, "I also like to just watch people play around and see what they come up with in Thad Room. They sometimes even surprise me with things I haven't thought of myself. Like when someone found out that they can pick themself up when they use the grappling hook and grapple onto some object in their other hand." (That's actually a glitch in his scripting, he admits, but now won't fix, "because it's way too cool.")

It's easily among the most brain-melting metaverse platform experiences I've ever seen. (And I'm thinking back to the Crooked House of Second Life here.)

Thad also patiently explained how he created it, and... I'm only slightly less confused. The explanation is almost as brain-melting as the actual experience.

Here's what I mean:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Powerful Juneteeth Picture & Fun Pop Imagery

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

Josh’s Juneteenth is a compelling picture recognizing the holiday celebrated on Monday.

I love so many things about this picture. Their eyes seem sorrowful, uncertain, heartbroken and a bit afraid, which are a completely reasonable clutch of emotions for a Black person in a time where open appeals to racism are a winning political strategy and teaching the reason for the holiday is banned in some states. Yet they are framed with a heart, revealing the reason why the arc of the moral universe will, at long last, bend toward justice.

This picture is emotionally powerful and evocative of so many ideas, I had to feature it. 

For a more playful Josh image, click here:

 

Read Second Life's Official 20th Anniversary Magazine -- Here's a Preview of Cajsa's Moving History of SL as Told by Lindens & SLers!

Above: Runitai Linden's workstation for helping develop Second Life

Here's the official anniversary magazine for Second Life's 20th anniversary, full of photos (both SL and IRL) and articles to celebrate the virtual world's continued longevity. My unofficial version comes out next week, but meantime, I'm excited that New World Notes' longtime columnist Cajsa Lilliehook writes about Second Life's history and evolution -- starting at page 8 -- as told to her by Linden staff and Second Life's many grassroots creators. Sample:

User-generated content is, according to a variety of 2022 and 2023 headlines, the wave of the future. They haven’t been paying attention. UGC was heretical twenty years ago when Rosedale and his colleagues at Linden Lab made the extraordinary bet that they could make money on what users made and sold. Their decision to allow users to retain their intellectual property rights was revolutionary and preceded this “wave of the future” by decades. 

But it wasn't only about UGC:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Toni Moana Photographs Her Daredevil Stunts on Virtual Land & Sea

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

Toni Moana’s photostream has me convinced there is nothing this Second Life daredevil won’t do. It reminds me of my early days in SL, exploring adventurous sims. I got eaten by an alligator and sent home about twenty times before I crossed this river by jumping from rock to rock. I was a noob and still got stuck under stairwells and ran into doors, what was I thinking crossing a river. I hope she makes it from one side to the other, though most of the time when we fall in SL we just land in an ignominious heap and don’t die. I will take the heap any day of the week. 

For more of Toni’s adventures, click here:

Roblox Finally Allows Adult-Age Experiences -- But Still Super Restrictively!

Above: Frontlines, a realistic (except non-gory) combat experience in Roblox

Roblox is the most popular metaverse platform by far, with up to 250 million monthly active users -- most of whom are kids. (Then again, with about 1 in 4 of the user base 18 or over, according to the company, that still means there's over 50 million adults in Roblox!) The core challenge the platform faces now is maintaining under-age users as they grow up, rather than letting them "graduate" to Fortnite or other, less restrictive online experiences.

Which brings up Roblox's new announcement, enabling experiences that allow usage for players who are 17 and up:

The fastest-growing age group on Roblox is 17-to-24-year-olds and in 2022, 38% of our daily active users were 17 and over. As a natural evolution, we’re now allowing creators to make content specifically for this audience. Only those who have verified that they’re at least 17 will be able to create or consume these experiences...

Now, creators will be able to offer experiences for those 17 and older that feature more mature themes and storylines like in TV shows or stand-up comedy. These experiences may contain more violence, blood, or crude humor.

On the surface this is a smart move. Though when you dive into the details, Roblox's version of "Adult" content is still pretty PG-rated, especially around virtual sex/real romance:

Next Week: Join Me in the Metaverse Platform Breakroom for a Metaverse Book Launch Party!

Click here to a reserve a spot to join a book launch party in the metaverse platform Breakroom next week Wednesday! Will be a fun and casual Summer bonfire-themed event, hopefully similar to the event I co-hosted for Philip Rosedale back in 2021 (watch below).  Details:

Released on the 20th anniversary of Second Life, the first metaverse platform to reach mainstream awareness, Wagner James Au’s new book Making a Metaverse That Matters: From Snow Crash & Second Life to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For (Wiley) arrives after three years of media hype, misinformation, and backlash around the concept.

Weaving together two decades of experience writing about and helping launch metaverse platforms, from his start as Second Life's official embedded reporter, James clarifies the history of the Metaverse, debunks myths that have since formed around it, and offers best practices for engaging a metaverse platform audience over 500 million in size -- and growing it toward a billion.

Today's SL Flickr: Fantastical Visions from Ambrosia Caiben

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

Ambrosia Caiben has an intriguing photostream that veers from adorable pictures of animals enjoying tea at a table to gothic cosplay scenes to romantic portraits and erotica. It is consistent, though, in its excellence. I love “Illusion” with her strategically-placed butterflies and tree-branch wings. It feels very mystical. It’s simply glorious. She has the credits on her blog, but the text is illegible on top of the photo. 

For more excellent pics click here:

I Tell FastCompany Why the Metaverse Must Always Offer Playfulness

Getting even closer to Second Life's 20th anniversary! I just talked about the topic with FastCompany, who also chatted with Philip Rosedale. Sample:

Three years after Second Life’s launch, another virtual world emerged with a much more guided approach. Roblox also empowered its users to create their own worlds, but put a heavy emphasis on casual gaming. That recipe drew a much younger, but also vastly larger, crowd: At the end of March, Roblox was used by 66 million people every single day. “The reason that Roblox is so big is because it’s basically Second Life, but for little kids,” Rosedale says, somewhat dismissively.

Linden Lab, on the other hand, wanted Second Life to be a place for grown-ups, which is why it tried hard not to be confused with a video game. That was a massive mistake, argues Au, and one that other metaverse platform creators can learn from. Much as in the real world, games function as icebreakers between strangers. “You need some fun activities,” he says. “It should always be a playful, game-like experience.”

Emphasis on "playful and game-like" here; I do not at all necessarily mean MMORPG-style leveling mechanics. As I write in Making a Metaverse That Matters: