Metaverse Interoperability Across Multiple Platforms Was Tried By IBM & Linden Lab But Didn't Catch On -- Here's Why.

Why the Metaverse is Beating Gen AI https://t.co/0CegcGDiSk

— Open Metaverse Interoperability Group (@open_metaverse) September 6, 2024

Thanks to everyone from the Open Metaverse Interoperability Group especially host @jimmy6DOF for the fun and spicy conversation last Friday -- you can listen to the whole thing above (starting around 4 minutes in), with some particular spiciness around 36:30, where I mention that metaverse interoperability of virtual objects has been tried before and fairly failed, a topic I go into at length in my book. So below is a somewhat edited excerpt on that subject:

 

Why has so much of the recent buzz around the Metaverse started to fade? 

One culprit that many technologists blame: Lack of interoperability, or what’s often called the Open Metaverse. Very roughly described, it’s the vision of an immersive Internet that operates like the web, enabling users to seamlessly leap from one virtual world to another, bringing their virtual content and their identity with them in the process. Without that, the argument goes, all we are left with is disparate platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, which may have many users, but are destined to remain walled gardens. (Neal Stephenson himself advocates for the Open Metaverse goal through Lamina1, the startup he co-founded.)

But as someone whose career in tech sometimes feels like a long footnote to Snow Crash, it pains me to point this out: The Open Metaverse is a deeply flawed concept that few consumers actually want. And it’s been tried before, to spectacularly flawed results. 

The good news is a much more desirable alternative is also more feasible. But because the Open Metaverse keeps being flogged as the virtual utopia we should all seek to instantiate, it’s worth diving into some ancient Internet history.  By which I mean, like 15 years ago:

Open Sim, Closed Wallets

Launched in 2003, Second Life was the first attempt to build the Metaverse to reach mainstream media attention. At the peak of this hype wave, IBM partnered with Linden Lab, Second Life’s creator, to showcase the first step in an ambitious plan to create an interoperable network of virtual worlds. Intel and other tech companies contributed some development resources, but IBM was deeply invested in the project, assigning dozens of coders to the project.

To much fanfare, the companies demonstrated the ability to teleport user avatars from Second Life to OpenSim, an open source spinoff of Second Life. 

"Interoperability is a key component of the 3D Internet and an important step to enabling individuals and organizations to take advantage of virtual worlds for commerce, collaboration, education, operations and other business applications," an IBM executive proclaimed in the official announcement in 2008. “Developing this protocol is a key milestone and has the potential to push virtual worlds into the next stage of their evolution." 

Exactly the opposite happened. While the real evolution went into the mass market growth of walled gardens like ROBLOX (launched in 2006), the OpenSim project driven by IBM floundered and rapidly lost steam, bogged down by governance issues around IP content rights and security issues -- and more key, lack of consumer interest. 

Why did this early attempt at an Open Metaverse fail despite buy-in from so many talented technologists and one of the largest tech companies in th world? The fundamental problem is almost philosophical.

You Can’t Actually Take It With You 

OpenSim’s failed interoperability experiment demonstrated that virtual items detached from their original social context tend to lose their value. An article of avatar fashion or virtual weapon will only be impressive to the virtual world community which knows how difficult that item was to create or procure. Outside that group, it rapidly loses luster.

Or to take a real world analogy: Imagine someone from an island society which uses difficult-to- harvest seashells as currency, who then travels to a faraway city -- and is surprised to learn that those same seashells are considered near worthless there. Interoperability misses the cultural insight that people and the communities they create, not any technology stack, make metaverse platforms meaningful and worthwhile. 

Veteran MMO game designer Damion Schubert likens the interoperability vision to an ambitious but naive startup attempting to create virtual cars which somehow work in wildly different online racing games such as Forza, Wipeout, Need for Speed, and Mario Kart. Each of these game experiences imbue the virtual cars within them with unique physics and interactivity that simply does not translate across games.

"You could 'solve' this of course, by coming up with a Uniform Car Standard," says Schubert. "That way, all the cars across all games handle stats, decals, spinning wheels, damage and everything else the same way so every car works everywhere. But these games are chasing very different audiences. All of them would be way worse if they were more similar."

Again, Second Life provides a valuable example: At its peak in media attention, companies and colleges created official headquarters in the virtual world, where they’d hold meetings and media events. But when security was lax, some players who were in Second Life for trollish gamer hijinx would inevitably slip in to cause havoc. In one notorious incident, a corporate media press conference was interrupted by a phalanx of giant, flying dildoes.

Founding Second Life CTO Cory Ondrejka, reflecting on his twenty-plus years in metaverse-related technologies, shares my skepticism:

"There's no data to suggest that's actually what people want. And even some sort of softer version of those plans, like a singular identity across worlds with the same avatar --there is plenty of evidence that they don't want that and no evidence that they do. Nor do you want art assets that don't match to be forced in different worlds because they're incongruous and don't work."

This is not to discount all metaverse interoperability, I should emphasize -- as I explain further, back-end interoperability and standards for communications, graphics, etc. are quite important targets to strive for, but that's a very different conversation. And as I conclude, the true goal should be interoperability of user communities across platforms and (per Matt Ball), interoperability that enables tracking and blocking trolls/griefers/toxic players across platforms (i.e. people who threaten virtual community).

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