The growth of virtual worlds has stalled in recent years with the continuing problem of needing large amounts of PC memory to function and the overall poor quality of social media functionality. The opportunity for virtual worlds lies in browser-based applications and the development of Facebook’s social media tiers.
Stephan Paternot, founder of the previously successful theglobe.com, believes that social media will become fully immersive 3D virtual worlds where you can practically go up and touch someone. Looking at Second Life gives us an idea, but it’s really just a shadow of how things will play out in the next 10 years. In 1999 no one could imagine what would come after the Yahoo and Nokia phones. Stephan says, “Nothing is certain except that continuous innovation is the only way to survive and prosper. Ask Steve Jobs.
Total spending on gaming software this year is expected to reach $ 45 billion according to Gartner, with online games (taking) a larger share of overall spending as social media and new gaming models take shape. . Currently, many online games are offered by subscription, but could be offered as free games, and developers make money through in-game advertising and the sale of value-added services or virtual goods.
There are more than 1 billion users of virtual worlds and about half of them are under the age of 15.
Opportunities to learn
Virtual Worlds (VWs) are often dismissed as mere games with no educational benefit. But there are many informal learning opportunities for children in these settings, particularly as these are often children’s first experiences with online communities. Participating in a virtual world can help children learn to communicate and behave online.
VWs can also be used to help bridge the gap between online and offline ethics. A virtual world, MiniMonos, for example, has an environmental theme and tries to make sustainability methods clear to its users. If you don’t recycle around your avatar’s tree house, there are consequences in the world. The virtual world also links it to the real world, rewarding users for the various environmental actions they take.
It is this connection to the community that can be one of the greatest benefits of virtual worlds, as it offers children a place to experiment and expand socially, particularly the kind of free games, giving children the opportunity to participate in a great social environment, often without parental supervision. . As always, parents should make sure they know where and what their children are doing online.
Although they may be a relatively new phenomenon, the fact that they are adopted by children under the age of 13 suggests that we are only beginning to see the potential of these online communities.
The upheavals at Sony’s camp can lead to some exciting new innovations: Sony recently announced its HMD (head-mounted display) device that Mike Hocking (SCE Studios executive) believes is heading in the right direction for VR. go back to where we really wanted to go with virtual reality in the 80s … Now we have the power to do it, we have the screen resolution to do it, we have the processing power to update fast enough so that we can have very immersive experiences in head-mounted displays in games in the not too distant future … Being in a virtual world where I can see my virtual hands or a virtual gun with all the things we can do in the video game world is going to be absolutely amazing ‘.
