Will We See A Dumbed Down Virtual World Beat Second Life?

For many people who try Second Life one of the major difficulties they face is the sheer complexity of the virtual world. It’s not just scale and size, it’s also usability. For a user to go beyond the basics of moving around and simple retail exchanges, they’ll need to be a proficient CAD user or script programmer. Because the makers of Second Life want to allow as much creativity as possible, they allow users to adapt their world to an extreme (I know, I know - an expert resident may argue against this case - but to an average user, I believe this is so). The range of tools actually prohibits many users from fully realising their life in the world. It’s information and option overload.

While brands seem to be jumping feet first into Second Life, people and companies that have been there for a while are wondering if the hype will last. I spoke to a rep at a company that makes Second Life objects and places for companies and they told me that while SL was hot, they remain platform agnostic. In other words, when something better comes along, they’ll move off SL onto that instead.

And what will ’something better’ look like? Time and time again, we have seen the VHS in a category beat the Betamax and maybe there’s an opportunity for this to happen in virtual worlds too. Could we see a Grand Theft Auto version of a virtual world? I think so.

In Grand Theft Auto there are only a limited number of movements the main character can make. In Second Life, virtually any movement can be scripted for an avatar. Which option is better?

I’d have thought that the best thing for Second Life makers Linden Lab to do would be to actually take a leaf out of a video-game maker’s book. Video games are designed to feel real-life while in fact there are limitations and rules. But it’s these rules that make the games more enjoyable.

Linden Lab’s efforts to make everything open has had its downside already. Residents have been attacking the world by creating programs that continuously create new objects in the world until Linden Lab’s servers can’t hold any more. Linden Lab’s response is to offer freedom only to an elite class of users who they trust, Mark Wallace of 3 Point D reports:

When users add objects to the Grid that are able to replicate themselves, dividing and redividing exponentially, LL’s servers are soon choked by the processing power required to maintain all these objects, and the world grinds to a halt. Now, Linden Lab is contemplating a solution that would create a privileged class of users with access to the full range of SL scripting and object-creation abilities on the Grid, with everyone else limited as to the functions available or the locations in which their scripts and objects will work.

Mark also goes on to comment about restrictions:

I’d suggest that a solution like this will kill Second Life rather quickly, or at least prevent it from becoming what CEO Philip Rosedale and SL’s most optimistic boosters believe it can become: a kind of 3D extension and next generation of the World Wide Web. The thing that makes the Web work is that anyone can create content there. In addition, everyone can create the same range of content. This is what has given rise to the most fascinating and revolutionary content out there, to the mashups, the new forms of media, many of the games. Had content-creation on the Web been limited to a privileged class of users, we would not have half the things we take for granted on the Web today.

I’d argue that it’s not right to compare SL in its current form with the web. On the web, we’ve recently experienced a freedom that allows lots of people to create their own web pages and blogs or post their video files. Users in Second Life have so much creative scope they aren’t just making their SL-version of a web page - they are actually making their own internets.

And how many of us, know how to make an internet? And what to do with one if we did?

So in conclusion, Second Life needs to be dumbed down before someone comes along and does it instead. Sure - let the super-users hack, but give us an environment that the rest of us can work,rest and play with.

Second Life
PSFK HQ In Second Life