Convergence: Game vs Lifestyle

July 18, 2006 on 8:30 am | In General Gaming, Innovation, Industry

Over at TerraNova, Lisa Galarneau posted an interesting article about comments by Thomas Bidaux of NCSoft Europe and his take on what we know about MMOs. I recommend reading both that article and various links from the folks who commented, in particular, the MetaVerse Roadmap.

The whole discussion reminds me of many convergence discussions. Will cellphones become better media players or will media players become between telecom devices? Will cars fly or personal aircraft drive?

Knowing where things are going is as important as understanding who we'll get there. In that regard, I consider the future of VR from two distinct angles.

1. Will it be upon the foundation of a game? Will the metaphor drive the mechanic and therefore the fanbase into a world where the magic circle is still of paramount importance to a sought escapist quality? (for example, the form of immersion sought by WoW players is more mechanical while that of MySpace more abstract).
2. Will it be upon the foundation of environments? Will a collaberative creation environment, or at least the tools therein, spawn social and exploration components of a directed-play experience?

Or, put another way, will the future of VR be driven by Guild Wars or MySpace? Everything from the business models behind them to the "purpose" of the experiences about them is very different.

If I had to bet, I'd lean toward's MySpace. By leveraging the ubiquity of the web, and by targeting a particularly accepting market, they did not automatically alienate anyone through an experience too defined to be personalized. As the AAA-sized MMORPGs move away from allowing emergent behavior and meaningful customization of the totality of the experience, I think the void can be filled by experiences that transcend just directed-play experiences.

And best of all, it may not require a single company make a billion-dollar up-front investment and hope for the best either.