New report, Virtual Worlds 2011+ now available
We’ve just made our latest report, Virtual Worlds 2011+ available. You can order it here.
This report identifies and explains the emerging trends in the virtual worlds sector and includes insight into:
- Kids, Tweens and Teens
- Platform convergence
- Music
- Gambling
- Online dating
- UGC
- Socnet extension
- Education
- Virtual goods (consumer and B2B)
- Mirror worlds
- Mobile devices
- Metabrands
- Branded virtual worlds
KZero services:
Radar chart: Toys/games, fantasy and mirror worlds
Following on from our Universe chart posts for Q4 2009, we’re delighted to release the Radar charts. These charts show, be genre, virtual worlds either live or in development. The chart below shows three segments, Toys/real world games, fantasy/questing and mirror worlds.
For the Toys and real world games segment, we’re expecting a lot of movement. Mattel has lead this segment with Barbie Girls and we’re now seeing Hasbro/EA move into the market with the Littlest Pet Shop Online (LPOS) and Ubisoft with Imagine, launching shortly (Shameless plug alert – both are KZero consulting clients). And let’s not forget about Lego Universe. Continue reading “Radar chart: Toys/games, fantasy and mirror worlds” »
Twinity does time travel. A good use for mirror worlds.
Berlin-based virtual world Twinity has an interesting campaign going on at the moment. And, more importantly, is demonstrating a good use for mirror worlds -the ability to revisit events and places from the past.
This is a concept KZero first presented and explained over two years ago as a good (read – build engagement) use for mirror worlds.
The concept of using mirror worlds for time travel is explained in this post as well as in a summary presentation delivered at Virtual Worlds London. Well done Twinity.
We see mirror worlds with the right positioning and activities as being a key driver for older user VW adoption. Here’s the slide from the 2008 conference referencing this…
They’ve re-constructed the Berlin Wall ala 1989 from the Reichstag to checkpoint Charlie in remembrance of the upcoming 20 year anniversary of it coming down. Here’s the video.
KZero services:
Growth forecasts for the Virtual Worlds sector
We’re excited about the growth in virtual worlds, very excited in fact. As we release our forecasts for the sector, perhaps it’s time to have a quick look back over a frantic few years…
In an unfortunate way, the global credit crunch got in the way a little (the understatement of the year – not just for VWs of course). Late 2006 was the start of things. Sure, worlds like Habbo, There and Second Life were around pre-2006, but it wasn’t until brands started moving into SL that media awareness grew and, of course, users began to notice the metaverse.
Without a doubt, 2007 was the year of Second Life, with over 100 brands setting up islands. This created major attention, good and bad. And nevertheless, while No Brand is and Island, this marketing surge took virtual worlds mainstream. Linden Lab has a lot to be thanked for – Virtual Worlds were on the map in 2007. Additionally, we can’t forget about the Disney acquisition of Club Penguin – the catalyst for Kids, Tweens and Teens (KT&T) related business plans to pop up at an astonishing rate, ‘Chasing the Penguin’ as we call it.
2008? This was growth across many segments. Mirror Worlds came into play, more KT&T worlds were launched and suddenly the sector was rocking. The longer established worlds continued to grow their multi-million registered user bases and the new worlds started to battle it out.
Then we moved into 2009. Everything was looking rosy until the economy stepped in and slowed the launch of new worlds due to lack or drop-off in funding. Interestingly, ARPPU’s didn’t really take a hit, as users continued to spend money in-world. However, generally the growth and momentum seen in the sector upto the end of 2008 was impacted. But, as we start to move towards 2010, what does the future have in store? One thing’s a dead cert – we’ll be producing lots more charts – you can see them all here.
Lot’s of brand-new concepts in the VW space is one area that’s really exciting. More KT&T worlds? Absolutely – we think this age segment will continue to drive growth. And we’re optimistic about older worlds catered towards adults (in an ‘adult’ sense as well as propositions aimed at more mature audiences), with learning and education plus gambling being key genres to watch.
Here’s our forecast for the growth in the number of virtual worlds. By the end of this year we’ll be at the 150 mark for total worlds. We forecast this number to double by the end of 2010.
A rapid increase, driven largely by media sector companies creating IP-driven platforms for the toys, TV programmes, films and other properties. Just as almost every KT&T property has a website, we expect them to have a VW or at least presence in virtual worlds – along the ‘Theme-Park’ approach discussed in the past.
We expect growth past 2010 onwards to come from multiple areas. Education and older age ranges will supplement KT&T growth. Also socnet extension from ‘pages to places‘ is a natural movement. Combine all of this and we get to our 2012 forecast of 900 virtual worlds.
Continue reading “Growth forecasts for the Virtual Worlds sector” »
Who says you cant re-live history? Now, you can in Historic Philadelphia
Walking through time has taken a whole new meaning when GeoSim Virtual Philadelphia and the Independence Hall Association launched a Virtual Tour of Historic Philadelphia in 3D. The application, developed jointly in late June, is up and running at www.geosimphilly.com.
Using GeoSims mirror-world technology most of Old Philadelphia had been previously virtualized, but now fifty-two of Philadelphias historic sites have become stops on a virtual tour within GeoSim Philly. Users can see these sites in 3D rendering and interact with US History guides or avatars wearing period costumes who can answer questions and offer basic historic facts about the places visited. Furthermore, the virtual tour is fully integrated with the USHistory.org website so that visitors can jump back and forth between the two websites after downloading and installing GeoSim Virtual Philadelphia.
Continue reading “Who says you cant re-live history? Now, you can in Historic Philadelphia” »
Virtual World Accounts Q2 2009: 10 to 15
This is the busiest segment of the overall virtual worlds space. Here’s the Universe chart for virtual worlds with average ages between 10 and 15. 
See all the age ranges and virtual worlds here.
Proving the Point (Cloud mapping with Earthmine)
An interesting video of ‘Stereo’ image capture and point-cloud mapping from Earthmine. Looking it this another way, it’s an alternative solution for Mirror Worlds.
Ancient virtual worlds
Well, not all ancient, but certainly historic. As a follow-up to this post about the potential for mirror worlds to re-create times gone by, here’s some machinima showing early demonstrations of this concept.
The Forbidden City IBM project:
Slightly different this time, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: a Virtual Satellite Tour:
Are Mirror Worlds the answer for greater VW adoption?
We all know that virtual worlds catering to KT&T segments are hot property right now – lot’s of worlds already launched and plenty in development.
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That’s all well and good but I’ve been thinking a lot about us grown-ups and the opportunities and factors influencing greater take-up in the adults space. To be realistic, there’s not actually a whole load of choice available for adults wishing to explore virtual worlds at present and to a high degree Second Life has no competitors (yet).
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And it’s interesting because all these worlds for kids etc have been (and are) created by adults. We’ve just completed an initial business planning and strategic project for a new kids/tween VW where the creative drive is coming directly from some children – we’re using their vision and ideas. But this made me realise just how under-served older people are in the virtual worlds space.
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But, putting the actual platforms aside for a moment, it’s worth thinking about what sorts of activities or experiences would actually stimulate greater penetration and make in-roads from the early adopters into the early majority. Early adopters typically account for 13.5% of the general population whilst the early majority are a much larger group, representing 34% of the GP – sizable and attractive.?
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As shown in the graph right, it’s the adoption gap which I’m talking about here – and specifically how mirror worlds can potentially bridge the gap.
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Continue reading “Are Mirror Worlds the answer for greater VW adoption?” »
Growth areas in 2009 for virtual worlds: 25+
Rounding off this series of expanding on the points from the VW London presentation, here’s the potential growth areas in the 25+ age group.
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Mirror worlds as time machines
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There is in my opinion a catch 22 with mirror worlds – the more realistic they become (visually) the less impact they have. So, mirror world operators always need to place creativity and purpose top of their list when considering the user experience.
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One area which I think mirror worlds would have great impact is as time machines. By this, I mean recreating real places from the past – historical buildings, towns/cities and even specific events from history. This provides the compelling reason to visit.
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Sure, visiting a virtual London or New York is interesting to a point but residents of these cities can step outside of their doors and experience them. However, being able to visit a mirror world London from the 1800′s is a different proposition entirely. Interestingly, Second Life has been used already for this purpose – Paris in the 1900′s being a great example.
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Government / tourism
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We saw early moves from govts and tourism boards last year in Second Life. These included the Second House of Sweden, Maldives Embassy and others.
In terms of more ambitious efforts in 2009, one area I believe could work well is from local governments using VWs to serve their real-world residents for issues such as urban planning and virtual town-hall meeting. Continue reading “Growth areas in 2009 for virtual worlds: 25+” »
Photosynth – a fast track to creating mirror worlds?
Photosynth, from Microsoft is an emerging application that ‘stitches’ together individual photographs to create anavigabledigitalenvironment. It was demo’d first at the TED conference last year using Flickr photos of Notre Dame cathedral. It’s a product from Microsoft Live Labs, a development team and the website is here.
Rolling this forward a year or two, it seems obvious that this type of application could feasibly be used to create virtual world type spaces on the fly (real-time registration).
Here’s a video of Photosynth.
And a related application code-named Sea Dragon.
Continue reading “Photosynth – a fast track to creating mirror worlds?” »
Latest Twinity screenshots
Twinity, the German-based mirror worldhas opened the Alexander Platz area of Berlin to beta users. Here’s some screenshots – could do with a bit of sunshine maybe.
Building Rome in a day
An inevitable and cheesy headline, but hey, someone’s got to do it right?
Procedural Inc, a 3D software company claims their CityEngine product has generated ancient Rome digitally in a day. The press release is below. I’m fascinated with the cultural and resonant influences of re-creating real places on digital platforms, be it virtual worlds or otherwise. They seem to bring a sense of content, relevance and association in otherwise chaotic environments (read more about real places re-created). From a category perspective, this proposition slots into the mirror world category along with Near, Amazing Worlds, Twinity and Geosim.
Here’s the press release…
CityEngine GeneratesRomein One Day
Procedural Inc. Ships New Urban Modeling Solution, CityEngine, Allowing Mass Creation of City Models 10 Times Faster for Film & TV Production, Game Development, Architecture and City Planning; Free Trial Version Available For Download. Continue reading “Building Rome in a day” »
Virtual Pursuits – Who’s on the Radar?
It’s been a week of talking about the future of virtual worlds with VC’s, investors and research companies. The over-penetrated sectors, the under-served niches and where the smart money should be placed from an investment perspective. It’s also been a week of looking at a lot of business plans for potential new worlds with the founders not always realising there’s already competition in the space they’re looking to enter.
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On that note, I thought it would be be interesting and useful to segment the Universe graph by sector and genre to shed some light on the questions above.
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So, I’m dieingto call this graph ‘The Wedgie’, but I’ll settle on the ‘Radar’ (or maybe even Vadar). Here we go:
There’s a lot going on – we know this, so to make this a little easier to assimilate, it’s broken out a little below (and a high-res PDF version can be requested here).
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Socialising/chat, casual gaming and misc are shown below with bands reflecting age groups. There’s about 25 worlds off the radar (i.e. in stealth mode) not shown here. Blue dots refer to worlds in development or closed beta. Red are live or open beta.
Mirror worlds, roleplay/fantasy/quests and toys/real world game worlds are shown below. The toys and real world games sector is a hot area right now, set for continued growth in the next 12 months. Mirror worlds are one of the few categories tailored towards older users.
. Continue reading “Virtual Pursuits – Who’s on the Radar?” »
Google cameras hit the streets of the UK
Google continues to roll-out Street View, now turning attention to the UK, starting with London.
The Sunday TImes reports…..
The camera cars begun to trawl the streets of London and other British cities this week to take of pictures of unsuspecting people leaving shops, entering churches or perhaps kissing someone they should not be.
Those pictures will then be stitched together creating a panoramic virtual view of every public thoroughfare in London and other UK cities. The cameras captured random snapshots of the streets of San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami and New York before expanding across first America and now the world.
Google refused to confirm how many cities outside London the spy cars are roaming but unconfirmed sightings have been made in Edinburgh, Birmingham and Cardiff.
Related:
The Google virtual world game plan
Updated: Virtual world analysis for 20 – 30′s
And here’s the segment tailored towards 20 – 30 year olds. Full universe charts are here.
And speaking of Mirror Worlds, here’s Moondus
Moondus is a mirror world platform created by the folks behind Virtual Italian Themeparks. Seems they’ve switched focus a little away from Second Life. FAQ’s are always a good way to understand how company’s view their proposition…….
1. What is Moondus?
Moondus is the new Virtual Reality platform from Virtual Italian Parks.
With Moondus, you can create realistic worlds that your users can visit connecting to them using the Internet.
2. How will Moondus help me with my business?
Virtual Worlds represent the new frontier of media advertising and content publishing.
It will bring your customers beyond the simple internet web page, inside an immersive world created and customized to your individual needs.
You can use a Virtual World to import a CAD model of a house you are building to show it to your customers, or organize training sessions, medical simulations, recreate mirror worlds of a tourist or archeological site and much more.
The limit is your imagination.
3. How is Moondus different from other Virtual Reality platforms already present on the market?
We developed our solution with a few key features in mind: state of the art graphics, secured networking, easy importing of most CAD and 3D formats, and extreme flexibility to suit our individual clients’ needs.
This space is hotting up, as this post explains, from a tourism marketing perspective. Shame they chose Times Square for the demo video though, as it’s been done before by Multiverse.
K Zero services
Near intro video and background
Targeting an older audience than most virtual worlds at present, London-based Near is prepping for launch. Near can be classified as a mirror world – a digital space modeled on real world places, in the first instance, surprise surprise, London.
Near is being positioning as a ‘social entertainment platform’ and importantly is more about managed content than UGC. On this basis it will be interesting to see how Near resonates with older dems – most existing evidence from other virtual worlds suggests that ‘creation propensity’ increases with age.
From a busines model perspective, the company is looking at using Near worlds to generate advertising revenue from the company/brand shops/locations featured in-world. Another interesting aspect to keep an eye on.
Another different take on the virtual world experience is how Near handles avatars. The company is of the opinion that for this application, avatar visualisation (in the form of human-like characters) is not a fundamental requirement. Instead, they feel it’s more important to get a sense of who else is in-world as opposed to what they look like – you’ll see what I mean in the video.
Here’s the official intro move: