In a report just published by EngageExpo on the future of virtual goods there is an interesting comment by Tom Hale the Chief Product Officer at Linden Lab (Of Second Life fame) that says.
“Continue to see large brands experiment with engagement based investment to maximize exposure during zeitgeist events, for example the Olympics.”
Now I am hoping that it really does get taken seriously by the organizing bodies. The ways of representing sporting events are open for massive innovation.
I wrote that here in April and here and here in 2008 on eightbar and have proved the potential with the Wimbledon work since 2006 in Second Life.
I also received an invite to a conference (via Layar) for the M-Football conference whose aim is to ensure that the 2010 world cup (soccer) acts as a catalysts for mobile applications (inluding augmented reality ones).
Now with 2 years to go it really is time for the UK in particular to wake up and start doing things. It wont be enough to throw some things into Second Life or a quick Facebook app on there 2 mins before the event.
We are all here to help and to work that direction. We can indeed make this the best Olympics ever.
Back in 2006 when England went out of the World cup Yossarian and I shared the experience enhanced with Second Life as a back channel at the prototype Wimbledon. It was simple, effective and very memorable (and I had Avatared up as Sven (The coach).
Head in hands as we crashed out.
Imagine what we can all do if we actually plan this !
Apologies to any agencies working on this in earnest already. I do get the feeling we have not really started yet though.
A decade of gaming innovations
Over at Play Think Learn Nicola Whitton has described a good set of 5 major innovations in gamin we have seen this past decade. I was going to do a retrospective post, but Nicola’s one pretty much covers it so check it out.
Interaction, Casual, Mobile/AR,ARG and MMORPG growth feature.
I could add one that surprises some people. The move away from the pursuit of more and more “realistic” graphics at all costs.
Many people who are new to games or are suddenly taking note will start with the assumption that we need more and more photo realism and that if its not high end visuals its not a game. In part this is because the non gamers can relate to photo realism as being somewhat more understandable. There is of course room and need for these highly “real” visual games, Gran Turismo, Forza 2, Assassins Creed 2 etc. However the sideswipe the Wii made and the rise of the casual puzzle game (as you point out) thrive on not being highly rendered. For gamers The Legend Of Zelda:Wind Waker going cell shaded could be said to have tipped this trend (around 2002). So great gameplay and engagement through simpler visuals with Crayon, Toribash, Loco Roco etc has been a feature of games evolution. Then of course there are the hybrids such as the fantastic Little Big Planet whose design ethos was to look like real things but handmade from craft material and junk.
Of course Play,Think Learn had already written about this with Just My Imagination but I thought it should be in the list of the decade too 🙂
Those muppets prove they are not muppets
This whole Disney/muppets campaign for a volunteer workforce is really interesting rich web design with user created/personalized elements. Take a look at the main experience at the end of this short video.
The viral nature of how to get people to share with one another (as I am here) is also very interesting. There have been some similar pieces of technology most notably the BBC’s psychoville which I have to admit I was caught out with whilst on holiday in May by that pesky Roo 🙂
BTW, in case you are not familiar with UK slang its became quite common to call someone a muppet if they were a bit inept. Just watch Lock Stock and two smoking Barrels.
Interesting control mechanisms: Cars, Rockets and Choppers
Props to @infiniteunity3d for tweeting this. This is an example of using a different control mechanism to enhance a virtual experience. In this case it is slot car racing. It is built in Unity3d which once again shows the power to just be able to get on and try out the ideas rather than battle the middleware. (I am sure it had it moments though 🙂 )
Slot car racing is a very tactile experience, the friction of the pickup on the rheostat and the precision of trying to get just the right speed for a corner is the charm of slot racing. Scalextric was a big part of my childhood.
AlabSoftware have hooked the controller up to a set of slot racing cars. They did not just stick to a top down view either it is a full 3d model (as that is what Unity3d is very good at indeed).
Nearly the first thing I built in Second Life was a slot car racing system. I say nearly because other things like the tennis got in the way. My initial thoughts were to build a construction set in a world that was by its very nature a construction set. Being able to provide limited resources (track pieces) and specialized types of car etc had the makings of an economy and toolkit within the economy and toolkit.
There is a definite movement to more haptic control interfaces, none more so than the blend that has been created and released on the world at CES 2010 with the Parrot AR helicopter. A wirelessly controlled flying toy/copter that you control with your iphone and that also provides video and data feedback to you with various headsup displays and tricks. It is a form of AR, but like most AR the term gets used for all sorts of things.
Sitcking a camera on a vehicle is of course not a new thing DCJ put a wireless camera on his rocket at the launch day we had back in 2008 but the Parrot AR Drone is a very nice evolution and combination of technology and design
Xbox 360 Avatar Arcade (Ps3 Home-a-like?)
Thanks to @josholalia for tweeting “Not for me. But I’d pay to watch @ritajking duel @charliechu & @epredator RT @majornelson: Game Room Trailer here-> http://bit.ly/5FAIJq” and pointing out the video (via Major Nelson) of the future of the xbox 360 arcade game room.
This is the start of a virtual world usage of the 360 avatars to let you walk up to arcade cabinets (by the look of it) and play the old school arcade originals. Arcades where where I grew up and hung out and they were a very social place as you could not play the games all the time. I liked it when I saw the walk up cabinets in Playstation Home and I have to say this bears more than a passing resemblance to that just on the 360 😉
It sounds from the blurb (link to a word doc on this page) too that this is a customizable room that you place your arcade cabinets in. “invite friends into your custom arcade to check out your collection or visit their game room”.
It is also cross windows and xbox.
So what Microsoft has cleverly done is repackage the old arcade games (which has been done more than once) but added a highly social layer to it. Games whose high score table was only ever visible for the day in the arcade until the power was turned off will now be available all over the world.
One other line I liked (though would have preferred this to not be in a word doc !) was “Challenge friends to beat your high score by sending custom challenges and taunts across platforms”.
Customer challenges and taunts – fantastic.
It is generally accepted that the Xbox Live environment has been a major reason for the 360’s success. It is certainly why I buy more games for the 360 than the PS3. Sony has retro fitted trophies and achievements and innovated by adding Home. Microsoft started out with great connections between games and is evolving the virtual world connections and representations based on those connections. As we are all saying and learning this is all about people first tech features second.
Augmented Reality Iphone does an Iphone
This is a great promo done for an AR application featuring an Iphone. What is particularly interesting is the ability to interact with the virtual iphone one the iphone and spark up applications. Take a look :). It is by Ogmento
Fresh Decade Fresh Fish
I have a mini side project for an iphone application that I want to get submitted as soon as possible this year. Mainly this is to test the process. It has caused me to start doing some things that are clearly not my forte. i.e. Graphic design. I have no problem using any of the graphic design tools, and I really quite enjoy them, but my results are always…. well… meh.
For the app I needed to create some original visuals, as for a proof of concept I had used some 3d models from elsewhere just to get a feel for this. What I was aiming for was something fishlike.
This is what I have got too so far using the wonderful Cheetah 3d on the mac.
Now bear in mind I am a techie not a visual designer, but I did have to use a few things here.
I created the mesh from initial prim shapes in cheetak, then joined and imported them into a single mesh.
I created a set of character joints, the blue skeleton elements showing then had to remember ho to create the skeleton tag on Cheetah and drag it across to the properties to bind the skeleton to the mesh. (All this is bread and butter stuff to a good designer and animator of course!)
The texture, such as it is was using photoshop elements to create a stained glass window effect, then create another one one top of that in order to get some randomness and mess it up a bit.
Then I created some poses, remembering in Cheetah to create the pose once the root node for the pose had been selected. It was then a case of moving the joints around and saving each state.
Finally in Cheetah I created some animations, setting poses and timelines and key frames before saving the thing.
Then sparked up unity Iphone and dragged the poor fish like thing into the environment. Here the animations just played.
Hit publish and Xcode gets sparked up, the app gets deployed and running on the test Iphone.
Not a piece of code written, all config and clicking.
Of course now I can do what I know I can do. Write code to make the things happen in the way I want them too.
I will of course have to revisit the “Fish” maybe put some more bones in, try some smoother textures or try and draw it as one mesh not a bunch of lumpy prims. The trouble is I know it will never look as good as someone who really does this stuff.
Doing this though, and I recommend all tech and biz people give it a go in some for, does give you an appreciation of the visual design skills of those around you. I think too often it is taken for granted. I think the same can be said for good code though. The things under the covers, such as in this tool chain with the Mac OS, Cheetah 3d, Unity 3d and the Iphone OS none of which got in the way of the idea.
Trying to make things in different domains to ones we are used too, with tools that we are not skilled in using is a great way to understand what others do, what is good and what is mediocre. “Web 2.0 is Web Do” extends to many more things. Its a new decade give something a go, just so you either know how hard it is or you may find a new talent 🙂
Immersive video live in 360 degrees
A long while back we had 360 degree panoramic webcams that let people direct what they see. Now we of course have google street views of the world, but I was impressed with this 360 video that you can drag around of NYC
According to this article live versions of Immersive Media’s technology is being used for an on demand music service.
Of course once you have live 360 video coverage you can still instrument that display and provide virtual augmented reality over the top, which is an interesting twist I think.
The Next Decade?
It may seem a bit of a long shot to look forward to the next 10 years but what the heck!
1. Keep Walking. Obviously the big one to consider is what used to be called mobile. Everything is mobile now. We already have relatively easy access to 3g and wi-fi to allowed our technology to be untethered. Of course this needs to be wrestled away from the anti-competitive telecoms companies. The thing stifling growth is the wayward charging mechanisms. Cross country boundary charges and tariffs will be forced to change, either by regulation or by a new entrant into the market that is not a handset provider. It may be more schemes like the BT FON emerge. With that you opt into a scheme to share your home wireless with passers by who also opt in to share their home wireless. It creates a huge ad hoc network. Just imagine too if a generation of devices are made that not only receive but also transmit and act as wireless hubs.(The already exist BTW!) If the pricing model is an opt in to share you wireless access wherever you are and you get paid for encouraging others to use you mobile hotspot (as they encourages new users to access their applications) then we may see a game changer in personal comms.
2. Batteries. This has to get sorted out in the next decade. Our devices demand more and more, and we rely on them for longer so we need a sustainable and revolutionary power transmission or battery device.
3. 3d Printing. 10 years should be enough for this to become “mainstream” as by then the transmission of 3d content and design with the associated rules and regulations, kite marks, certifications etc will start to be in place. Why move goods all over the planet when you can make them locally? It really is a no brainer.
4. Games as work. Eventually enough of us will have been through the corporate mill, will also have spent a large portion of our life entertaining ourselves with World Of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2 and even Farmville to work out that there is no reason for us as humans to druge along doing work for the sake of it that is dull and repetitive. Menial tasks can be enhanced for very little cost into levelling up entertaining, morale lifting and thought provoking activities. Work and business is a Role playing game (I have pointed this out before back on Terra Nova). Donald Trump says he is not interested in money but it helps to use it to keep score. (I guess I need to alter the game I play 😉 ). This will of course become a lot easier to do as services in the enterprise are exposed and instrumented then rendered and represented in more meaningful ways in environments like Second Life Enterprise. As with all forms of human communication some people will evolve and flourish learning to entertain and inform, to persuade and motivate using all the online tools and presence that we are able to engage with today.
5. Brands crossing digital borders. Engagement with people where they happen to want to be online and offline will have to increase. It will not be enough, as back in the early web to just leave you website lying around to be found. Business has to become a travelling exhibit, a movable market stall that can be adjusted and placed wherever people are or want to be. Digitally distance knows no bounds, but you need more than a sign post or banner ad. Active guides, persuaders, dare I say salespeople? Maybe I am referring to my evangelist brethren though? People who know the territory, have experience and speak the language working for companies, not just as a a sideline that the company takes for granted.
6. Collectives vs Corporate. I would really like to see an end to the ridiculous long statements and terms and conditions on digital content. The pages of scrolling and checkbox ticking, the multi country copyright statements on films that you cant skip (particularly kids ones). We should evolve a fair wait of policing copyright, of acknowledging the origins of an idea. I am fairly certain this charge will be led as more of us become distributed and work more as collectives online. Of course this will be cyclic as those collectives will evolve into the corporate entities we have again today but the re-arrangement will start to occur first over the next decade.
7. Renaissance – Access for All. Projects such as one laptop per child and local country initiatives to enable connectivity really are essential. We have a divided society where many of us are the monks with our illuminated apple logos enabling us to connect with the world. We have an increasing number of people who are just learning to decipher the history of our writings, but are now starting to not need to hear us read it out load, but to write their own digital histories and more importantly their future. We have a few naysayers that are worried that if everyone has access to this the world will end as we know it. I mean…. people communicating with one another and understanding one another’s cultures, ideas and needs without being brokered by a ruling class, whatever next! With a rise in education powered in part by digital inclusion at a global level I expect to see some huge innovations, upheavals and positive outcomes over the next 10 years. Putting the tech in the hands of people, but just as a tool to use however suits them, not just for the sake of a cool gadget is going to cause this generational renaissance.
So there we are a lucky 7. Happy new year and happy new decade everyone
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays one and all
Merry Christmas to everyone from Feeding Edge and epredator (one and the same thing at the moment :))
It has been an amazing year and I have to say a great big thankyou for all your support. To all the people I have worked with, and for, advising, building, directing in whatever capacity. To all the people who have offered to help, mentoring, contacts and to share ideas that created new opportunities thankyou too. It feels many of us are part of one big club.
Having very much helped spark this wave of the virtual world industry via Second Life and the other platforms, going from the apparent safety of a long term corporate job to a faster moving freer thinking world of entrepreneurs in this fascinating space has been quite a blast. Virtual worlds, social media, games and augmented reality with a smidge of 3d printing thrown in for good measure offer some amazing avenues of exploration. It has of course been a huge financial challenge, not least because of having to pursue and stick to my principles and honour system. I never do anything the easy way do I! There will be more on that journey as I sort the book out over the coming months. In some ways I have been waiting on a particular process to complete one way or another but enough is enough I think. Too many people have shown an interest in the journey to this point so far and what really happened the last few years. I had some great advice that much of what I talk about is so positive and with an attitude of “come on we can do it” that it would be strange to write a book targetted at the bad an negative actions of others. I think that is right. So whilst there are some things that need to be resolved I will no doubt work into the book that positive effect of others negative actions. It will of course be as press worthy when I do 🙂
I have had some great collaboration conversations the last few weeks in particular and having just had a patent filed on an idea that has been brewing for a good few months there is an exciting business avenue to start 2010 with.
I will of course have to do a predictions post later, but this is really a merry christmas one and a great excuse to abuse my logo a bit more. I checked with my branding guidelines, and I agreed with myself that this was within those 🙂
Have a great holiday, stay safe.