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Most Business-Launched Virtual Worlds Fail
bughunter writes "Internet consultant firm Gartner claims that only 1 in 10 commercial virtual worlds succeeds, and most fail within 18 months: 'Businesses have learned some hard lessons," Gartner analyst Steve Prentice said in a statement released Thursday. "They need to realize that virtual worlds mark the transition from Web pages to Web places and a successful virtual presence starts with people, not physics. Realistic graphics and physical behavior count for little unless the presence is valued by and engaging to a large audience."'" Hard to believe it's even as high as one in ten -- most "virtual worlds" with obvious commercial trappings certainly don't inspire much besides mockery.
The average success rates for most businesses is also about 1 in 10.
Not a typewriter
90% of everything is crap
While it isn't business, it is life. My virtual world has never failed me. Especially six. I live in it now. I deviate and fork when I dream. Dream I do. If I don't like things, I change it. I live two instances of virtuality, my dreams state and my outwardly facing persona.
Best part, it works without a computer. Requires no electricity, although a few beers helps.
Miller time!
"...most "virtual worlds" with obvious commercial trappings certainly don't inspire much besides mockery."
Especially here.
I've got your sig, right here.
Manager: Does your avatar make actual money?
Employee: He doesn't know how to do that.
Manager: The whole point of innovation is to make money.
Why would I want to use a low value virtual world?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Don't worry about it, it's Gartner. Probably the only reason that businesses fail is because they listen to the mindless, erroneous, buzzword-infested garbage that Gartner spews out every so often. Gartner exists for the sake of existing, they add no genuine value to anything, virtual or real.
Does making a stupid 3D game your employees can wander about in really count as a virtual world? What if I run a Halflife server but we just wander about a map shaped like an office and chat? Can I tell all my rivals that our company has it's own virtual world?
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
The online game companies imagine that since there are millions of Internet users, it means that they'll have instantly a lot of users.
It's also because they need financial partners, so they tend to inflate their numbers to attract money.
Investors like to hear about attracting 0.01% of the Internet users, even if they have nothing new, or even worse, nothing to sell !
Hint: I worked in 2 such game companies, and they both failed !
Transition from web pages to places? No thanks! I want a clean, simple web page that delivers the information I need in an organized and intuitive manner, not a fucking video game time sink. It shouldn't take up lots of memory and it shouldn't require much navigation, which is what web pages do and it is not what "virtual worlds" do.
First, Gartner is pathetic.
Second, there are some virtual worlds launched by businesses that have been astoundingly successful. They're called MMORPGs.
Advice: on VPS providers
This is hardly surprising. Look at the multitude of MMOs that have started development, and been left by the roadside due to lack of funding for the craptastic product. Then look at all the MMOs that have died within 2yrs of launch due to lack of players.
Heck, even some of the ones that are still going today would have died if they hadn't gotten lucky. Vanguard is only around because SOE bailed out Sigil, and the product is still not very good a full year after release. It should have never gone gold when it did, as it's now a "paid beta".
The only thing that keeps the full numbers from looking so bad is the various "free to play but with an item mall" MMOs that come out of the Asian Pacific market. They can all call themselves successful, but they have no recurring income due to subscriptions, so they have little to no future development, and are basically "how many potions can you carry and use" games with no strategy outside of that.
Don't think so many have gone belly up? Check this site out, and look at the number of games that were cancelled either pre-beta or during beta, or after launch. It's a lot. BetaWatcher
Once you get past the Snarking, sometimes the buzzwords actually have a point.
A Web Place requires the user to spend tangible amounts of time physically present at the place, preferably with greater than 25% attentiveness. IRC is the case study to "online in absentia".
AOL's legions of Septemberites learned their first wee steps of the web because they responded in raucous rapid-fire quantities to each other.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
> his is hardly surprising. Look at the multitude of MMOs that have started development, and been left by the roadside due to /* lack of funding for */ the craptastic product.
Fixed that for you. And I'm quite serious: many of the exciting new products in many fields are proposed by people who have no idea of what the market will actually support, misled by their own hopes and the VC marketer who took the commission for finding them the money and is long gone by the time the product finishes failing. Far too many companies are producing far, far too many big projects to create a new future, rather than filling a real need. And it's easy to poison such a project with a single mistake from a single developer or manager, or a market change.
My employers will sell you this. Indeed, they'll be delighted to sell you this, since we developed it three years ago and so far have no real customers. It's a great idea... on paper.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Just a little background on myself.. I run a virtual world business. Skidz Partz in second life, and while.. I understand all the laughter and criticisms, I have made my living from it making tools other gadgets. So I guess I am one out of the ten.
One of the reason 9 out of 10 businesses fail in virtual worlds, is they are so easy to start. Its nothing to buy land (rent server space) and set up shop. You don't even have to have a product of your own. The hard part, is taking it seriously, customer support, having events and such.
The second reason is most people open the store and think its like a web page, place things for sale and people buy.. completely automated.. no work at all.. I find, in virtual worlds the community factor is something that those 9 don't take into consideration. When coke put up there sim, it was empty of anyone that works there. People come to virtual worlds to communicate, explore, and create, and it defeats the whole purpose of the virtual world not to have a staff on hand to communicate and reach out to the audience.
And, as far as the fancy ligth show, and physics, I would agree that the core business user of a virtual world would not care about those things, but I believe the base users do. They want a great experience with great graphics. Most people that come into second life just want to escape reality for a bit, roll play, chat with friends and those thing add to the experience. And if you have not seen the wind light version of secondlife, I recommend you take a look, its stunning.
And now time to defend virtual worlds a bit... Last night I was searching the net high and low for a mathematical solution, but could not find it anywhere. I join the mathematics group in second life and had the answer I was looking for in just seconds. This is a great example of how the community is very powerful function in virtual worlds. In the future, I do believe virtual worlds will increase in popularity. I know IBM, Google, and Second life are working together now on something even bigger and better. While, right now, I would never suggest using second life as a work at home but in a virtual office, with the price of gas I believe something like that will become even more popular or more likely in the future.
Well.. just my 2 cents.