After Virtual Worlds at NUS Entrepreneurship Week

The Virtual Worlds panel brought together speakers who build virtual worlds (Jeremy Snyder, Twinity), financial service provider for virtual worlds (Aileen Sim, First Meta), provider of a virtual mobile technology aimed at enterprises (James Ong, Origami Frontiers), new media and virtual site destination producer (Aroon Tan, Magma Studios), where game characters and films collide (Ho Chee Yue, Association of MACHINIMA Arts and Sciences) and our champion for the marriage of museums and new media (Walter Lim, National Heritage Board).

The whole session covered topics from business opportunities to virtual world governance to the virtual economy and the trading of virtual currency. Aroon started the talk with a brief overview of how response happens immediately in these interactive virtual worlds, where whatever a character does, the interactive environment receives your feedback immediately. This is in line with the drastic change in paradigm and what this means for entrepreneurs is that, we need to think of how to sustain business opportunities, how to expand the more traditional elements like advertising and subscription elements inside these virtual worlds.

Directed at budding virtual world creators, Jeremy of Twinity talked about the need for compelling reasons to participate in your virtual world. Why yours? For Twinity, the question for them while creating the virtual world is: How can we put something out there that is interesting for people, and doesn’t take them away completely from their life? Because they believe that even if you play World of Warcraft for 40 hours a week, you still need to live in the real world. It is not possible to have a total divide. As such, he claims that Twinity is the only virtual world that is based on the real world. (I don’t really understand how having more realistic 3D virtual worlds translates to not taking you completely away from your real life? Unless ‘real’ just means physical surroundings.)

One of the biggest topics discussed was about monetization in virtual worlds. According to Chee Yue, be it in the real world or virtual world, to make real money out of marketing you need to be very sharp. The question to ask is: Will you be able to create something that people will be able to pay? Aileen reminded us that:

“When people buy virtual goods, they are not paying for the item per se, but actually paying for the way a certain item makes them feel.”

This is something I believe all retailers in the real and virtual worlds will attest to.

For Walter, he suggested two ways of looking at monetization: horizontal – like First Meta, building an across-the-board platform, or vertical – drilling down into specific industries like education or automotives. Another warning from Jeremy is that if a company is thinking of advertising in virtual worlds, flat ads are out of the question. Why do flat ads when you can do interactive ads that take advantage of the interactivity of virtual worlds?

I believe this goes the same for many other paradigm shifts for example from print to web for magazines/newspapers and even comics. Check this TED video out for a good look at new forms of comic strips that opens up when we move from print to web (eg. infinite comic loops are comic strips where the end of the comic is also the start of the same comic strip). Or try out Comic Chat (create your own comic strip as you chat).

Lastly, on the topic of currency trading, there were points regarding the trading of virtual currency and currency exchange between virtual currency and real world currency. As questions were being asked from the floor regarding making a living in virtual worlds, the panel touched upon the legalities of making money in virtual worlds, and thereafter converting the virtual currency into real world currency you can use to buy food for sustenance. They noted that while it is probably required that one register a business or recognize income from your virtual world activities, a large number of people do not do so. As a result, the illegitimate virtual economy would most likely be much larger than the legit one. Meaning, the black market definitely exists and is thriving! Just that like with the real world’s black market, it is not always visible to most of us.

Picture from left: Chee Yue (Machinima), James (Origami), Jeremy (Twinity), Walter (National Heritage Board), Aileen (First Meta), Aroon (Magma Studios).

Related posts:

1. NUS Entrepreneurship Week – Big Bang Tuesday! 20 January 2009
2. In Conversation with Jeremy Snyder, Twinity and Metaversum
3. NUS Entrepreneurship Week – Discover, Explore and Unleash the Entrepreneur in you!
4. NUS Entrepreneurship Week – Unconventional Thursday, 22 January 2009
5. Virtual(ly) Thursday – 5 Nov