Virtual worlds - what are the most popular and / or successful virtual worlds in China / Asia or your part of the world?
I'm particularly interested in the growth of virtual worlds around the
world - which are the most popular, what is the business model, who are
the users, etc.
All thoughts welcomed
Rohit Talwar
rohit@fastfuture.com
While some of these answers are accurate, the answer truly depends on what context you are using the term "virtual world". In a traditional gaming sense these are commonly referred to as MMORPG's or Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games. These are definitely "virtual worlds" per se, but the market and makeup of the individuals who use these are geared 100% towards entertainment purposes.
The non-gaming Virtual World environment typically consists of platforms such as: Second Life, Project Entropia, There.com and several more. These environments are truly structured around a virtual and social experience that don't have gaming as the core structure. Although Project Entropia falls very closely into the "gaming" platform it's true draw is based around it's Real Time Cash Economy that allows individuals to purchase virtual goods and services for "real" currency. In effect you trade your dollars, yen, or credit card information to purchase their in-game currency. You can then use this currency to purchase things, upgrade your character, start businesses, conduct ecommerce trade, etc.
As far as growth goes, World of Warcraft is by far the king of the hill with over 8 Million subscribers when I last checked, and they are continuing to grow. In a pure virtual world play Second Life has 7.2M subscribers, but the vast majority of these individuals only login once and never return, and most of them don't actually pay any subscription fees.
Where is all of this going? Who's to say, but it's an exciting time and the promise is there that will allow individuals and businesses to truly collaborate in real-time in a seamless fashion with virtual representations of themselves. This can range from project/team collaboration to dating services, to poetry readings, seminars, prototype launches, and much more.
The ability for individuals to communicate globally in an immersive 3-D environment is a thought that has many companies investing millions of dollars into the potential of the idea.
Reno Provine
http://www.ganconference.com
Great America Networks Conferencing
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Posted by: FreidaMeyer | July 25, 2010 at 07:05 AM