Finally a peep from Michael Smith and the team at MindCandy, whose fans have been waiting for the next installment of cross-media alternate reality game Perplex City for some months now, since it was indefinitely delayed.

The folks at Gizmodo tracked down Smith's latest project: a collection of cute monsters on cell phone charms (they whirl and light up when you get a ring) who belong to the virtual world of Moshi Monsters. Each $10 pet unlocks a virtual version of itself, which users can raise and care for. Some interesting social networking elements involved, too -- pet owners can swap pictures and comment on one another's monsters MySpace-style, with a newsroll à la Facebook.

Gizmodo says it looks like the monsters will be able to interact together in a virtual environment too, but it's unclear whether the tiny creatures will be able to do what pocket-sized monsters do best -- which is, of course, battling each other!

Moshi Monsters (website is up, but no content yet) will be targeted at the 7-12 year-old set, and from the looks of things, will go live this September.

[Via Gizmodo]

Europe's Virtual Worlds Forum 2007 is set to take place in London October 23rd-26th, and it's announced its program and speakers, all focused around "the commercial and brand opportunities and the corporate benefits of collaborative working in virtual worlds."

The variegated panels include "Kidalicious: are children the future for virtual worlds?" featuring Sulake's (Habbo) Timo Soininen, MindCandy's Michael Smith and BBC Digital Content VP Alice Taylor; "The future is blurred: social networking meets virtual worlds," with The Multiverse Network's Corey Bridges, and the Guardian's Meg Pickard and Aleks Krotoski, and "Virtual world business models," with NCSoft's Thomas Bideaux, Makena's Steve Victorino and Areae's Raph Koster -- and that's only to name a few!

Other speakers include the "Father of the MUD" Richard Bartle, Gartner Research VP Steve Prentice and Millions of Us founder Ruben Steiger.

[Via Wonderland]

Taking a page from the likes of paper-doll avatar site Stardoll, H&M stepping into TheSims 2, and fashion designers in Second Life and other virtual worlds, PR firm Ketchum's new unit Fashion Interactive 2.0 will focus on helping established design brands reach the current generation's crop of fashionistas, reports ClickZ.

Ketchum's previously served less glamorous companies like FedEx and Kodak. With fashion's rapid rise in the virtual worlds space -- virtual clothing outposts as popular hotspots for making avatars look hip -- it's a good call for Ketchum to anticipate that fashion brands will need the resources of a tech-savvy PR agency. Manish Chandra, the CEO of the Kaboodle social shopping site, recently told ClickZ that the fashion category "is now the growth leader on e-commerce and comparison shopping sites."

The press release explicitly mentions social networking sites alongside "online relationships" and "experiential marketing." From the release:

[Roy] Edmondson, Senior Vice President, Global Brand Marketing Practice, and [Jeff] Danzer, who joins Ketchum to launch this offering as Vice President and Group Manager, Apparel, will direct communications campaigns designed to reach and engage today’s digital consumers. Using Ketchum’s newly developed proprietary program that proactively harnesses the power of social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook, the group will provide a completely measurable communications platform that encourages consumers to become brand evangelists as never before.

[Via ClickZ]

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Let's start with an overview of Whyville, the educational virtual world for kids from Numedeon!

At this year's Edinburgh Interactive Festival, EVE Online CCP Hilmar Petursson gave a session all about the future of his space-age MMO. According to an article in GamesDigest, EVE's growth has been slow, but steady -- currently at 200,000 players, it aims to reach 300,000 in the next couple of years. Those are not ambitious numbers in terms of userbase size or rate of growth -- consider worlds like BarbieGirls or Nicktropolis that garnered millions in months, and EVE's been running for four years now.

But Petursson's vision for EVE is a world of content heavily dependent on a strong community -- Petursson wants to keep everyone in the same play world, or "shard," as opposed to most other MMOs that separates users into different areas, or onto separate servers, not necessarily allowing them to regularly share the same experience. It makes sense that slower and more gradual development would be key to achieving this strategy, especially as hardware standards advance and EVE players can anticipate a new DirectX graphical update this year.

Still, Petursson continues dreaming big, with the hopes of EVE “being the first game with more players than the population of the developer’s home country." This might be somewhat of a challenge, as EVE enjoys a particularly "hardcore" gamer audience. According to GamesDigest, 95% of EVE in-worlders are men, and very few of them are in the "sweet spot" under-18 audience that helps 'tween-targeted worlds flourish so quickly.

How to attract a broader userbase, then? Well, for one thing, avatars in EVE aren't people; they're space ships. Given the popularity of avatar personalization, clothing and other human-like peripherals particularly among the young female audiences that flock in droves to worlds based on fashion dolls, pets or home design, it's a little bit easier to see why EVE's demographic is still a little more limited than Petursson would like.

With that in mind, Petursson unveiled a new development at the EIF, giving an early look at character avatars to be introduced next year. Petursson hopes that allowing EVE users to personify people instead of merely hardware will attract a wider audience and create a deeper experience, adding a human element to the economics-heavy world (EVE even hired its own economist to work with the extensive in-world transaction system).

With the ever-present specter of the MMO's traditionally short lifecycle starting to breathe down EVE's neck after four active years, it looks like Petursson is focusing on keeping the upward climb going! Complete coverage of Peterssun's comments at EIF can be found at Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.

[Via GamesDigest]

At Sony's presentation at this year's Edinburgh Interactive Festival, Peter Edward, director of the platform group for PlayStation 3's built-in virtual world PlayStation Home, gave attendees a peek into the ambitious vision for the environment.

"For the user, the value of home is all about being able to share the experience with their friends, both gaming and non-gaming brands," Edwards said. "It's about having a safe, reputable environment run by a trusted brand in which they can feel secure about making online transactions." He added that Home users will be able to use the virtual world to buy real-world items, initially using the PlayStation Store interface which will be itself extended into a fully three-dimensional virtual world "in the long term".

"Community is all about communication with other users," Edwards said. "In the longer term, we'll be implementing a fully featured social networking experience within Home."

Further building on the theme of online socialization around gaming, Edwards continued that Home will allow extensive customization of both the avatar and its virtual apartment. Edward projected, "Users will be able to share other content that they have created -- photos and videos of themselves, and user-generated content tools such as their own t-shirt designs."

He added, "We'll also be giving out tools to allow scripting, java minigames and so on."

Edwards is aware of the importance of community to gamers who play online, noting that it's "crucial" that Home cater to the desire for a competition component, such as that of the competing Xbox 360's Achievements system. "The ability to host tournaments and special events will allow maintaining interest in the game," Edward explained. "By maintaining contact with the users for longer, publishers will be able to learn more about the desires and requirements for the user," he adds, with each IP customizing its community focus.

Highlighting the benefits of the Home experience for non-game brands, Edwards noted that it'll allow access to the highly-coveted demographic that comprises the majority of the connected PlayStation audience with sponsored events, branded spaces, objects, furniture and clothing. "A virtual online experience is something brands have already experienced, but PlayStation Home doesn't contain the same kind of risk as the 'wilder west' online experience," he said.

Publishers will be given their own asset creation toolsets to enable them to offer their own downloadable items in Home, like avatar clothing and furniture, obtainable with the already-established PlayStation Wallet and micropayment systems -- Edwards hinted at the opportunity for revenue-sharing with users, to encourage placement of advertising within their spaces. Edwards adds that in the future, users will be able to buy full games within Home.

"In the longer term, once an engaged audience is there, there are revenue opportunities for all, including end users," Edwards said.

[This exclusive on-site report from Andrew Doull and Leigh Alexander originally appeared on CMP Game Group sister website Gamasutra.com.]

Anthony Zuiker, the creator and executive producer of the CSI television crime drama franchise, will deliver the opening keynote at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo on October 10 in San Jose.

Virtual Worlds Management, who produces the event, says Zuiker will be talking about how CSI: NY plans to extend the TV property into the interactive virtual world space to engage with customers, partners and employees. Could a virtual crime scene investigation be in the cards? We'll have to wait and see!

Broadcast TV pros are finding a lot of common ground in virtual worlds. Just recently at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival, Peter Cowley of reality TV bigs Endemol also talked about the affinity for virtual worlds as a natural extension of broadcast properties like Big Brother and Deal or No Deal. Writer and TV producer Lee Sheldon is set to keynote the Writing for Games track at the Austin Game Developers' Conference in September, to discuss how some TV traits, like episodic content, have a lot to teach the multiplayer online gaming and social space.

"With the advent of virtual worlds, television franchises can now engage fans directly, immersing them into their brands, producing an exciting extension to the creative process," says Christopher Sherman, Virtual Worlds Conference Executive Director.

Doppelganger, currently known for their music lifestyle-themed social world vSide (which recently went live), has announced it has raised $11 million in new funding in the latest round led by ComVentures, along with existing backers Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Trident Capital, Draper Richards, KPG Ventures and Greycroft Partners Michael Rolnick, a partner with ComVentures, will join the Doppelganger Board of Directors.

This latest round brings the amount of funding Doppelganger has raised to $25 million. The company says it will use the additional capital to accelerate and grow the business, create new participatory tools for users, and expand relationships with media partners and brands.

Worlds in Motion recently toured vSide and spoke to CEO Tim Stevens about the project, which focuses heavily on engaging users to be participatory, rewarding them with increased access and more velvet-rope privileges in vSide the more they contribute and connect.

"Doppelganger represents an entirely new entertainment medium focused on the things young consumers care about the most: music, entertainment, and fashion," Rolnick commented.

Chichen Itza Ventures, the lead investor in There.com producer Makena Technologies, has announced a "significant investment" in next-gen console game and virtual world developer Trilogy Studios. There.com and Trilogy have enjoyed a long-running partnership, building Virtual Pimp My Ride for MTV, and recently reaffirming their mutual commitment to that project.

Michael Wilson, There.com CEO, said in a press release received by Worlds in Motion that the investment, in addition to strengthening There's partnership with Trilogy, "marries Trilogy's gaming expertise with There.com's leadership in social virtual worlds."

The companies plan to expand virtual worlds' entertainment value by adding game-like play elements to social networking and established entertainment brands. In addition to Virtual Pimp My Ride, the companies say they're working with other major media companies on the development of new, soon-to-be-announced brand-extension virtual world properties that will be announced shortly.

"We see a wealth of opportunity in new financial and distribution models for interactive entertainment, and There.com and Trilogy are building the infrastructure to support these new efforts," Wilson said.

At this year's Edinburgh Interactive Festival, digital ethics consultant and Terra Nova writer Ren Reynolds led a panel titled "Protest in Virtual Worlds," with industry veteran Jessica Mulligan, Linden Lab's Jim Purbick, and Hilmar Petursson of CCP Productions (EVE Online). On the heels of a community scandal surrounding allegations of manipulation and developer misconduct in EVE that resulted in CCP's establishment of an internal affairs oversight group, the discussion was focused around what goes on behind the scenes in online worlds, and on identifying the reasons users become disgruntled and raise protest.

"You get a lot of protest in these things, from governance, game mechanics, political process and griefing," Reynolds said. "People try to run virtual worlds as a service, but people playing the game view this as a community."

"We have been planning democratically elected community representatives for a long time, and you need a venue to discuss societal issues in the world as they grow bigger and bigger," Petursson explained. "To grow beyond 500 people, you have to install some authoritarian figures into the community or build some defined structure into it."

"There are hundreds of people in Second Life who are earning their living in Second Life, which makes governance even more important," Purbick noted." We've been looking at resident governance in Second Life for a long time. We now have a public issue tracker."

Purbick says that despite doing a lot of "reaching out" in Second Life, petitions and protests by in-worlders are still commonplace, owing to issues like changes in economic governance, losses by users when land efforts are terminated, the limits of technology, and even things like the addition of voice, which many Second Life residents didn't want.

Purbick also pointed out that growth in userbase can result in problems for users. "We had to drop live help," he recalled. "We couldn't continue to give everyone free money, which caused protest."

Real-life issues coming into conflict with online world regulation can also create user protest situations; Purbick referred to the recent ban on gambling in Second Life and user fears of sexual censorship; certain jurisdictions make it illegal to have certain freedoms online.

"Linden Lab is a bottle-neck: we're trying to get out of the way. We're moving to let the users create the software as well as the content. We are moving towards a much more federated structure," Purbick says.

Mulligan identified three different types of users: first, the citizens, who "look out for everyone"; second, the "tribesman" user -- some 85-90 percent of the userbase -- who are invested in looking out for the microeconomy; and then the "Barbarians," who "couldn't care less. These guys create 80% of the problems," Mulligan explains. "They don't care about your rules or player justice systems."

"We don't manage expectations well in the online world," Mulligan conceded. "World of Warcraft are horrible at customer service, there [are] just no managed expectations. In 9 out of 10 virtual worlds, there is no meaningful communication [between the organization and the users]. The community says one thing, marketing says another. This really comes down to unfulfilled promises."

[This exclusive on-site report from Andrew Doull and Leigh Alexander originally appeared on CMP Game Group sister website Gamasutra.com.]

Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra looks at a recent study conducted by researchers at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, and published in U.S. journal CyberPsychology and Behavior, examining social behavior in the MMO worlds. Apparently, three quarters of online role-playing gamers make good friends with the people they meet in their virtual worlds, with almost half meeting in real-life situations and one in ten going on to develop actual physical relationships. More than 30 percent get crushes on other players, and 40 percent would rather discuss emotional issues with their virtual pals than their real ones.

From the article:

One in five participants believed that massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPGs) had a negative effect on their relationships if their partner was not a player, while more than two-thirds felt they had a positive effect on their relationships with those who did play.

Women were significantly more likely than men to be attracted to other players and were far more likely to go on to date them. Most women gave “therapeutic refreshment” as their main reason for playing, whereas most men stated “curiosity, astonishment and interest” as their reasons. Around a third of gamers suggested they could be more themselves in the game than in real life.

Another article at Gamasutra explains the way Chinese MMOs help celebrate Valentine's Day with in-world events, romantic giveaways and a boom in virtual weddings.

Speaking of weddings, some think the increasing complexity and importance of virtual relationships may have further implications. A recent Wall Street Journal article takes a snapshot of how one man's real-life marriage is challenged by his relationship with his sexy, redheaded virtual wife. "It's really devastating," the flesh-and-blood wife tells the Journal, "You try to talk to someone or bring them a drink, and they'll be having sex with a cartoon."

The Journal article is a fascinating read, giving a bit of a sensationalized glimpse into the ways that virtual relationships may affect and challenge real ones. There were similar fears back when online chat, IMs and cybersex were still new, but in the era of 3D avatars and lifelike online worlds, it seems they have much more potential to do this than ever. It's not too farfetched to hypothesize a day when courts could consider a protracted virtual affair like the one profiled in the Journal piece as grounds for divorce, maybe even adultery in the eyes of the court. Who knows?

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

Let's take a closer look at Whyville, Numedeon's education-focused world for kids.

[The following article by Brandon Boyer was originally published on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Gamebryo engine developer Emergent has announced a continued push in the Chinese development community with the licensing of its engine to Winking Entertainment, which is currently working on a number of MMO projects.

Emergent also notes that the two will be "exploring further collaboration" starting with a combined presence at CMP's China Game Developers Conference in Shanghai, on August 27-29.

The company also says its Gamebryo engine has been used to "move Chinese developers from PC-centric development to multi-core, cross-platform development," which has pushed its Chinese sales growth up 900% revenue over the last 18 months.

Winking Entertainment is notable as one of the first Chinese video game developers to obtain PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 licenses and, as mentioned, is currently at work on a number of worldwide focused MMOs.

Said Winking CEO Gary Chang, “Chinese game developers must find different means of differentiating themselves and staying competitive. By leveraging Emergent’s real-time 3D graphics engine, we were able to quickly extend our PC-based game development to support leading next-generation consoles, while minimizing our overhead with more automated, cost-efficient processes.”

Free-to-play Asian MMO Xiah has announced several new content offerings for its martial arts combat-based online world. A series of press releases received by Worlds in Motion describe, firstly, a new map called "Blood Devil Island" -- and it's only for the hardcore, accessible only at level 60 and higher with the use of "special beads."

Another current event in the Xiah world is the "Double FEMA Experience" period, running from August 14th to September 9th. No, not the Federal Office of Emergency Management -- it stands for "Five Element Martial Arts," a skill acquired by accumulating and reading special books in-game. During the time period, XP gains from combating monsters with that technique will result in double experience gains for characters.

Finally, nine new in-game "pet" items that add special character enhancements are now available through the game's store. These are all good examples of participatory rewards in free-to-play MMOs; all of the content announced in the releases require some sort of special involvement to obtain, thereby encouraging players to keep returning and building in the world. It's a valuable trend for games that earn revenue from the ads-and-RMT model -- these sort of unlockables and upgrades keep the site sticky.

Another neat thing about Xiah -- which features both solo and multiplayer modes -- is that it can be played either with a keyboard or a game controller, emulating the vibe of a console fighting game with the added element of continuous upgrades, item and stat gains.

We've been seeing how companies like IBM are embracing the virtual world as a useful part of modern business -- they've established guidelines for online behavior, for one thing, while scores of companies have already started consulting with agencies like Metaversatility and Millions of Us to create a professional virtual presence. A recent article in BusinessWeek examines this issue as part of a larger trend around technology evolving our workplaces (again)! From the article:

Even before these $80,000-and-up systems become standard office fare, other new technologies will reshape the workplace. The online virtual world Second Life, where people play using avatars (graphic representations of themselves), is starting to become a real workplace, at least for a few telesales agents at 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. (FLWS ) The online flower vendor is experimenting with a "virtual greenhouse" in Second Life, where a dozen or so workers log in and interact with Second Life residents. 1-800-Flowers Chief Executive Jim McCann plans to use it to get customers to suggest new products—far more direct feedback than focus groups or surveys, he says. "The line between our customers and our staff continues to blur."

It's an emerging dynamic variously dubbed mass collaboration, peer production, or crowdsourcing. Whatever the name, collective efforts are exploding online—from the volunteer-written reference site Wikipedia to Google's search engine, which mines the billions of links that Web site owners make to other sites to produce its results. They are producing incredible value, even though they aren't traditionally considered "work." Says Thomas W. Malone, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and author of the 2004 book The Future of Work: "Google and Wikipedia are just scratching the surface of whole new kinds of economic organisms."

It's an interesting read that paints a picture of the role professional virtual worlds play in the larger tech evolution.

A new Tech Confidential blog makes note of the recent outpouring of adoration VCs have for the virtual worlds space, and rounds up some big numbers, too:

Virtual worlds have also been attracting plenty of real VC capital. The $700 million acquisition of Club Penguin by the Walt Disney Co. and all the money "World of Warcraft" is bringing in to Vivendi SA (nearly $287 million in the second quarter) has venture firms excited about investing in virtual worlds. Doppelganger Inc. announced an $11 million financing to support the recent launch of its online virtual world — vSide — which will be three times larger than its Music Lounge predecessor.

Other venture-backed virtual worlds include: Linden Research Inc., the San Francisco-based operator of Second Life with $30 million in funding; There.com with more than $33 million; Helsinki-based Sulake Corp. Oy with more than $26 million; and Multiverse Network Inc. with $4.75 million.

The blog also correctly observes that advertisers and media companies are now looking seriously beyond television into the online space, and "with immersive environments, virtual worlds could be one of their biggest opportunities on the Internet." Tech Confidential and The Deal plan to discuss these big-bucks movements in depth at their upcoming Convergence 2.0 conference on September 17th in New York City.

[Each day, Worlds in Motion will be taking a closer look at individual virtual worlds. We'll start with a nuts-and-bolts overview, then move on to an in-depth tour, to be followed up with a conclusion-- all with the aim of bringing you all the essential info and details on each world in the rapidly-developing virtual landscape.]

This week, we've spent time in Whyville, Numedeon's education-focused world for kids, earning clams by exploring educational work opportunities. So what's the over-arching conclusion?

Ever watch Saturday morning television advertising? Then you might have heard of Rescue Pets, the animatronic stuffed toys with the soulful eyes and the bark you can set to wake you in the morning. They're made by MGA, also responsible for the Bratz dolls -- and as with Be-Bratz.com, now the Rescue Pets too will have their own online world.

Like Be-Bratz, the Rescue Pets world MyePets requires the purchase of a plush toy that comes with a "secret code" card to access the world. Pet owners can adopt a virtual version of their plush pal, and can interact in their own "My Room" space, buy items at the Flea Market, play games at the Arcade, or even look after their pet's health at the MyePets Vet. The company says simple phrased text messaging will also be available for users to interact with one another through a PDA interface.

"The experience of adopting, naming and taking care of one of these adorable pets online focuses on teaching children ages four and up simple decision making and nurturing skills in a safe and imaginative environment," MGA says.

The Rescue Pets toys will retail for $9.99 (a bit lower price point than the $29.99 Be-Bratz toys or the $60 BarbieGirls USB-key-MP3-player) and initially available via three different breeds: Chocolate Lab, Golden Retriever and Mutt, with more apparently to come.

Our sister site Gamasutra recently spoke with Jane Pinckard, content director for the Austin Game Developers Conference to be held September 5-7th at the Austin Convention Center in Texas. This year's event includes a focus on virtual worlds along with MMO games, as Jane discusses in this salient excerpt:

What’s new in the MMO game space this year at the show?

We have a keynote by Hiromichi Tanaka, the producer of Final Fantasy XI. The thing that’s really compelling about that game for our advisory board is that it’s a multiplatform MMO, which is really difficult to do. You have players on PCs and on consoles interacting, and that’s a huge technical challenge that they were able to roll out successfully.

Another trend has really been RMTs and microtransactions – as a general category, it would be “alternative revenue streams.” MMOs are traditionally subscription-based, but there’s all these new things going on, particularly in the Asian markets, where there are virtual items sales and different ways of monetizing the consumer, so that’s been a very strong trend. We have several sessions that address that and how it’s being done in Asia and how those models can be applied to US markets.

What’s going on specifically for the virtual worlds-specific audience?

Well, there’s a little bit of a debate about whether virtual worlds belong with gaming and game development. But World of Warcraft is a virtual world; they’ve built a virtual world that happens to be part of a very structured game experience. So it’s not open-ended like Second Life or other titles that are tied to marketing initiatives and other products. However, there’s a lot of things going on in virtual worlds that I think can be applied to the game market, and I think that the advisory board has selected certain things [to reflect that].

One of the keynotes is Sulka Haro, and he’s the lead designer on Habbo Hotel. That’s not strictly a game, but there are some cool things being done in that world that can impact games, and might be successfully applied to games. Also, the social aspects of virtual worlds have a lot of interesting possibilities for games – combining a virtual world with social networking applications, as Habbo Hotel does.

There’s also a panel on making money in virtual worlds that focuses on Second Life, but of course people have been making money off of online games for a long time. So I guess it’s about “what can games learn from virtual worlds?”

We go back and forth at the advisory board about this. I don’t see that a distinction is necessarily very helpful [between games and online worlds]. There are a lot of things that virtual worlds are making strong progress that I think games could benefit from, like handling transactions. Though, things like the Station Exchange auction system, where users can trade items officially with Sony Online’s blessing – that’s an interesting step in that direction.

You can now read the complete interview at Gamasutra.

Metaversatility is a full-scale development and consultation company with a specific focus on virtual worlds. While it works extensively with There.com parent Makena, they also develop for the Second Life platform, and will be working with clients on developing for other platforms, like IBM’s work using the Multiverse technology.

Most recently, Metaversatility built the latest in-world marketing campaign for the Toyota Scion in There, creating and helping conceptualize the design of the three Scion models as large-scale clubs whose interiors users could explore. Worlds in Motion spoke to Metaversatility creative director Matt Daly about some projects and his experiences designing in the virtual worlds space.

The Process
Daly says that Metaversatility, covering industries from entertainment, lifestyle and music to automotive, telecommunications and consultation firms, has seen “unprecedented growth” since its incorporation in October 2006. “There’s lots of interest in this relatively new and very malleable market,” he notes.

Daly’s job at Metaversatility involves both creative work and some coding, on top of overseeing the art team. “We’re all jacks-of-all-trades,” he laughs. His first step when a client approaches Metaversatility is to discuss that client’s goals and what benefit they hope to receive from virtual worlds.

Describing the process, Daly says, “They tell us what it is they want – a community-oriented giveaway-land project, for instance, and [we discuss] what to do with it. Do they want open-ended or highly controlled? Maybe Second Life isn’t the best for those who want tight controls. Do they want to be incorporated into a broader-existing virtual worlds, or do they want to develop something from scratch on an existing engine that is its own self-contained world? It all depends on exactly what their intended outcome is.”

Lots of Choices
He continues: “The MTV and EMI and Scion projects, for instance, involved their desire to appeal to a very specific demographic -- that is, the sort of younger tech-oriented consumers that are pretty much the large percentage of Makena’s platform. And they also wanted to protect their brand and make sure that it was not mistreated or anything like that, so there was the obvious choice for them.”

So how much is the client, and how much of these virtual world developments are structured on Daly’s input? “Makena differs from Linden in the way that they work in close contact and develop a business relationship with third-party developers for various different projects. But since they’re the first line of contact with the actual client, then in our experience thus far they have approached us with a concept – for instance, Scion’s concept was ‘we have to develop huge versions of the three cars with kiosks and stuff. The other stuff is our area. We started with a very sort of general concept and sort of communicated with Makena and with Scion’s marketing company to refine the idea; where the cars are located, how we’re going to drive foot traffic, how navigation would work, color, scale, interior elements and how they’ll differentiate from each other.”

Sounds similar to real-world branded architecture! So is it? “Well, as is the case with a lot of digital technology and art, we have both the curse and the blessing of a million options,” Daly says. “We are not bound by the laws of physics, for instance, so we can build anything that fits the tech resource budget of whatever engine of the platform we are using. And any budget restrictions we have, pretty much, are on time, not on material.”

As for resources, Daly says that depends entirely on what the engine can handle, but “usually you can do pretty much anything if you can juggle your resources properly.” Another perk virtual design has over brick-and-mortar is that “we can go back,” Daly says. Gigantic large-scale changes that a client requests – like an entire color scheme, are actually “very simple to do,” he explains.

The Importance of Contribution
What factors does Daly think help create a strong brand presence in a virtual world? Metaversatility is able to track metrics in highly detailed ways in online worlds – one of the big draws for advertisers in the space in general. The one thing he’s noticed is that above all, the brand presence needs to be making a contribution to the community. “You see a lot of builds and islands in Second Life that are completely dead and empty,” he says. “Beyond the inauguration, there’s no reason for users to come back to an island that has pictures of shoes on it. There’s no incentive. So builds that actually bring users back and actually provide sort of spaces for naturally occurring activity… I think that sort of self sustained communal framework is really important to develop a long-term, sustainable build that s actually desired by the community and seen as a sort of positive contribution.”

And it doesn’t have to be a particularly major contribution, either. “Pepsi, in the Virtual MTV build, contributed Pepsi machines all over the world -- you could get a can of Pepsi,” Daly recalls. “It seems like a fairly vaporous thing, but somehow people started grabbing these Pepsi cans,” Daly recalls. “They’re simply just 3D objects that attach to the end of your hand, but suddenly everyone in vMTV is running around with a Pepsi can, and it was something they did very willingly. It’s quite the oposite of having to pay for ads, because people are paying you in their own personal capital.”

Friendly Platforms
We asked Matt which virtual worlds are the most friendly to third-party developers. “The thing about virtual worlds in general is that they’re all very nascent,” he says, “in terms of these really socially-oriented places -- because MMOs have been around for years without changing much. Virtual spaces are not all entirely third-party developer-friendly, because they were never meant to be.”

But are some easier than others? Apparently, for third parties Second Life is “as bad as it gets.” Daly explains: “Second Life is not very good for third parties because Linden doesn’t work with [them]; they’re very hands-off as much as they can, and then its our de facto role to come in and know the tools, know the landscape and then develop with whatever we have. You can’t get any further than the way it should be than a platform where you have no real contact with the developers of the platform. It’s very democratic, but for actual third-party developers, it’s not the most efficient way to go.”

On the other side, Metaversatility prefers working with There – though it’s still fairly new also. “With video games, you’d expect [documentation] to be in some compendium somewhere, and that stuff wasn’t there. On the plus side, Makena was constantly available via telephone to work with us. So There is a very developer-friendly platform in that they are trying to make it so any third-party developer who knows its stuff can work fairly hassle-free with the platform.”

Looking Ahead
In addition to recently wrapping up development on the Scion project, music company EMI’s tower in There, and a flagship project for processor heavyweight AMD, Daly’s team is looking ahead. He can’t give further details on his pipeline projects under NDA, but he did say they both involved, “to a large part,” Second Life, and “they’re both major coporate presences.”

“We’re really excited,” he continued. “The work just came by storm as soon as we started. There’s a lot of desire to test the waters and see what virtual worlds have to offer, and it’s sort of opinion leaders wanting to take a dip in the pool.”