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Quarterly Briefing: Virtual Worlds - February-April 2010
Sent Sunday, January 31, 2010
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Virtual Worlds Briefing February 2010 |
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Welcome You are receiving this briefing as someone who has previously requested to be kept updated by us on issues, trends and events in regards to virtual worlds. You can expect these emails four times per year (if you'd like to unsubscribe please use the link below). This is the first briefing, so please don't hesitate to provide constructive feedback! 2010 for virtual worlds From an Australian perspective, 2009 was a year of growth particularly from the viewpoint of local developers. VastPark continues its development, a mum launched her own virtual world for kids and 3D web-browsing options like the Australian ExitReality continue their evolution. On the down side, Telstra ceased their investment in Second Life and promising 2D world Metaplace closed its doors. You can review our success in predicting 2009 events here - we scored ourselves at 7/10. The coming year also holds a lot of promise. You can read our full list of 2010 predictions here, but it's worth listing some key ones: Intellectual Property Precedents With the enormous growth in sales of virtual goods, there's an increasing focus on intellectual property rights. A landmark legal case has been mounted in the United States: The Eros vs Linden Lab action. It is likely to be resolved during 2010 and it will generate a large precedent in regards to virtual goods. Linden Lab will probably defend the action successfully, but the playing field is still likely to change considerably. ISP Filtering and Virtual Worlds If the Rudd Government legislation stays on track, 2011 remains the go-live time. There remains a real possibility of adult content in Second Life and elsewhere falling foul of the filter, given the blacklist isn't defined. Australia-specific verification mechanisms may need to be put in place for Second Life and other environments where content creation occurs. The decision to delay implementation until 2011 will take some of the heat out of the debate in the short-term but it's still easy to see it becoming a niche election issue. It's certainly one still being actively discussed within the virtual worlds media.  MMOs: more than World of WarcraftAlthough World of Warcraft remains the behemoth of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games, the next eighteen months sees the biggest raft of competitor launches ever. Late 2009 saw two successful MMO launches: Fallen Earth and Aion. February 2010 sees Star Trek Online launch, Jumpgate Evolution later in the year and most notably, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) has a launch window starting in April 2011. Why most notably? Our view is that the Star Wars franchise is one of the few capable of building a user community that matches or even exceeds that of World of Warcraft. For those interested in that aspect, we have launched TOROZ, a news site on everything SWTOR from an Australian perspective. The Sum-Up This first briefing is a short one - if there are particular issues you'd like covered in detail, or you'd like to give some please let us know. A selection of recent interesting stories is below, as are links to our sites. We look forward to publishing the next briefing in early May. David Holloway Editor |
About Us  The Metaverse Journal is Australia's first virtual worlds news serviceIn operation since 2006, we report on the opportunities and challenges of virtual worlds for business, government, NGOs and individuals. You can find out more about us here. For social media junkies, you can follow us on Twitter here or view our Facebook page here. If you'd like to give feedback on this newsletter or suggest a story / submit a press release, use our contact form We also provide virtual worlds consultancy services - our contact form is the best place to start. |
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