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I remember when Second Life was new and touted as "The Future". Gamers jumped into it but many left because there was simply nothing to do unless you were a cre

I remember when Second Life was new and touted as "The Future". Gamers jumped into it but many left because there was simply nothing to do unless you were a creative type who had the skill to create and sell items in the 'game'. I'm guessing today it's just creative people hanging out with creative people, which is probably a fun experience for them, but not something that will appeal to a wide audience.

moritzwarhier 2y ago
Also it came out at a time where the focus for 3D games was still pretty much realistic graphics and competitive gameplay. Especially the graphics thing to me kinda seems to have stagnated since the days of Far Cry, Crysis etc. Mainstream games, even MMPORGS which focused less on graphics tech, still had to participate in the conventions and expectations of single-player and/or competitive games. That makes 2nd life relate to my perspective, which at the time (early 2000s) already had shifted to that of a non-gamer, despite heavily playing video games as a child. Maybe Second Life was not only an interesting continuation of Chat rooms, but also a precursor to the revival of casual and socially oriented games. The nice continuation of the "game with no goals" was probably Minecraft. The not-so-nice version is mobile and easy pay-to-win games which try to rent-seek on real or simulated social interactions (Farmville was an early version of this I guess). I remember how awesome The Incredible Machine in "Free mode" was (one of my favorite games as a child), but still never picked up gaming again. A good and modern version of second life might appeal to me though. I always followed the articles about this at the time, without any interest in playing, but fascinated by the content. Since I skipped Minecraft and could imagine some kind of VR version of Reddit with shared screens etc, I don't think that Zucks Metaverse vision is completely of the track. I know a person with a quest Headset who enjoys watching football matches with strangers from English (voice chat and shared immersive screen, avatars are not important as of now I guess)

moritzwarhier 2y ago

Also it came out at a time where the focus for 3D games was still pretty much realistic graphics and competitive gameplay. Especially the graphics thing to me kinda seems to have stagnated since the days of Far Cry, Crysis etc. Mainstream games, even MMPORGS which focused less on graphics tech, still had to participate in the conventions and expectations of single-player and/or competitive games. That makes 2nd life relate to my perspective, which at the time (early 2000s) already had shifted to that of a non-gamer, despite heavily playing video games as a child. Maybe Second Life was not only an interesting continuation of Chat rooms, but also a precursor to the revival of casual and socially oriented games. The nice continuation of the "game with no goals" was probably Minecraft. The not-so-nice version is mobile and easy pay-to-win games which try to rent-seek on real or simulated social interactions (Farmville was an early version of this I guess). I remember how awesome The Incredible Machine in "Free mode" was (one of my favorite games as a child), but still never picked up gaming again. A good and modern version of second life might appeal to me though. I always followed the articles about this at the time, without any interest in playing, but fascinated by the content. Since I skipped Minecraft and could imagine some kind of VR version of Reddit with shared screens etc, I don't think that Zucks Metaverse vision is completely of the track. I know a person with a quest Headset who enjoys watching football matches with strangers from English (voice chat and shared immersive screen, avatars are not important as of now I guess)