Concept artist and futurist Syd Mead is bringing his vision to the forthcoming Blue Mars virtual world, promising a city in which “visitors…will experience the future of entertainment, social networking, commerce and education. Retail shopping centers, entertainment venues, museums and more will give visionary entrepreneurs the best commercial opportunities of the 22nd century.”
Perhaps alone among the major virtual world developments, Blue Mars is tacking away from small worlds, browser-based, 2.5D and all the other answers to the ‘download problem’. In fact, they’ve admitted that their virtual world platform is aimed at computer specs several years in the future rather than several years back.
I saw the platform at this year’s virtual world conference in New York. And it’s stunning. As much as user-generated content can be astonishing, Blue Mars has decided to populate their grid through third-party partnerships with high end content developers:
“Avatar Reality’s Third Party Developer Program gives game developers, CG artists and interested business partners an opportunity to create a variety of in-world attractions, 3D art assets and promotions for Blue Mars. “
When I wrote about them previously, I commented:
But I’m a big believer in two things: stuff is engaging not because of how it looks, although that can be the thing that gets you in the door; and the more “real” stuff looks the easier it is for the human mind to spot the stuff that looks off. Verisimilitude was the Holy Grail of the virtual reality days - and as game world proved, virtual doesn’t need to feel like reality to have a really high level of engagement and impact on the user.
Now? I’m not so sure.
One thing that the concept has going for it is that it’s a differentiator. For brands, the knowledge that the site for their products will be richly detailed and realistic, and that the products themselves could easily look ‘better than the real thing’ can have appeal.
At the NYC conference I remember them showing a highly detailed purse, and while I’ve never been in the purse market, I could imagine it being snapped up by avatars like the latest skin.
Is there a role for a virtual world platform that goes in the opposite direction of cartoon rooms and game-derived avatars? It’s all about the shopping and socializing. They may suck up the early adoption curve because of the technology requirements, but if they can keep people for the shopping and the socializing they may be on to something.
I haven’t seen BM running but it seems to maybe have the right ingredients and the wrong recipe? Professionally produced content is great but HOME, for example, will have that (and more, probably) and a ready-made user-base with the requisite hardware already in place. Is photo-real enough to hold an audience? Not in itself, not as long as you are ‘locked’ into audience mode but there’s one time when photo-real REALLY works for people - when they’re making stuff.
If you’re a would-be content creator then it’s a huge draw, probably a killer app for a lot of people. So maybe BM need to rethink their apparent strategy - if they made the creative tools (or upload of Shade® content) available only to paying subscribers then they might be onto something, a revenue stream and an eager user-base in one?
I had high hopes that Blue Mars was going to allow user-created content, so this is a disappointment. The quality of the images shown here is impressive, and I can imagine Blue Mars becoming a 3D shopping experience and catalogue… a very lucrative business model.
Eris’ idea is an interesting one.
And may I say, Dusan, you are on fire over here! Breaking stories at a break-neck speed.
Too bad. We were hoping for the ability to make user-created content as well. Oh well, it’s now morphing into something like a souped-up version of Entropia I guess. I wish them all the best. But, it would be a mistake to continue comparing Blue Mars to SL, after this news–they’re simply worlds apart.
[…] Mars is promising an early 2009 release and have partnered with content providers including a company under the direction of famed concept artist Syd […]
we are going with the free to play microtransaction model, so artists will be able to create objects like clothing, accessories and furniture and sell it in game (with a cut of it going to us of course) but houses and buildings will all be professionally made. of course, nothing is set in stone so who knows if that’ll change.
[…] in LA I had a chance to get more information on Blue Mars, about which I’ve blogged before here and here. Now - it’s vapour until it’s in alpha or closed Beta, but it sure looks […]