Trilogy Studios, formed in late 2005 by ex EA and VU Games execs, has been making announcements about moving into the virtual world business with the construction of a Pimp My Ride online game for MTV. While this isn't MTV's first virtual world experience (they have both Virtual Laguna Beach and The Hills operating on the There platform), Trilogy Studios CEO Michael Pole has been pushing for this to be more than just a way for people to interact with a brand:
"We've developed a business model that enables media companies to successfully monetize their franchises through virtual world networks including micro-transactions, in-game advertising and sponsorships, premium subscriptions and e-commerce."
A brand's presence in virtual worlds has largely been seen as a promotional tool in the past, but the accent on making the promotion itself into a viable business may gain Trilogy Studios clients that other virtual world companies couldn't access. The platfrom of choice, in this case, continues to be Makena Technology's software bundle most famously used on the There.com platform. Pole has, however, been implying that the Pimp My Ride game will be stand-alone and not necessarily available to There residents:
"Why co-mingle a brand like the NBA in a virtual world like Second Life when you can create your own virtual NBA world?" asked Pole. "We think we can attract 10 to 20 million mainstream consumers to a focused virtual world site and deliver a full brand experience."
The obvious hubris of assuming that they can double World of Warcraft's subscription numbers aside, the idea of building a separate and profitable world for each brand's marketing campaign is a unique one. The plan to use micro-transactions and premium subscriptions has been successful in the past for narrowly-focused worlds, so one could argue that a branded world would fit the bill.
As for the rest of the plan: will advertisers will want to place their messages in another brand's world? Also, how many separate, branded virtual worlds can the market bear?
"The obvious hubris of assuming that they can double World of Warcraft's subscription numbers aside"... well, it's rather hard to leave that particular issue aside. They will fail. Further to that, any business decision made on the basis that that was possible will also fail.
Just like now, advertisers will find that their hit rate is very limited if it requires sign-up, and it will be even more limited if the person has to then learn all sorts of new controls. Who will bother? At the moment, any non-VW company trying to launch a VW just to advertise something is being idiotic - the effort required to download a client, register, log in, learn what is going on etc is far more than the average potential viewer will be willing to do, unless linked to some sort of metaversal passport.
If the brand is big enough that may not be the case though Ordinal, though in general you're undeniably right of course.
Another exception, is if instead of a passport, the user is familiar with the controls/signup etc becuase they've been to other worlds based on the same technology, like McKenna's...
I believe Mr. Pole is using the term "brand" to mean content...any content, not a particular brand such as Pepsi or Frito Lay. If any of you doubt the power of a brand to attract online users, read this quote from today's LA Times concerning the sale of the NBA's digital content to Disney:
"But the wait could bring rich rewards. John Skipper, ESPN's executive vice president of content, said that, on average, more than 1 million people visited its site every day during the NBA playoffs and some 700,000 used mobile phones to receive NBA updates. Over the course of the season, ESPN showed more than 32 million video highlights online.
1 Million people per day!
Also, to assume that all such VW's of the future shall include the indignities of Second Life-like sign-up process' and user control schemes is short-sighted at best. A little digging into Mr. Pole's background shows that he was head of product development at Electronic Arts, Activision and Vivendi-Universal games (at the time that World of Warcraft was launched, mind you) and that he has been responsible for generating billions of dollars of revenue in the games space.
I take the view that the VW space, a clear manifestation of web 3.0, will certainly be able to attract many tens of millions of happy users in the future. I think it's even more likely when we see people who have cut their teeth in the games business move to the VW space and bring with them some of the things that they have learned such as easy to use and understand UI's, standardized control schemes and simple sign-ups.
We can't measure the future by what we see today. Anyone who does simply has their head stuck in the sand. "they will fail"....If everyone listened to naysayers like this guy, we'd all be living in the stone age.
I started to comment earlier but it turned into a monster meandering that was too long to go here so I just stuck up on my own blog
To note one thing if it wasn't clear, the other MTV projects like Virtual Laguna Beach and The Hills also did not connect to the There.com platform.
re: that last comment, I am very curious to see how well game developers transition to the more open, more events-based, less controlled scenario of social virtual worlds. Games will definitely be an important part of successful worlds, and I agree that there are lessons from MMOs that can be effectively applied to open ended virtual worlds. Usability and easy sign-up are definitely important, but that's a problem that people need to do well across all of software and the Web, not limited to games. We're feeling the pain right now because of the fledgling state of the technologies out there. With Second Life, Linden Lab's open sourcing that client should help matters. I also have high hopes for some of the emerging VW options we should see more of later in 2007.