Cory Ondrejka mentions Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash and the “Metaverse.” The Metaverse is basically an online world where the virtual world is just like the real world, but much better. There are many factors that have to fall into place for this Metaverse to exist. It craves an economy with currency and real world interactions such as selling and purchasing, as well as buying services such as entertainment and business services. To interact in world, you must have a computer well enough to support the use of the world online. And the inside the Metaverse user generated content must be as free as possible to create and interact with.
What is difficult in enabling the Metaverse to exist, is that all of the factors that make the real world continue to grow and function, would more or less have to exist in a virtual world (Metaverse). One current virtual world that introduces many of these factors is Second Life (SL).
SL is a virtual world or game, where you are allowed to create items using in world tools and materials provided each player, and with very much freedom. The virtual world has its own currency, you are able to interact with other users freely, you can have businesses, buy things, and so much more.
When experiencing second life and creating objects in the virtual world you start to understand the simplicity of the world. Objects and content is easy to create and is fast. This ability can be very useful for example; I created a square with tall walls and a door, basically like a one room house with no roof. The tools in the game made this very simple with specifications for length, height, and depth. It took merely 20 minutes for a first time user. There were no specific modifications to this object just plain and simple with the original color that is on the object by default. In real life something like my object would take a lot more man power, time, and effort. My experience was very simple but to actually create something of value or more advanced in-game there are more steps and more effort involved.
The tools in SL are unique than in other games. Ondrejka says, “Unlike other worlds that have attempted to allow user created content, SL users create using built in tools. These tools enable creation collaboratively in real-time instead of using separate programs” (162). In the past in games such as Ultima Online or The Sims had separate programs which allowed user creation. Once user generated content was created they you could not interact with it in the same way you can on SL i.e. sell it or buy it. Ondrejka says that SL is currently the closest thing to Stephenson’s Metaverse because of the freedom within the games content and the ability in the game to act like you would in real life. There is an economy, socializing, businesses, shops; there is even sex in the game, it is the closest thing to real life but in the virtual world.
SL allows the user generated content to progress freely in world and this helps the world grow and evolve, just like in the real world. There may not be any Metaverse in the world currently but over time with the progression of virtual worlds like SL, the thought of a Metaverse becomes more of a realistic idea. Such a world would allow for changes of our real world today that would be unprecedented. The possibility to run national corporations cheaply and easily through a virtual world would excessively excel. It would allow ideas for products and small companies to emerge that previously never could emerge in the real world because of issues such as money, property or time. The possibilities in a world such as the Metaverse would be endless and enormous. It is not a question, if virtual worlds and user generated content within them will have an effect on our everyday lives; it is a question of when?
