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Virtual Reality: Public or Private?
May 18, 2009
By Scott Randall
I first became interested in the idea of business simulations as a guest at a Systems Dynamics conference at MIT in 1990, but the concept of immersive virtual learning platforms has been around ever since the earliest "automated teaching machines" were built with punch-card technology in the 1950s. Now, massively multiplayer game technology allows interconnectivity, 3-D graphics, and advanced physics-based behaviors for multiple users. Suddenly, the possibilities for computer-based simulations seem endless.
Widely distributed broadband access, changing user population demographics, and evolving networking and 3-D graphics technology are converging to create an environment where thousands of users can—and do—interact in virtual worlds every day.
Corporations across America are reacting by investing time and money in the creation of outposts there in the belief, or hope, that they will be appropriate for a range of corporate initiatives including:
• Branding and advertising
• Product testing and market research
• Corporate training and learning
• Talent recruiting
• Organizational collaboration
Public 3-D virtual worlds are made available by their owners, who also operate them, house their content on proprietary servers, and freely distribute their client application. World users are sometimes known as residents, and their in-world graphic representation is called their avatar. Users can view, navigate, and even modify the virtual world, and, in some cases, participate in the world's virtual economy through the creation and monetization of custom in-world content.
The potential virtual worlds hold for business is palpable, but public ones? There are questions about whether these worlds were designed to fill many of the roles being imagined for them by media outlets and business operators. Let's take a look.
A Virtually Intelligent Risk?
For marketers, Second Life offers immediate value to some in its ability to generate mainstream media coverage for "first mover" status. Now that the novelty has worn off and the press has moved on somewhat, this benefit may be waning.
Second, time marches on. Assuming the millions of alleged users in a world exist, and even if the world is continuously maintained and upgraded, it is vulnerable to user-base shrinkage as more robust and universal-standards-based solutions emerge. If significant user migration takes place, marketing investments in custom content developed for a particular world—and perhaps the platform itself—could become obsolete as soon as…tomorrow.
Finally, with no legal access to information about users, it is difficult for marketers to know anything about the people they are recruiting for a focus group or a product test. How can one tell, for instance, that the people who show up at the test are actually the people who received invites and not competitors or hackers?
Buckle Your Seatbelts…
There are some other interesting issues with public virtual worlds, which allow various nuisance behaviors to take place, seemingly in accordance with their Terms of Service. Because public worlds are essentially anonymous public platforms, which anyone may use any way he or she chooses, outposts there expose corporations and their customers to lewd content, nuisance behavior, virtual vandalism, intellectual property theft, fraud, and other potential abuses (see Clickable Culture, "Hidden Virtual Prison World Revealed," Tony Walsh, January 3, 2006).
Residents can be "robbed" of the content/intellectual property they create or import into a world with a script known as a "copybot," which takes a resident's entire inventory and removes any restricted permissions so that any object in the inventory—including a resident's own avatar—can be modified, copied, and even disseminated (Reuters, "Outcry As 'Copybot' Threatens Copyright Protection in Second Life," Adam Pasick, November 14, 2006).
In addition, building a corporate presence in a public virtual world means investing in a platform that is maintained, and sometimes significantly altered, at the sole discretion of its owner/operator. The grid of physical servers networked to form these continuous universes must be periodically maintained. Owners schedule maintenance or sometimes shut down their grids in an emergency with no regard for any in-world activities, public or private, that may be scheduled or in progress (see Slashdot.com, "Second Life Hit by Massive In-Game Worm," and Linden Lab Blog, "Security and Second Life," October 9, 2006). Since all content resides on this grid of servers, nothing in the universe is accessible during these maintenance periods.
Finally, the Terms of Service of some virtual worlds make intellectual property ownership a questionable proposition, by some readings. Since the case law around digital property rights is in its infancy, and with virtual worlds at the edge of that legal envelope, the security of intellectual content used for branding, training, and corporate meeting applications has yet to be defined.
Breaches of databases, which already have occurred on numerous occasions (security threats are posted on Linden Lab's Website), could compromise all sorts of user data that could be used for perpetrating identity theft and mail or wire fraud. The implications of this situation are underscored by the emergence of hacker groups dedicated to disrupting corporate "pollution" in the public worlds.
Although some operators clearly state that real-world copyright laws apply to content inside their virtual world, once inside the universe, product designs and tests are susceptible to theft by residents who may alter designs to use and distribute themselves. This probably is not what corporate R&D teams have in mind when they strive for "product innovation."
What Are the Alternatives?
Organizations have much to gain from the leaps in technology behind multiplayer virtual worlds, but companies that seek bottom-line benefits associated with leveraging this technology may be best advised to consider forward-thinking alternatives to public worlds.
Organizations can design, deploy, and maintain their own, proprietary virtual universe solutions. Proprietary universes are already in use by Fortune 100 companies such as Deloitte & Touche and by organizations such as the U.S. Army for activities including distance and simulation-based learning, socialization, culture building, and recruiting (see British Medical Journal, "Simulation-Based Training," Moorthy, Vincent, and Darzi, March 5, 2005).
When considering networked distance learning or training applications, the military is the model of an organization that provides networked simulations to train its members. Operators claim these solutions simultaneously trim real-world operating costs and provide a risk-free environment for skills development and experimentation (see Serious Games Source, "U.S. Army Deploys Vehicle Sims to Help Save Lives, Money," Jason Dobson, January 2, 2007).
Proprietary worlds can be structured to leverage an organization's information technology infrastructure—reducing exposure to the externalities of public worlds. These worlds are maintained and scaled by the owner organization, which also controls the functionality and performance levels, eliminating nuisance behavior by design. Limitations on server bandwidth, reliance on controlling third parties, the risks of obsolescence or undefined upgrade paths are eliminated or significantly reduced.
The owner organization owns and controls all intellectual property transmitted within a proprietary virtual universe. Access to the proprietary universe can be controlled and logged. Information transmitted among any parties in the universe can be viewed, flagged, or mined for meaningful "knowledge base" data. Finally, the owner controls the content, tone, and messaging to which employees or consumers are exposed.
One argument against deploying a proprietary "virtual universe" for consumer marketing or recruiting could be that proprietary solutions lack the established audience of a public world. Yet the proprietary world created by the United States Army has 8 million unique registered users and is touted by the U.S. Military as an overwhelming success (see PR.COM, "Americas Army Surpasses 8 Million Users," Pragmatic Solutions, Inc., January 25, 2007). And Deloitte sponsors a mission-based virtual business world that is played by thousands of high schools students across the country each year.
Another objection to the proprietary solution could be the cost to deployment as compared to a public solution. There is no question it is more expensive, from a pure out-of-pocket cost standpoint, to build a world than to inhabit one. After a sober review of strategic business goals and corporate technology protocols, however, there may be few companies left that would trade the benefits of a proprietary solution for the free-for-all of a user-created public one.
Scott Randall is president of BrandGames, New York, which helps companies articulate employer branding and improve employee engagement through video games, occupational simulations, and virtual worlds. He consults with diverse clients on preparing the next-generation workforce through virtual learning experience, for talent acquisition, new hire orientation, sales training, and leadership development.
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