Brandon sez:
> I offer the following conjecture: the entire concept of "virtual real
> estate" may very well fall flat on its butt. The whole concept is
> predicated around the notion that users are actually willing to wander
> around a virtual world on foot when the neighborhood is commercial.
> On-foot traversals are tedious, and it's very unlikely that people
> will waste their time going out of their way to see commercials.
>
There are reasons to make people walk though. Randy Farmer and
Chip Morningstar had some good points in their paper on Habitat in the
Benedikt Cyberspace book. One of them was that it was good to make
people walk. It lets them meet their neighbors and feel a sense of
attachment to their "virtual" community.
Of course these "virtual" communities are competing against real life
communities with live, fleshy human beings - which is sort of my
point. In general, people aren't likely to do things in "virtual
life" which are cheap, slow simulacra of things they can do, or have
to avoid, in real life.
Does this mean that we're headed for a VR universe of people who
really don't get along with their neighbors in real life, and seek VR
as their primary means of escape?
I agree though that the idea of
"Virtual Real Estate" is questionable. Although, I think that the idea
of Condominiums is also questionable, so you have to temper my opinions.
I've never really thought about Condominiums in quite that way
before.... :-)
Cheers,
Brandon