The missing use case for virtual experiences​

With more than 20 years of experience at some of the biggest platforms (Twitter, Facebook and currently Activision Blizzard), Jonathan Stringfield has participated in the rise of the online and gaming worlds. With a Ph.D in sociology, he knows a lot about people, too. His book “Get in the Game” is about how brands can leverage these platforms — and how they can’t. The metaverse intrigues him. He points out that gaming companies have a lot of experience making 2D pretty cool, too.

Matt Carmichael: When people talk about the metaverse today, they’re mostly talking about gaming platforms, right?

Jonathan Stringfield: Basically. All of the exemplars realistically exist as gaming platforms that came from massively popular games. They were structured around the games that really got a huge groundswell of players. The eyeballs are there, the attention is there.

Carmichael: But that won’t always be the case?

Stringfield: Correct. The biggest effect that the conversation around the metaverse has had is that it broadened interest in the art and science of building virtual worlds beyond gaming. Gaming is still the exemplar, but certain gaming technologies and engines could become essentially the pipeworks building new things. Business decision-makers are trying to figure out what does “good” look like? What’s a good execution?

Carmichael: How is the psychology of gaming important and how will that carry over into Web3?

Stringfield: My favorite example is something called “the magic circle” and the concept of establishing “spatial presence” — what psychologists call immersion. Video games tend to be very good at evoking folks to establish spatial presence. When people are engrossed in a game, they look dead-eyed with concentration because their brain is putting them into the game environment.

Carmichael: Why do brands need to consider that?

Stringfield: Things that don’t fit within the context of the fiction — the magic circle — will break it. We say to advertisers, “If you’re putting a message in that can potentially increase someone’s capability to draw in the fiction of the world, that can have a positive effect. If you don't, it won’t.” You can put exogenous things into a virtual world so long as it fits with the mental model that people are making of it. You can’t put a Lamborghini in World of Warcraft.

Carmichael: What’s a good litmus test for what will work?

Stringfield: The phrase that I often say to folks is “Does it make sense?” Will it actually fit with that world?

Carmichael: Do you think we’ll see more free form, less narrative virtual worlds where “anything can go”?

Stringfield: It all comes down to are you giving folks a reason to be there? If there's no reason for people to be there, they're not going to go. That's why the game platforms are getting a lot of pickup. There’s stuff to do and an already large, established audiences. Other platforms are probably going to struggle for quite some time.

Carmichael: What can we learn about the future of reality from gaming today?

Stringfield: Folks often look at VR as the pinnacle. But am I getting any better of an experience than I would on a flat screen? Game developers have 60 years of experience being very good at initiating spatial presence on the flat screen. The seminal question is going to continue to be “Is the experience that I can get from any of these technologies better than the shard of glass that I carry in my pocket?”

Carmichael: How is the future different for AR and VR or MR?

Stringfield: AR largely exists as overlays in apps like Snapchat. On the VR side, the hardware is becoming more and more accessible. I think we're going to start to meet somewhere in that middle. Much of the content in the gaming world is moving to cloud computing. Phones are getting very powerful, and 5G will enable the speed to bring the data to these devices in a way that we could start to render these high-fidelity experiences. That's going to be the tipping point where stuff's going to get super interesting, super quick. We're looking at a horizon of maybe less than half a decade.

Carmichael: How will companies succeed in these spaces?

Stringfield: I emphasize the power of fandom and the effect that gaming has on folks because it’s important to understand in near-term possibilities. People want to chase that next shiny thing, and I’m trying to reel them back. Let’s breathe. The people who are going to be successful in the metaverse, in Web3 — which are different things, but are often tangled up — are the folks that understand gaming really well. They will have the knowledge and the capability to relate to humans in that world. Games do a wonderful job of filling all sorts of human needs.