Learnings from Corporate and Amateur Efforts in Second Life
Jeffrey Bardzell, Ph.D., Shaowen Bardzell, Ph.D., and Tyler Pace
Overview
"Serious games" refers to the use of games and game technologies for non-entertainment purposes. Traditionally, the education, health, and military sectors were the primary actors in this domain, but in the past few years, marketing has arisen as a major sub-domain of this area. Examples range from the selling of advertising inside video games to dozens of small, experimental corporate-sponsored spaces in virtual worlds such as Second Life, to the fully realized first-person shooter America's Army, developed as a recruitment tool for the U.S. Army. The results have been uneven, as most of these early efforts have had an experimental edge. This report releases findings that compare player engagement in some of Second Life's most successful user-generated areas compared with some of the more ambitious corporate-sponsored efforts in Second Life.
In making these comparisons, particular attention was paid to:
- Production Quality
- Publicity and Advertising
- Social Infrastructure
- Role of Commerce
- Population Density
From this analysis, we learned that the top corporate builds are as good as or better than user-created builds in some areas, while lagging behind in other areas. Based on our findings, we offer five insights for the design of future branding and marketing-oriented builds in virtual worlds, such as Second Life. Download the full report, free of charge, to learn more.
T=0 is OTOinsight's secondary research offering which provides timely critical analysis and insights regarding emerging digital platforms. Focus will be paid to Virtual Worlds, Online Games, Social Networks, Amateur Multimedia and Mobile Applications.
