Virtual Worlds and Metaverse Platforms

Virtual worlds may be seen as built of symbolic bricks of signs and shapes; they are symbolic worlds of meaning-making and semioses (Matusitz, 2005). Questions and ideas are likely to emerge when we experience new meaning-making flows (Csikszentmihaily, 1996) in non-tangible virtual worlds that even question the very idea of what a world is. Questioning what is taken for granted often mobilizes creative energy, rethinking, and reinterpretation of agencies and engagements. In the case of Second Life, the Linden Lab firm’s marketing of their product emphasizes that it is a tool for building a new world unbound by the tangible and physical (Au, 2008); a symbolic world which allows us to create shapes and signs “not possible in real life” in a compelling, surreal, and dream-like world to be experienced together with other residents accompanied by their avatars. A virtual world like Second Life may thus be seen as a window of opportunity for mobilizing its residents’ creativity of mediation and innovation as the content has to be provided and created by the users; creative qualities, which are often presented as a distinguishing feature of Second Life as compared to multi-user online role-playing games such as e.g., EverQuest and World of Warcraft. In Second Life there are no built-in storylines and no system of quests, experience points, classes, and roles as is the case in many role-playing games. In principle, everything in Second Life has to be provided by the residents who have chosen to settle, socialize, run business, attend cultural events, or just to have great in-world fun (Au, 2008; Boelstorff, 2008; Malaby, 2009). Let us therefore note that Second Life not only inspires but the general idea of the design actually requires the co-creation by the residents in order to make it a compelling and attractive experience. Therefore, to introduce Second Life to the market, a critical mass of residents is required to actually design and make the world. Yet obviously, for residents to run a project, a business, or a shop, it is also required that they can attract the attention of other fellow residents to visit and partake in the activities of their projects, places and islands. Thus, the user-driven content creation can be seen as a comprehensive experiment with user driven innovation. Moving into Second Life, residents have to generate design ideas and realize these ideas whether they are running a business, conducting a series of talk-shows, arranging cultural events, producing machinimas or just travelling around the world to chat, socialize, go to ball-rooms to dance, or visit sex clubs. All of this may be seen as engagements, which entail communication and co-creation of new social agencies, norms, digital places, and environments. Only if the residents themselves can manage to design places, arrange events, and run a business can the world offer interesting and exciting inworld experiences. QUESTIONS O