This blog post was originally written in Dutch, to be read here.
Om het originele artikel in het Nederlands te lezen, klik hier.

Virtual worlds; or virtual reality are in fact nothing new. But the use, the application of virtual reality is undergoing a change that is worth considering. I would like to explain this.

Imaginable world

When you read a book, watch a movie or listen to a story, most likely a situation or environment is being described that is imaginable. At the moment that you start to imagine this, we are in fact speaking about a virtual world: an imaginable world. This environment can be true, or very realistic, but also completely fictional. This doesn’t really matter for the imagination, it is a virtual world and it exists because you imagine it.

In case of any doubt: Spek with a die-hard Tolkien fan and try to explain that the world as created in “Lord of the Rings” does not exist.

Visible and playable virtual worlds

The next step, which immediately follows, is to visualize this imaginable world. To use images to show an environment, a surounding is as old as human kind and hardly needs an explanation. But also video games and computer games make part of this visualization. These make virtual worlds not only imaginable and visible, but also playable. The imaginable, virtual world can be handled and changed, the experience grows more intense and is even more experienced as really existing. The user can handle it and gets interaction with the virtual world. And though everyone will immediately admit that video games are not real, it will be perceived as real when it is being played, for reactions and interactions are real. And also lessons learned by playing “serious games” and simulations are fully true.

Divisible and usable virtual worlds

Now, the step towards the divisible and usable virtual world becomes very small and easy to take. To use a computer, connected to other computers by Internet, to create a imaginable world and to walk in that world with an imaginable figure, an avatar, is in fact all that it takes. This avatar does not even have to look like yourself, but it is still easy to call it “me” and “I”, because you can imagine it, as it represents you. And as this visible and manageable virtual reality is connected to other computers, it gives you the opportunity to share your virtual world with other people. It gives te option to create and use your virtual worlds together with others who can login and be there with their own avatar as well. Communication and interaction with others is possible. Not with a computergame, but with real people.

Second Life™ is not a game

Understanding this, it will be crystal clear that the virtual reality, including the most well known example: Second Life™ cannot be seen as a game. Because all avatars in this virtual, imaginable environment are real people, who are in fact just as yourself, logged into a computer and use the virtual environment in the same way as you. This makes the virtual reality, the 3D Internet, with examples like Second Life™, OpenSim, ReactionGrid and many more to come, a new tool in communication between people. A communication tool that will need to have a development and conquer its place between other, nowadays common and accepted communication tools. Just like Internet in the ’90s, and all other tools that were once new.

It should also be noted that not only Second Life™, but also many other virtual environments, now in development, will be added to the collection and almost certainly will be connected to each other. The whole of this collection of virtual worlds, the Metaverse, will be a new dimension to communication between people worldwide.