Areae, headed by Raph Koster, finally released details about the secret virtual world project that they have been working on for a year now. It’s called Metaplace and it reeks of boundless potential. I am extremely excited about it, and at the same time, concerned.

Metaplace is a next-generation virtual worlds platform designed to work the way the Web does. Instead of giant custom clients and huge downloads, Metaplace lets you play the same game on any platform that reads our open client standard. We supply a suite of tools so you can make worlds, and we host servers for you so that anyone can connect and play. And the client could be anywhere on the Web.

It’s an extremely progressive and ambitious view of the virtual worlds. If it can really be executed, and well, it can crush any other ones out there simply because this would be THE overencompassing metaverse for all worlds created in Metaplace. Not sure what their business model would be yet, as that’s not mentioned anywhere. There are many virtual worlds still in development, and ones that are playing catch-up such as The Sims Online. These will need to think very hard as to how they can differentiate themselves from this upcoming competition. They must operate under the assumption that, this WILL be executed well and WILL deliver on all its promises.

What can YOUR virtual world provide that someone cannot create in Metaplace?

UPDATE: Raph on F13.net dropped some hints as to what the business model would be. He mentioned that “small worlds” would be free but those with more than 1000 users would be charged. So it means, anyone serious about this would have to pay to get the 1000 users limit lifted. At least, that’s the current thinking anyway.

metaplace, virtual worlds