I am very skeptical, but something in this idea feels like it could have paradigm-shifting potential. Other than gaming, the internet hasn’t found much use for 3D space. It almost took-off in Second Life; my impression is that when the novelty wore-off, people got tired of paying monthly fees to lug an avatar around the world and went back to the free and efficient strategy of clicking links and search bars (yes, I know there’s more too it than that). Depending on how much freedom users have and how simple the tools are for creating spaces, it seems possible that smart players in a game like this could find just the right balance between the flat and the three dimensional. When that happens, the game features may become only a background for more traditional internet uses: a metaverse-MySpace combined with turning the game’s point system into incentives for business and political campaigns. Combined with its potential as an accessible storytelling medium, I can imagine the “game” becoming a kind of interconnected library of interactive fiction, shopping catalogues, and meeting places; which I suppose is just the world wide web with more game features, 3-D spaces, and a social hierarchy that can be quantified in experience points as well as currency. But, yeah, this probably won’t happen.
