The December Trip

I am just finishing now a one week business trip to the US, and as I wait for my flight back home, I thought I'd share with you some of my thoughts.

Anyway, in this trip we met with several virtual worlds operators in the purpose of cooperating with them on GamearraY's new (and still undisclosed...) product. It was a very interesting trip. Aside from our "sales pitch", we got to hear some of the thoughts of decision makers in this very young and vibrant industry.

It's refreshing to see an industry in its early days, where everyone still listens and not "stuck" in certain paradigms. Everyone knows that it is very early to know where exactly virtual worlds are going, and maybe even more important what would be the leading business models and the persistent ways to monetize on worlds.

As for mobile, we heard again that this is certainly the next thing for the industry. Unlike social networking sites that do have pretty good mobile services (usually WAP sites, but good ones), virtual worlds remain currently without any mobile access, and this is something all world owners want, even if that's not the first priority (Got to stabilize the world and bring PC users first...).

It appears that 2008 is going to be the year when virtual worlds will go mobile (this was also written in a recent industry forecast), so it's going to be interesting to see the various approaches out there.

There's a lot more, but I have to catch my flight. One last thing: I would like to wish Happy holidays to all of NextGenMoCo's readers! See you again in 2008!