Finding the Real-World Value in Virtual Worlds: Issues and Challenges

The article at http://www.cutter.com/...">http://www.cutter.com/content-and-analysis/journals-and-reports/cutter-i... is quite long but is actually only an introduction to an entire issue that you can get by subscribing to their journal. Although it does not talk much about any specific games, it does mention Second Life a few times. Also, my concern is that any advances made to virtual worlds for businesses will likely be transferred to Second Life (and on-line games, thus helping to make them more addictive) that the article says are inadequate now for their purposes in some respects. For example, it says that:

Quote:As of now, however, virtual worlds are at a nascent stage. Some virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life) are plagued by poor reliability and performance, and consequently will not provide an adequate platform for organizations that require a production-level environment.

Also, these virtual worlds will likely expand further into other areas, such as education and training:

Quote:As a professor of management at Southeastern Louisiana University and founding editor of the Journal of Strategic e-Commerce, David C. Wyld is well placed to comment on the potential of virtual worlds in education and training. In our next article, he argues that training and education in the 21st century must be more geared to the learning styles of the "digital native" generation. Wyld suggests that this could be accomplished through the use of "serious games," environments specifically designed for teaching, training, and learning. He further explains why online games and virtual worlds are well suited to leadership and management training, as they provide what one observer calls a "social laboratory where role-playing, simulations, exploration, and experimentation can be tried out in a relatively risk-free environment."

I believe that most of the technology for these advances has already been developed so there is not really very much holding back these "advancements" by general businesses, including their adoption soon afterwards by other groups like Second Life and on-line games.