Nic Mitham has a great blog posting asking, and largely answering, the question “Are Mirror Worlds the answer for greater VW adoption?” Nic interestingly points out a main concern that we thought about in creating Twinity:
Virtual worlds will attract new older users (adults) if they provide a greater sense of ‘context to the content’. By this I mean providing virtual places which are less chaotic/unknown and more familiar to the users. This of course means real world places – mirror worlds.
You need to know where you’re going, or at least to be able to figure it out. This is one of the toughest things for people new to virtual worlds to learn.
Using mirror worlds to re-create history in virtual environments is I think a great way of broadening the appeal of virtual worlds for adults.
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Urban planning, infrastructure and architecture could all be explored, as well as cultural elements.
There’s even more there – give it a read 🙂