Our Virtual World and Covid-19
Written by Alina Nazmeeva and Dr. Andrea Marie Chegut
This is the 12th week of remote work for the MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab: the semester at MIT has ended, and the school is working on solutions for the Fall Semester. While the familiar world is on hold until further notice, the internet is revealed to be an essential infrastructure that keeps our shared reality running. While gatherings in physical spaces are to be avoided, much of life continues online. The overall use of the internet has spiked: Vodafone’s internet usage has surged by up to 50% in some European countries, Verizon in the beginning of March has seen the spike of web traffic by 20%. Gaming skyrocketed 75%.
Online digital games have been one of the major reasons for the internet traffic growth. Telecom Italia shows the 75 % increase of the traffic, with a significant contribution from such online games as Fortnite and Call of Duty. Game distribution platform Steam had a record of over 20 million concurrent users playing on March 15, which is 11% above previous peak usership count. Twitch — Amazon owned gaming streaming platform has doubled its viewership. Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold over 13.5 million copies.
Both video conferencing software and online games have become the crucial spaces for everyday activity, socialization, work and leisure. How they are designed, and how they foster or hinder social practices and well-being have become more relevant. As a part of the research initiative of MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab, dubbed (un)Real Estate, this article is aimed to overview new forms of social interaction and economic activity happening online during quarantine.
Work and Play in the Virtual
In a New York Times article Kevin Roose compares the current use of the internet to the TV commercial: when it is used to connect with distant relatives, find great recipes for family or read bedtime stories. The internet now seems to serve its originally intended purpose — to connect people, and to be a social space for communication and collaboration. For work, most of those who transitioned into remote work started using videoconferencing software. For leisure and entertainment, it is either streaming services or online games.
While many people were able to transition to the new normal, the pandemic reveals the dramatic social gaps as it pertains to the internet. Closing the digital divide and ensuring the universal access to the fastest internet has become one of the most critical Covid-19 responses for governments and communication businesses. Several measures have been taken globally, from some of the internet providers waiving payments, opening WIFI hotspots, lifting data-caps, reducing costs of the plans and providing zero-rated access to the essential web-sites. In the US, ISPs such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T and others have agreed to not to terminate service for customers and businesses who no longer can pay for the services.
For new users there is the ever-present Zoom, Teams and WebEx to continue communication with others beyond their household. For the industries that have capacity to run remotely, remote work is no longer a means of cutting the costs and increasing efficiency, but a fundamental necessity for public health and employment. Software that utilize design conventions from both videoconferencing and online games, such as Online Town, are being used as viable alternatives to the video-conferencing. New and old tools are being tested for corporate engagement, with zoom happy hours and collective film streaming on Netflix Party and Twitch and office slack channels to share recipes or pet photos. This is nice from a community perspective, but this has also implications for how the virtual gets welcomed further into our lives.This condition questions the old established new social norms in a workplace and other social settings. “Zoom background” becomes an expressive tool, a status symbol and a marker of creativity.
Further, companies and institutions also opt for virtual replicas of their office spaces. In April, Sine Wave Entertainment introduced Breakroom (based on Unity gaming engine), a virtual world-like 3D social hub for remote workforces. It can accommodate one-to-one or large meetings and media sharing. The service includes a variety of spaces from exhibition halls, private offices and conference rooms to gaming spaces and cinema screening rooms. The services are subscription based, and cost $500 a month for 50 employees, whereas State and Public Schools can use Breakroom free of charge.
Leisure and entertainment take place online utilizing video conferencing software and online digital games as platforms for social gathering, concerts, exhibitions and other activities and events. Looking at the gaming statistics from Cowen research, titled Videogames and COVID, published on March 15th, while the users no longer can visit entertainment activities outside their home, a high value-to-price of videogames offers an opportunity for entertainment at home. The evidence from the recent spikes in the internet traffic worldwide due to the increased gaming activity corresponds to that assumption. Recent reports from NewZoo suggest that in 2020 the videogame industry will have +9.3 % revenue growth from the previous $159 billion.
Last year the World Health Organisation (WHO) included gaming disorder in its classification of Diseases as a behavioral disorder. This March, during the outbreak, WHO stated that gaming can help to cope with social distancing and to help to #stayhome. This was confirmed through the initiative #PlayApartTogether, co-organized by several gaming companies such as Activision Blizzard (World of Warcraft publisher), Zynga (FarmVille), Google Play, Sega and others. The campaign is creating special events and activities, incorporating COVID-19 information and self-protection messages from WHO directly into the games.
The Virtual as a Social Space and a Destination
Online games — as a form of media and a social space — seem compatible with the current global conditions. The environments of online games — virtual worlds — since their early text-based origins, have become social spaces and global economic markets which span over 2.5 billion of users. With pandemic, the social role of online games has increased. Virtual worlds, arguably, can provide a broad spectrum of possibilities for social engagement, encourage individual and collective creativity and serve as event-hosting platforms. Moreover, avatar-based social engagement, situated in the simulated three-dimensional environment produces the sense of social immersion. The spatial nature of online worlds allows the users to form meaningful social groups in space, to mingle, to have unintended and serendipitous encounters or have private conversations via voice chat or text messages. In this sense, online games arguably provide a more holistic social outlet than video conferencing platforms or text/image based social media.
As of virtual worlds, this pandemic has increased the creativity among the users: many started collectively re-creating the spaces they can no longer visit in physical space. In particular, such practices were most noticeable in the ultra popular Minecraft. Such schools as UPenn, Boston University, UCLA, MIT, Northwestern University, University of Minnesota, and University of Texas and many others have started building virtual campuses in Minecraft. At MIT, the Minecraft campus is a student-driven initiative. As the authors themselves describe it, a virtual campus for them is a coping mechanism and a collective space where they can engage with their peers, and a memory palace that helps them to appreciate the campus. UPenn students have built a meticulously detailed copy of their campus, and UC Berkeley held an official graduation ceremony in their Minecraft Campus. Beyond colleges, as Mitch Smith, the managing director of Minecraft server hosting service has stated in the interview for the Verge, there has been demand for hosting services among scout groups, kindergartens, homeschooling parents and summer camps.
While physical-world travelling is restricted, virtual worlds are seen as destinations. They can provide a viable case for virtual tourism for entertainment and education. User-built social virtual worlds such as Second Life and Minecraft are known for replicas of famous global landmarks. There is Amsterdam, Paris and parts of Tokyo in Second Life, New York and whole Great Britain, Denmark and even the whole planet Earth in Minecraft. Ubisoft, the creator of Assassin Creed, notorious for its meticulous details of real-world historical spaces, offers a Discovery Tour Mode of the digital replicas of Ancient Egypt and Greece free of charge.
Virtual worlds also are used as virtual event hosting platforms — the best evidence to that is last year’s Marshmello’s concert in Fortnite that was claimed to be the largest concert in world history with its over 10.7 millions of concurrent visitors. Travis Scott’s concert in Fortnite in April 2020 almost tripled this number, and had over 27 million in audience. As all cultural events are cancelled, the performers and cultural institutions seek for new ways to connect with their audience and be sustainable. Many utilize virtual worlds for this purpose. For example, Block by Blockfest is among dozens of festivals and concerts organized in Minecraft, has gathered several indie musicians whose tours and concerts otherwise were cancelled for the foreseeable future. The lifestreaming startup Wave collaborates with artists to create immersive concert experiences, in which they design the venue and avatars for the artists.
While three-dimensional virtual worlds are used primarily as recreational and creative environments, video conferencing software, such as Zoom or Skype is being used primarily as a formal communication device that does not allow mingling, unexpected and serendipitous social encounters. Yet video conferencing tools are also being appropriated as a broader social medium for a broad range of social activity. In Japan, for example, Zoom is used for drinking with strangers. Another initiative, called Bar Street, developed by Saint Petersburg, Russia-based web design studio proposes a playful social engagement for the visitors through the UI imitating a street with neon bar signs, linked to video-conference rooms.
First emerged in China, cloud clubbing has grown in popularity worldwide. Nightlife and musical performance have started to appropriate available video communication platforms to survive the social distancing. Musicians and DJs stream the performances from their homes via Zoom and Twitch, and virtual clubbing is growing in popularity. Utilizing Zoom breakout rooms as separate dance-floors, a concierge and occasionally (as in case of Quarantee or Q Club) eventbrite ticketing system (10$ for entry), this format of social engagement and entertainment, to an extent, mimics the spatial syntax of a physical club. Some parties have a mandatory dress code, others invite instagram celebrities and famous DJs to perform or be a part of the events.
Case Study: Animal Crossing
The media darling of Covid-19 era, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, designed by Nintendo, has become a go-to pastime and a coping mechanism for many console owners during COVID-19. According to the reporters from the Verge, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is on track to become the most successful game of all times in Japan and the UK.
In Animal Crossing, the player has to take a mortgage on a house, participate in the society of the anthropomorphic animals, have a job and explore the pastoral landscape of the island settlement. You can play with friends, family or on your own. The game is slow-paced, there are no predefined objectives and goals, and there is no clear end to it. The passage of time reflects the time in reality, alongside with the change of seasons. The player can choose one’s appearance, clothes and decorate and furnish their house in great detail purchasing the in-game goods for in-game currency. There is a simulated in-game economy and scarcity of resources on the Animal Crossing island, consumable goods and economic relationship between the players are the crucial parts of the gameplay. Each creature has a role in the economy of the idyllic pastoral island. For instance, Tom Nook, the anthropomorphic racoon is a real estate broker that gives the player the mortgage for their house.
Animal Crossing can work as a coping mechanism, as it gives the players the feeling of empowerment and a sense of community. Slow progression, cute characters and colorful pastoral environment supplemented with a chill soundtrack provides the players with the repetitive day-today tasks reminiscent of daily routine. The stability, easy-to-follow rules and peaceful slow-paced dynamics of the game provide so much needed comfort in the uncertain times.
For others, the possibilities for customization turned animal crossing into the creative outlet and a productive platform. Several fashion designers, and fashion retailers, such as Net-a-Porter started experimenting with Animal Crossing as a creative platform: by making custom outfits for the characters or replicating relevant styles from the industry. Created by three NYC based creatives Fernanda Ly, Michelle Yue and Vivian Loh, Nook Street Market has digital replicas of famous fashion designer clothes that anyone can copy for free.
Famous art is being reproduced in Animal Crossing as well. Getty Museum made its own art generation tool for the game. Individual players as well create art museums on their islands. For example, Chris Piuma created elaborate museums, curated and re-created artworks of Mark Rothko, Kazimir Malevich, Yaoi Kusama and other prominent artists of the 20 and the 21 century.
Some players started selling bells (in-game currency in Animal Crossing) for real cash. As Alexis Ong of ArsTechnica puts it, bell-farming is a new gold-farming. The players use Animal Crossing loopholes and glitches to outsmart the game and collect bells by ‘time travelling’, object cloning or by creating a tarantula island.
Virtual Reality for Work and Leisure
During the last 3 months, the most popular VR headsets have been rapidly sold out for multiple times. While it has been happening, in part, due to the reduced production capacity, the increased demand for the consumer VR equipment, as experts suggest, was triggered by the quarantine.
Since the early conception of virtual reality, starting with the first stereoscopic visual simulator View-Master in 1939, there have been waves of hype, hopes and fears and media speculation towards VR as a future of work, leisure and communication. However, within recent months there is no indication of rapid adoption of VR over familiar video-conferencing software such as aforementioned Zoom, Meet or WebEx. As a Wired VR reporter Adi Robertson suggests, VR might be extremely good for training, running simulations and collaborative practices in design fields. However, if we consider a typical work environment, where the predominant content exchanged between the workers is text documents, VR might not be the most suitable technology. As mobile phones have not replaced computers, and digital text formats did not replace printed documents, so VR might not replace the computer entirely, but rather will find its niche in the work environment, alongside other technologies.
Today, few relevant cases are related to the use of virtual reality simulations for medical worker training or the collaborative work with the medical simulation of the virus cells. A VR based training course is offered by Oxford Medical Simulation to the hospitals and medical schools around the world to expand their staff for patient care. Over 50 hospitals and schools have requested their course to train students and staff.
Previously mentioned Breakroom and other office simulation software aim to be cross-platform — thus, accessible via desktop computer, or a smartphone, and lastly VR goggles. A total visual immersion to a simulated three-dimensional space is not considered necessary, as well as the hardware has not made a breakthrough — it is considered uncomfortable and its benefits have not superseded the costs.
Social virtual worlds powered by VR are still in the early stage. However, the pandemic spurred the interest in them among a wider audience. As Ron Millar — a Chief Creator Officer of VRChat — has told Kent Bye of VoicesofVR podcast, in VRChat there have been 18 thousands of concurrent users in the beginning of April. Microsoft’s AltspaceVR, another social VR world, offers their venue and extra support for VR conferences. Early February, before the outbreak in the US, Altspace VR hosted the “Educators in VR Summit” which was attended by 6000 listeners, had over 150 speakers and included over 100 hours of content. There have been many other use cases, which, according to AltspaceVR, set it as a viable platform for events, education and social activity.
Conclusion
When much of social life happens online, it is hard to deny the importance of the design of the online social spaces, and their potential implications and relationship with physical social space. Our discipline is concerned with the built environment and real estate, how it is designed, used, and how its features are translated into social, cultural and economic values. When most of the built environment, and the social spaces and behaviors are being reinvented online in one way or the other, it opens up a new area for the research that is concerned with both concrete and virtual social spaces and practices. This can open the conversation towards hybrid spaces, or understanding of the social sphere and social space as a more nuanced entity that is simultaneously shaped online and offline, and the interdisciplinary theory that can cut across both realms. We look forward to continue this discussion in our next posts! Stay tuned!
