The importance of having shadows Or: realism in virtual worlds

What is the difference between the two pictures above? Realism? Immersion? Fun? Success? Both are rendered from Virtual worlds. The left one is from Gaia an low end (and extremely successful 2.5D world. The right picture is taking from Playstation Home, probably the most realistic virtual word of today, only accessible with a Sony Playstation 3.

Hamlet Au, one of the most famous authors in the Second Life Blogospere recently posted an arcticle about a new experimental version of Second Life, which provoked a lot of comments immediately. He questioned if it was really desireble to have more graphics effects, more realism in Second Life - especially if this leads to different user experiences among the users - and quoted some interesting numbers:

Top virtual worlds/MMOs by use, as of 2008:
- World of Warcraft, 10 million subscribers
- Habbo Hotel, 8 million monthly active users
- RuneScape, 5 million monthly active users
- Club Penguin, 4 million monthly active users
- Webkinz, 4 million monthly active users

He concludes, that people probably don't want realistic 3D worlds, as 4 of 5 of the most successful virtual worlds are 2.5D and the only 3D one is certainly not "high end" or "realistic". 

I can't follow his line of reasoning though.  While I won't argue his numbers (showing that a lot of 2.5D worlds are vastly more popular than next gen 3D ones), it is tough to draw conclusions from such a fact. When two factors are correlated this just means that they are ... correlated, NOT that one is the result of the other in a cause-and-effect relationship. :) Assuming cause-and-effect when there is correlation is one of the most popular mistakes in logic.

There are many reasons for the popularity of 2.5D worlds. And the most important one is probably their easy availability (often in the browser) and their low hardware demands (nearly anything goes). I very much doubt that people will run away from Habbo or Penguin as soon as these games improve the visual fidelity. :)

They will run away (or not come anymore), though, if the makers of these platforms DEMAND certain hardware standards (or compulsory training sessions to learn a complicated user interface). Second Life's hardware/software demands and steep learning curve are already the most important barriers between the platform and a more widespread adoption. It would be a dangerous decision to raise this barrier - even if the engineers in the development department would love to have better graphics so they won't have to be embarrassed anymore when having a drink with their pals from the gaming companies. That should not be a decisive factor, though. The target audience for virtual worlds is NOT hardcore gamers (young men between 16 and 28).

Visual fidelity (not necessarily realism) is great - but certainly not necessary for most applications of virtual worlds. It won't hurt neither, though.