Rosedale suggests that one reason virtual worlds are not as popular as they have been hyped is that people have difficulty "embodying" a virtual avatar, project

Rosedale suggests that one reason virtual worlds are not as popular as they have been hyped is that people have difficulty "embodying" a virtual avatar, projecting themselves into it. I have no problem with doing that, but I'm a Second Life user. It does seem somewhat plausible. First-person video games avoid that requirement. But there are also plenty of third person games too. Another thing he says is that pure consumerism fails on virtual worlds because people want to create. I actually think this might be part of what has made SL a niche interest. At the very minimum, an SL user must "create" their avatar through combining a plethora of commercially available avatar components. A typical avatar consists of 10 to 40+ different pieces bought separately from different creators, a long with customizing the 50 or so shape sliders. Avatars aren't a single fixed mesh like in other worlds. This makes people watching super interesting because every avatar is unique and indivudialized. But you can't just grab a pre-made avatar and call it done without looking like a "noob", and I think this is actually a hurdle to wide adoption.