Gaming & Conference Marriage

There's a new kind of conferencing method that's been gaining steam over the last couple of years that involves 3D avatars in a virtual environment.

A lot of people can't see the draw to this. They would much rather meet at a conference in person than in a fake conference room because it's more personal. You can physically shake hands, trade business cards, and hold a conversation. You can also physically get on a cramped plane, wait for luggage, find a taxi, find a hotel, find decent food, report your expenses to corporate, and hope you get refunded in a reasonable amount of time. Some people enjoy those things, I know I enjoy traveling, but there are many who do not. Some people are just much more comfortable sitting at home or in the office. That's who this service is targeting.

There's a genre of games out there called Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs, usually shortened to MMOs). These are games where thousands of people gather in one place in 3D avatar form in complete various challenges. The most popular of those games, and you've probably heard of it, is World of Warcraft. Some of you may be thinking, "Now hang on, aren't these games typically played by 40-somethings in their parents' basement? What role could they possibly have in our business?" That stereotype couldn't be more inaccurate now. People of every kind are playing these games, and if the 12 million current players of World of Warcraft alone are any indication of the playerbase, it's not those kind of people anymore. To give you a more concrete idea of how many people that is, it's over twice the population of our humble Minnesota. Granted, we're certainly not the most populated state in the US, but the point is the gaming community of World of Warcraft would be a formidably sized state. That's not including the huge playerbase of the other big MMOs: EVE Online (which actually targets CEOs for their playerbase), Guild Wars, Lineage, Aion, Final Fantasy XI, and Ragnarok Online.

A lot of the players from these rapidly growing games are between the ages of 14 and 30, and you can bet they would be perfectly willing to spend time in that 3D virtual conference space. It's something worth looking into, because in the future when most of your employees are made up of those people you might be able to save yourself the huge head-aches from organizing venues and transportation for guest speakers.