Middleware for the front-end
The history of back end middleware shows that we’ve progressed from custom solutions to repeatable custom solutions to Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) solutions. All the major software houses now sell COTS middleware for connecting the back end of systems. A similar trend is occurring on the Front Ends of system as regards 3D capability. With the advent of 3D Virtual Worlds, most notably www.secondlife.com, users have been freed from the limitations of structured gaming engines. In game the operators’ choices are limited by the game’s designers. The game engine provides certain choices and within that space the gamer is free to exercise his/her choice points. Virtual Worlds, by contrast, do not typically have the concept of levels – play is more collaborative or free form. As we see notions of gaming, virtual worlds & Web 2.0 merge together we can see that these models are, in and of themselves, decomposeable.
The graphic shows how we can view gaming & virtual worlds on a continuum depending upon how flexible the model is and who creates it. This merge is happening with Web 2.0 technologies as well. Facebook has become a gaming platform in and of itself and how desires to allow gaming consoles to access it (link).
While this post raises more questions than it solves, the intent is to show that in the same way that connecting back end systems became commoditized resulting in COTS middleware…the Front Ends of how we interact with software are becoming commoditized in a way that allows us to more easily traverse amongst them, i.e., from one virtual world to another, from a social networking site to a VW or within a game that has become so free form as to feel more like a virtual world. All of these developments are a slow morph toward and end state that no one has designed. It’s simply the way that technology undergoes natural selection when the selective force is human usability.
