” If successful, Gaia could pave the way for a new format of online distribution that is distinctly different from streaming or downloading video. Whereas those modes are typically consumed in solitary, virtual exhibition is intended as a mass viewing experience.
Instead of watching alone from the remove of a desk chair, multiple users simultaneously watch in the vicarious form of their own avatars, customizable digital characters whose actions can be manipulated in the virtual world’s three-dimensional setting.”

If you’re wondering what that would look like, it might be something like this:

The thing is, why even try to recreate the cinema experience / show movies in virtual worlds?

Home cinema has been eating into cinema sales for a few years now. Watching a movie at home is more comfortable, you dont get people kicking your seat / talking through the movie etc. The only remaning saving grace of cinemas is the fact that it is a massive screen which enhances the experience of a lot of blockbusters, and there are some social aspects of going with your partner or friends.

Watching a movie in a virtual cinema means that the screen actually has to be smaller than your computer screen in order to fit in the avatar audience etc – otherwise it would just be streaming video and not a virtual cinema. And does a virtual cinema really “re-create the social viewing experience teenagers enjoy in a real-world theater”? Going to watch a movie is actually one of the least social things people do, when else do we sit next to our friends for 2 hours without hardly talking? The social aspects of watching in a cinema are cuddling up to a partner or having other people in the same room gasping / laughing at the same parts you do. The first obviously is ruled out in virtual worlds and the second is only possible with a voice facility.

Another major problem with virtual cinemas is bound to be griefing attacks, indeed it appears the video above is of one such attack.

I can see this working if you can set up your own private virtual cinema, or have some way to easily exclude griefers, and as the movie starts it becomes full screen and you are linked by voice and possibly the option of a small text chat facility at the bottom of the screen. Even in this scenario you’re trading off these minor advantages with the convenience of being able to watch it exactly when you want to. Kids might be able to put up with the problems of a virtual cinema for shorter videos, say 20 minutes.

In general, not everything suits being in virtual worlds. Many things are easier/better in other formats. The 2D web will never die, neither will books or newspapers as these formats all have their advantages.

The trick is to implement into virtual worlds when it actually adds value to the experience/product, not just forcing it in for the sake of saying “hey, look here, virtual blabla, how cool!”

Of course these old media companies are right to be interested in virtual worlds, but it shouldnt be for a low quality ‘virtual cinema’ experience, rather creating interactive tie-ins to movies, providing intelligently for fan communities etc. Despite web 2.0 and 3.0 developments people will always appreciate (and consume) the kind of contents that only these kinds of big production houses have the resources to create, especially if they are distributed in the right formats.