Why do 90% of corporate virtual worlds projects fail within 18 months?
Gartner reports that 90% of corporate virtual world projects fail within 18 months. While there are several unknowns concerning the data gathered from the report, I am considering that Gartner’s report does not include projects that were closed but deemed successes, or is not intended as a permanent fixture in the virtual world space as failures. Gartner discusses many reasons why virtual world projects fail (such as a performing a project for a ‘cool’ factor or a competitor has previously done so) and uses examples of successful virtual worlds (Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin and BarbieGirls.) This is an indication that there are challenges when performing a project inside virtual worlds such as Second Life or There.com and suggest that these platforms are not conduits for successful virtual world projects. I diagree. I do agree with the message, corporations need to better understand the platform before hopping in to virtual worlds and expecting great sucess, but I fear that its steering people to an unsuccessful route. There are many reasons why corporate virtual world projects have a large failure rate deals specifically with the approach not the platform or the technology.
