Steven Johnson has an interesting piece in Wired on the future of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). Johnson suggests that over the next decade we'll see the notion of discrete game worlds like World of Warcraft and EverQuest fade and be replaced by a more unified environment. Johnson seems to be concentrating on the logic of technological convergence and leaving us hanging with the tantalizing notion of a Matrix-type metaverse that contains all games is possible. To be fair, the article only runs to 550 words, so it's hardly a detailed analysis. But it's a romantic idea that's fun to entertain. I don't play MMORPGs (it's a time issue mostly) but the notion of entering a universe and having the same character have experiences as diverse as games like The Sims and Second Life is very attractive. It would make the character even more central to the experience if you could work the same one through a diverse gaming experience. And once the thing reached a certain tipping point, having the one character could very quickly accelerate the unification of the separate gaming societies Johnson talks about.

On entirely tangential matters, the article also reminded me of how some authors write short stories and novels in separate universes and then decide to link them together into one metaverse. These bridging novels and stories can sometimes be fun but are more often like watching a car crash in slow motion. Isaac Asimov did it with his Foundation novels, and his robot novels and short stories, and my 15-year-old science-fiction soaked brain thought he did a pretty good job at the time.

It might be fun to try some time.

Two of my short stories Depart the Singer, Follow the Song and 617 Instances of Eleanor and Rising are themed around the same issue – future collisions of technology and entertainment/art – and are already set in the same universe. I have a few other random science fiction shorts that could be slotted in without too much difficulty. I have a suite of weird-idea fantasies that could be set in the same universe – as each other –  without much trouble. Linking those groups in a way that actually made for an interesting story to tell would be a real challenge. I'm working on two novels - a traditional fantasy and a hip probably-YA novel about cities and civil disobedience - which would massively add to the difficulties of linking my stuff. Plus I've got a few random horror and surrealist stories, which may be better left out of the 'canon'.  It would definitely be easier.

It's certainly a strange thought experiement that gives rise to some interesting story ideas.