History of the (Virtual) Worlds

Virtual worlds represent a small but dynamic sector of the computer technology field with global applications ranging from art and entertainment to online instructional delivery and educational research. Despite their worldwide acceptance and usage, few educators, researchers, or everyday gamers fully understand the history and evolution of virtual worlds – their genres, platforms, features, and affordances. Many of the innovations we readily recognize today (e.g., user creation of in-world objects in worlds like Second Life) began as grassroots efforts by gaming and computer enthusiasts who were long on passion but short on documentation. The end result is a twisted and often thorny history for a technology that now actively engages hundreds of millions of users worldwide and millions of users within education alone. This article synthesizes histories and definitions from virtual world developers, industry leaders, academic researchers, trade journals, and texts in order to form a coherent historical narrative of events that contributed to the evolution and shaping of the virtual worlds as we currently know and use them in education and society in general.