Social      
GamingSimulation

The Schubert triangle was first proposed in a CGDC Presentation: "The Rules of Online World Design" which looked at the various rules and laws that are true for all online VR environment projects.

The Schubert Triangle is one such law. The triangle has three points. At one point you have a pure social experience, at the second, a pure gaming experience. The third point represents pure simulation.

Spreading out from the points, is their influence. The further from the social point you go, the less social is becomes, until you are the only one there, with no possibility of finding anyone else within the VR. The further from the gaming point you go, the less focussed on fun the VE becomes, until it has none left at all. Finally, the further from simulation you go, the less and less it tries to simulate anything to any degree at all.

All VR environments lay within the triangle: Each has a mix of these three elements. It is both a way of showing how all VR is fundamentally connected, and at the same time, a tool for commercial VR systems - notably gameworlds - to test themselves against.

With gameworlds, the Schubert triangle becomes a three-axis slide-rule for measuring likely success. To keep a playerbase attracted, you have to finely balance all three points in equilibrium.

Too much simulation and the worlsd will not welcome players in. Too much game and the experience will be shallow, lacking any abuility to hook the mind in long term. Too much community, and you start to approach a chatroom mentality, where people stand and chat all day, doing nothing else. They could get that anywhere.

References

CGDC Presentation: The Rules of Online World Design