Unless I'm mistaken, the most popular fiction in which VR is wildly popular is.. Ready Player One, Snow Crash, and Neuromancer. And in all of them, VR is only popular because people are trying to escape the hellscape that unrestrained capitalism has turned the planet into.
I felt major Snow Crash vibes the first time I tried VRChat. Some of the servers are totally The Black Sun, without the hacker-programmed bouncers. But it also felt like a lot of the people were there escaping a reality they couldn't deal with.
It was a cash hole the lizard man could pour money into so that the story became how bad they fucked up the metaverse, and not the burgeoning story about how they created an algorithm that destroys democracy for a few extra dollars per active user.
I can tell you what the Metaverse is not. A corporate social space. That said there is interest in what it could be out side of the corporate dystopia.
I have been imagineering a VR Theme Park with highly detailed dark rides that is online and thus a Metaverse by definition and it ranks in the top VR apps and miles above all the social focus Metaverses, especially the corporate ones. I am sure there will be other Metaverses that catch on too, it is just hard to see when the corporations shit all over the term by presenting such an awful, boring and downright creepy take on it.
And that report was like a year ago, imagine how it's looking now lol.
Edit: Might be worth pointing out this is not Facebook's Metaverse, but rather Decentraland, a web 3.0 crypto metaverse that is even shittier than Zuck's version.
Half legit half rhetorical question. If I wanted to see what the metaverse is like, how would I even do that? It has always felt like something in closed beta, or like an obscure Sony service that you need a PS5 and multiple premium memberships to access. I don't know if it's a program you install, a website you go to, or what. The fediverse might have accessibility issues but it's not nearly as bad as whatever the metaverse is. I actually didn't expect to still be saying "whatever the metaverse is" at this point but it never got any clearer.
It's an abstract concept that nobody is willing to pin down to specific requirements, only general principles. If you actually want a peak at what people are hyping just try vrchat. Prepare for massive culture whiplash, weird avatars, trolls, and things that are off putting to some like sexualized avatars and furries. And of course it's not for everyone and every application, that's corporate hype stupidity. Why do I still think there's something really important there? Cause there's something really special about all the small details. People who never would've met talking across thousands of miles "face to face." It's like our monkey brains process actual personal connection and bypass most the adversarial bullshit we've been cultivating in text social media.
I've seen vrchat and it looks awesome. I didn't care about it until I found out anybody can make avatars and levels. It's no IMVU. It's also pretty straightforward to type vrchat in a search engine and find somewhere to download the client. I found the article for this post and they're talking about a thing called decentraland. The metaverse is apparently any online game that uses a crypto wallet as the account, but decentraland seems like the only game available. What's the thing where nobody has legs then? That's what I thought the metaverse was.
The quote I like the most on this subject is: “The metaverse isn’t a place; it’s a time in history when our digital identity and goods have as much or more importance than our real life versions.” I don’t think we’re there yet, but it also makes little (rational) sense that people spend money for virtual items in video games.
I think the closest playable analogues are actually Fortnite and Roblox. Interconnected worlds with external avatars that cross them. You play experiences vs. games. There’s brand integration so Goku can fight John Wick. It’s pretty close?
No, they are talking about Meta Avatars and Meta Horizon Worlds, the multiplayer platform for gaming and socializing that Meta itself created and in which the avatars originally didn't feature legs.
Steam player counter indicates there are currently 25347 players live playing VRChat on Steam. VRChat had an all-time peak of 46814 concurrent players on 1 January 2023.
A game that is actually built and formed by its users outperforming one designed by an alien billionaire that doesn't understand people. Colour me surprised!