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 dunno. Give it a few more years, maybe.
That’s also because in VR you could build, inhabit, and explore worlds that felt real, giving you a sense of liberty in a world largely without. In the real world, VR has already been tainted by the capitalism - indeed, Decentraland specifically is largely a collection of vacant lots, half-finished projects, and corporate playgrounds. The most functional areas are those owned by megacorps.
Capitalism beat us to VR. The choice will be live in the real world, where there are at least some spaces for you outside of the system, or dive into a constructed one run by the people you were initially trying to escape.
That’s also because in VR you could build, inhabit, and explore worlds that felt real, giving you a sense of liberty in a world largely without.
In Snowcrash/Necromancer the VR world is just as corrupt as the real world.
These tech bros read those books and think, “cool, let’s make this.”
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.
We could go the Electric Sheep route and make a weird religion out of it
How about going full Dune, and destroying all computers and AI’s to replace them with human calculators and autopilots?
And people still don’t know what the fuck a metaverse is
A masterclass in colossal failure
Plus finding out doesn’t help.
“What’s a metaverse”
“It’s Second Life VR”
“Oh, no thanks”
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.
From what I understand Facebook/meta is just a very small part of the metaverse but I could be wrong
There is no “The” Metaverse, every company has their own interpretation of it.
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.
The future is a dead mall
My local mall has made a huge comeback over the last three or four years. Every weekend all the empty kiosks are taken over and a bunch of tables are set up by antique dealers and traders, and they basically use the entire mall as a giant flea market.
There is also a large fitness center at the mall, as well as a large gymnasium where they do gymnastics and whatever they call it, like gladiator/ obstacle course type training. Those have scheduled classes pretty much all day, and so all those people are constantly coming and going.
Most of the store fronts that were vacated by things like Radio Shack and Aeropostale and other big chains that seem to have evaporated are now filled with small businesses. There’s an independent toy store, music store {instruments not records), liquor store, and a number of small offices such as a dentist and eye doctor, not really traditional mall merchants, but they are driving traffic better than Macy’s had been for decades.
.
That’s the mall future I want tbh. As long as parking is free. Include a lil park on some corner away from cars and better/cheaper food options and I would hang there all day. Malls in Japan are on another level. Lots of small unique locally owned businesses.
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That’s one of the Greta things about Japan, at least the greater Tokyo area. I never felt like I needed a car while vacationing there. Everything was literally a couple minutes walk from a train station and the station wasn’t that expensive. I would have spent the same in gas if I was driving around. According to my Google trains were also just a couple minutes slower than taking a car, nothing significant. Definitely worth it.
Greta was a typo, or you mean Greta Thunberg-pilled?
Typo yea, I meant great.
This is great. Transforming malls into things that people actually want instead what they are told they want.
What, seven shoe stores and four jewelry stores all right across from one another isn’t sustainable?
It’s funny, like see the absurdity and unfairness of it, but hidden behind that is the fact that like, those four jewelry stores aren’t even competing, they are owned by the same one or two companies, and those one or two companies are owned by the same handful of old country club families, and they also own the mall, half of the other stores, and everything in them is made in factories owned by some other handful of oligarchs. It’s fucked.
I do miss Spencer’s Gifts though. There used to be one in New York in a storefront near Astor Place. The only one I’ve ever seen not in a mall.
Ok Dan
I need this as an edgy T-shirt from wish.
“If you eat an infinite amount of virtual burgers, you’ll still starve”
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.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/metaverse-decentraland-report-active-users
OP is confusing Facebook’s Metaverse with Decentraland, the later is a sort of ultra crude foundational game engine with some web 3.0 integration, you can buy land (obviously) and try to build experiences within your parcel.
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?
The fediverse might have accessibility issues but it’s not nearly as bad as whatever the fediverse is
Didn’t you mean to say metaverse the second time you mentioned fediverse?
Yeah. Thanks for noticing.
If I wanted to see what the metaverse is like, how would I even do that?
But a Quest and install Gorilla Tag.
A what with a what?
Wait. Before you explain… Tell me what it costs.
A Quest 1 at this point is about 100 dollars used. A Quest 2 is about 250, and a Quest 3 is about 500. Pick your level of bang for buck, then most of the things that could be described as metaverses are free to play/use.
A real metaverse would essentially just be “the internet” but for VR. We don’t have that. But the most popular metaverse-like stuff we have is akin to second-life type stuff. User created spaces all connected together by a hub and spoke system. VRchat is the most populous, rec room is also pretty big, Altspace might still be good, I haven’t checked in a while. Probably lots of other options. Meta of course wants their “Horizons” to be the metaverse, but in actuality it’s the crappiest free option.
Speaking of Second life, they did make a VR port of it, but last I tried it sucked and was hard to get working. Don’t know if they have done any more work on it or if they gave up.
I think it’s mostly just still too early. We are only just now getting headsets that are worth it for normal people and not just us Autistic people. So VR is only just starting it’s trek towards mainstream. I know 20 million headsets have been sold, but retention is not high yet. It should be starting with the Quest 3 and other headsets of this generation, since normal people actually like it now.
I didn’t expect this thorough of an answer, thanks.
It’s maybe time I give it another look.
https://horizon.meta.com/ I don’t care what anyone else says, Horizon is the Metaverse.
That’s Decentraland. It does not even support VR.
You’re conflating Meta and some cryptobro bullshit when talking about legs.
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.
Yeah, but the article is about Decentraland, it literally says it’s name down in the corner. OP got the two mixed up.
We should still keep in mind that Meta doesn’t own the word metaverse, though. There’s been several things already on the market that could be described as a metaverse, years before they ever thought about rebranding from Facebook.
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.
Talk about getting ratioed.
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!
Even ChilloutVR is seeing more activity than facebookvr/decentrashit
did they end up undoing the anticheat btw
This game is just the goat
On a bright side, that’s $1.2 billion less to spend on destroying democracies across the world
That number is absolutely incredible! I can’t believe it had as many as 30 people using it!
Users were about 8k daily. There were just 30 people who bought stuff.
All 30 of them are content creators making videos about how there is no one in the meta verse
funniest thing ive read today.
lets build something no one needs, or asked for, and is stupidly expensive… hmmmmmmm
this will be discussed in classrooms for decades
You forgot bland and brand-safe, designed for advertising and micro transactions.
the things i could do with a 1.2 billion dollars…
That’s a llllottt of fancy ketchups
if i had 1.2 billion i would share my ketchup with you
Dijon ketchup?
I’d prefer a fur coat. But not a real fur coat(that’s cruel).
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This has nothing to do with Facebook’s Metaverse, it’s a completely different metaverse lol.
My girlfriend goes to a different metaverse. You wouldn’t know her.
Not sure if New World is what you are referring to but that game is awesome. It’s like foundationally the best MMORPG I’ve played. They will be able to add systems to it with no trouble. Like, they added the entire equivalent of the old Rock Band game into the gameplay and the rollout was smooth as butter.
In other news, VR Chat is still better than Metaverse
Might have been more popular, if the Metaverse only showed legs walking around for the humour value.
