Comment by philistine
3 years ago
Don't forget to dissociate the concept of virtual worlds which already exist and are quite popular (MMOs etc.), and the idea of a virtual world owned and imagined by Zuckerberg which has been a terrible failure so far.
The opinions around facebook’s metaverse are hilarious when things like Second Life, WoW, EVE, VR Chat, and even Roblox have been so massively popular yet unrecognized for what they are.
I kinda think to some degree those words are the reason those opinions are the way they are. The metaverse is being sold as this new, groundbreaking, fantastic thing, when they've already existed for decades.
Also, VRChat is infinitely better than the Metaverse, does not require you to sell your soul to Facebook, does not require a branded headset (OR ANY AT ALL, YOU CAN PLAY IT 2D), runs well, HAS LEGS ON YOUR AVATAR FFS, and massive community support in and out of game.
Also it didn't require billions in investment. Facebook could have literally burned $900 million on hookers and cocaine, and then thrown $100 million to buy VR chat, and be better off than they are now.
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They've already existed, and had fun, engaging content. Meta in that sense is putting the cart before the horse. You can't convince us all to get into this world and then figure out what we're supposed to be doing there later on.
No, I specifically oppose Facebook's metaverse ambitions because they are shittier mass-marketized versions of those same things.
All of those other things you mentioned fit into specific niches and have built communities around themselves over time.
Everyone just pretends there wasn't a time when people were spending years of their life in an MMO.
That was ruined by games trying to appeal to more mainstream people (with less hardcore Features like losing all your possessions upon death) and the micromonetization strategies that everyone hates.
I wonder if VR will even have games like early Everquest, WoW, EVE, etc but in VR.
The difference between Facebooks Meta and other worlds is the difference between getting a billion+ people into the same virtual world. How big is Second Life? or Roblox?
I don't think you can call that a difference until metaverse starts actually hitting those numbers, or even surpassing the existing worlds.
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> How big is... Roblox?
58.8 million DAUs in Q3 https://ir.roblox.com/news/news-details/2022/Roblox-Reports-...
Facebook is going to struggle to get a billion people on to their website/app soon. I really don’t see this many people wanting to use a shitty VR chat app.
> opinions around facebook’s metaverse are hilarious when things like Second Life, WoW, EVE, VR Chat, and even Roblox have been so massively popular
Well, yes. Who does something matters. I could totally see Facebook's metaverse failing a la Stadia or Diem.
I didn’t make myself clear enough, I was talking about people brushing off the core concept as intrinsically unfeasible. Obviously their specific version is tonedef and lacking features but the baseline concept is proven valid by those other versions.
Fortnite too.
Vtubers are popular because they aren’t in a virtual world you have to go visit. You just open up YouTube/Twitch and they stay in that little window without the possibility of getting trapped in an MMO where you die in real life if you die in the game.
Although some of them are designing “virtual worlds” as an excuse to get around YouTube moderation and taking 30% of superchats.