People
Love a good gimmick. Heck, careers are built on it. Actually I don’t know if you would call a one trick pony a gimmick, but now we’re mixing metaphors here and it’s too much.
Anyway, Facebook has now become Meta. It’s a PR move, albeit one that’s necessary probably won’t really challenge most people. The thought of how angry they are with Facebook for stirring up controversy to steal their time will quickly dissipate when people see the shiny new open world VR concept dubbed the “Metaverse”. It bought Oculus a few years back for this very reason? Don’t look over here where we’re abusing things, look over here at this new thing!
Except, it’s already been done. If you’re not an internet nerd like me, you wouldn’t have heard of a massive online player game called “second life”. Billed as a place where you lived…a second life, you could pretty much do anything a sim character on steroids could do. Red light districts were created, housing and land speculation went boom and busy, it was a busy time. People actually created jobs within a game, and not just the “tractor simulator” kinds either. I didn’t actually play it, of course, I just sneered from afar like a true nerd. But like all things, second life had its boom and bust as well, at one point having a million people? Millions of people? Something like that. As of 2017, it still had half a million people playing it. I’m certain it’s had it’s peaks.
Point being, we’ve seen this before. Now it’s truly in VR! And from Facebook! I mean Meta! There’s no doubt they will get people excited and riled up. And it will boom, purely based on sheer numbers of people that Facebook is connected to. Heck, I was thinking of buying an Oculus myself. Not to play this, but I’m sure if I had I’d dip my toe in. But will it truly be a place of innovation and growth?
Ready player one came out more than a few years ago now. I saw it in theaters at the time and didn’t think it would truly be a look into the future. People get bored way to easily. In fact-ask the dude that ran second life from 2001-13. They still can’t get people to spend enough time there.
There will be a meta-bubble. It’s too big to not have one. But to say that it will do more than be a gimmick is generous, and will probably be empty or low after the rush. If you want to get it, how’s the time.