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The metaverse is bullshit

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Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#241

Post by bombcar »

rklaehn wrote: post #138
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal experience with my kids shows the opposite.

Lucky you. Any tips how to get the kids to appreciate the real world more? It's not like I am not trying, but I also don't want to deprive them of computer games. I basically grew up gaming and hacking on computers (starting with an Atari 800), and I liked it.

Do things with them - not “go out side I want to use the computer” but actual activities involving you working hard - and not just the things you like. Kids playing Minecraft? Go visit an actual mine. Kids like racing games? Go to a racetrack or a monster truck rally. Rent a bobcat if you have land to use it on.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#242

Post by tialaramex »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #155
modeless wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why the heck am I driving a car around? I can fly, can't I? By this logic nobody should play Gran Turismo because a Superman game exists. > You can't test legroom or the seat cushions, because your avatar doesn't don't have a body. So I don't see how you can realistically sell an actual real-world car, because isn't most of its function and design unnecessary in the metaverse? By this logic it's pointless to make a…

The metaverse goes against consumer trends in web browsing. People want to consume their information on the go while doing other things, this is why mobile presently dominates the web. Who wants to context switch from reality into a virtual world just so they can see what the new Ford pickup looks like? Nobody, thats who. This whole concept reads to make like a Facebook exec went into a coma just as Second Life was t…

OT: The word you probably wanted was "seize" not "cease" although they do sound similar in many dialects of English.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#243

Post by helsinkiandrew »

Jasper_ wrote: post #52

> In a September 2021 Washington Post interview, Tim Sweeney imagined the future of advertising. "A carmaker who wants to make a presence in the metaverse isn't going to run ads," he said. "They're going to drop their car into the world in real time and you'll be able to drive it around. And they're going to work with lots of content creators with different experiences to ensure their car is playable here and there,…

Most people would tell you that the car showroom experience is one of the enjoyable parts of buying a car - the new car smells and discovering the knobs and features, and how comfy the lumbar support is in the shiny new models - VR doesn't come close.

I was CTO in an Augmented Reality company that did a lot of user testing (using AR to showcase products) so have atleast a rudimentary understanding of the technology and peoples relationship to it: AR and VR are 'wow' experiences that really excite people before they've tried it and for the first few experience, but apart from a small subset of people the excitement and wonder wears off pretty quickly. When selling things, aspirational photos (the product in a desirable setting) is usually more useful to a buyer than seeing it in AR in their current home.

I first used a $50K VR headset 30 years ago in a CS research department (Dire Straits - Money for Nothing video quality graphics) and it was thrilling but obviously didn't catch on because of the cost and lack of technical performance at the time. The technology available still isn't ready - poor battery / CPU performance really kills mobile AR, the low resolution/field of view/lifelike rendering makes VR painful for the average person.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#244

Post by a9h74j »

brabel wrote: post #184
danans wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm old, but I don't see what advantage this has over video conferencing unless the focus of the discussion is on things - like documents, schematics, or 3d models - rather than people. Avatars would feel like creepy cartoons because your brain knows the voice of the person but your eyes see a cartoon image.

In just a few minutes, most people start treating those cartoons as real people without even realizing it. Ask anyone who's tried these things (they are already available: https://www.vspatial.com/ , https://www.oculus.com/blog/workrooms/ )

I don't know if this is a truism in the VR community, but the brain really does want to make consistent sense of things.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#245

Post by bombcar »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #105
wokwokwok wrote: post #43

the good news is that the metaverse and the tech industry's very expensive obsession with trying to make it a reality will be a schadenfreude generator the likes of which we've never seen before The tech landscape is littered with failed attempts, but we have here two very technically successful companies, Epic and Facebook, both trying to re-imagine the internet as something different. I'm not sure I'd write them of…

Yea, the major problem with this take by the OP author is it assumes that a cynical attitude and some questionable analogies means there is nothing new left to invent in how we use the internet. This seems extremely dubious to me and also shows a severe lack of humility. There are many very smart people at these companies and Mark Zuckerberg has consistently shown himself to be a canny and innovative founder (even if…

John Carmack has shown himself capable of repeatedly making good video games, and even when not the greatest still technologically amazing.

Mark has shown that he successfully didn’t destroy a MySpace clone that prints money. Other than that what has he done besides buy already large companies?

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#246

Post by Jasper_ »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #105
wokwokwok wrote: post #43

the good news is that the metaverse and the tech industry's very expensive obsession with trying to make it a reality will be a schadenfreude generator the likes of which we've never seen before The tech landscape is littered with failed attempts, but we have here two very technically successful companies, Epic and Facebook, both trying to re-imagine the internet as something different. I'm not sure I'd write them of…

Yea, the major problem with this take by the OP author is it assumes that a cynical attitude and some questionable analogies means there is nothing new left to invent in how we use the internet. This seems extremely dubious to me and also shows a severe lack of humility. There are many very smart people at these companies and Mark Zuckerberg has consistently shown himself to be a canny and innovative founder (even if…

Have you heard of Facebook Gaming? It's a streaming platform, like Twitch. Launched in 2007. Nobody uses it.

Did you buy an HTC First, the infamous "Facebook Phone" that was so universally panned, they couldn't even ship out their first production run of phones, despite it being one of the cheapest on the market?

When's the last time you used a Portal?

Facebook has just as many stinkers, despite many smart people working the company.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#248

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

laumars wrote: post #151
narrator wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR is great for video games, sure. What if I don't like video games though?

I do think the potential around VR is greatly oversold however there are still benefits outside of gaming: concerts, remote conferences, having kick ass multi-screen home office for those who don’t have the space for one.

The office example is the real winner for me. But imagine what it would take: a wireless VR headset with massive resolution that still allows me to look at my surroundings so I can drink a coffee or eat my lunch and is comfortable enough to use for several hours with no breaks.

A huge monitor is way cheaper.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#249

Post by tialaramex »

narrator wrote: post #78
modeless wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why the heck am I driving a car around? I can fly, can't I? By this logic nobody should play Gran Turismo because a Superman game exists. > You can't test legroom or the seat cushions, because your avatar doesn't don't have a body. So I don't see how you can realistically sell an actual real-world car, because isn't most of its function and design unnecessary in the metaverse? By this logic it's pointless to make a…

VR is great for video games, sure. What if I don't like video games though?

VR is potentially good for some video games, like 3D it's a technology and just because you're using it doesn't mean it's magically making your game better. There's an era of early 3D platformers that were terrible because the people making them don't yet understand how this form works, they're maybe expert 2D platform game designers, but not everything they learned applies cleanly to the new form.

It can take a long time to unlearn things in video games. It took years after video game arcades ceased to be the dominant factor for games to get rid of "Lives" that existed only† to ensure players pump coins into the no-longer relevant coin slot.

I think Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes shows off what VR can do well that you couldn't do otherwise. The isolation between the player defusing the bomb and everybody else is part of the game. The fact that the player defusing can't look at the bomb manual is enforced by them being in a VR environment with no manual.

In too many VR games, the VR is largely an impediment, and the takeaway is "This could be a good game, shame it's VR".

† OK things like Hundred Mario challenge and the modern Endless Super Expert show that you can do other things with this form, but it's pretty arbitrary, there's no way this would exist without the history of video game arcades.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#250

Post by meheleventyone »

notafraudster wrote: post #162
swiftcoder wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth does the NFT part add here? WoW can add unique, auctionable items at any time using their existing tech. It's already a centralised platform, so decentrilisation doesn't add much...

A number of NFT promoters have made the argument that other video games could support the WoW NFT and then that content would be portable across those games!!! Okay, but none do, and none will, and any other video game that did code in a substantially similar functionality would simply sell the same content in their own game, there's no benefit to the company to spend the time and money to make the content and not ge…

Agreed with all of that but just thought I’d point out the non-fungibility is of the token itself not the actual content it points to. So you’d be able to sell non-fungible tokens for access to the same content. Companies still wouldn’t because doing that inserts a lot of complexity you don’t need rather than using a normal storefront model.
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