https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

Snowcrash was a dystopia too but that didn't stop tech bros from jerking it to the metaverse.

Now I'm actually wondering if the author thinks the Ready Player One world is worth living in.

People don't associate Fortnite with that due to the main game being just pvp instanced deathmatches. But it is, by far, the most comprehensive example of what a corporate * metaverse would look like, specially now that they have their creative mode or whatever it's called.

*I know something like VR Chat or your favorite MMO with housing is closer to what people would want or imagine the metaverse to be, but that's not what the buzzword is for the suits.

Funny thing is, a real life Metaverse has existed for over 20 years. The term Metaverse comes from a book called Snow Crash. The game Second Life was designed explicitly to be the Metaverse envisioned in Snow Crash, complete with it's own economy tied to real life money (as in, if you made enough money in-game, you could cash it out for real-world USD). Companies used to build headquarters in the game world similar to how some do in Fortnite now, even going so far as to hold actual real world business meetings in-game as a form of teleconferencing. After a few high-profile events where live TV broadcasts of in-game events got swarmed by flying dicks, the media lost interest in the game, and companies abandoned the game and moved on to more business-oriented solutions.

When I hear about concerts, and hotels reproducing their entire layout inside of Fortnite, I can actually respect the comparison. Of course, I've also seen many advertised attempts at "maid cafes" within the residential districts of FFXIV, so there's multiple people trying it - Fortnite is just the most well known.

I would kind of agree, that and Roblox. No VR though.

fellers never heard of a mmorpg

If you take the Ready Player One's example of a metaverse, that is, one where people get to cosplay their favorite famous media properties, I don't think it's a wrong assessment.

Otherwise I would say VRChat is a much more honestly realized version of that.

I agree. I couldn't get through the first 10 pages.

Since I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else in the comments, I thought I'd leave this here: https://372pages.com/episode-0-a-book-were-probably-going-to-hate

"372 Pages We'll Never Get Back" is a podcast where Mike Nelson (MST3K, Rifftrax) and Conor Lastoka (Rifftrax) read and review books they're "pretty sure they're going to hate". RP1 is the first book & source of the podcast title, since it's 372 pages. It's like Mystery Science Theater 3000 for books and it is hilarious, I highly recommend.

It's easily the worst book I've read, and I only finished because of the unintentional hilarity of it all. In a story ostensibly about how evil media mega corporations are, the author wrote a hail corporateove love letter to top selling franchises without realizing the irony.

There was potential in it being a self parody, although in a way the whe situation is funnier because he was so earnest.

They're desperate to make it happen because the potential benefits to them are so great that they become blinded by greed.

I haven't read the book, but the movie was crap too. It was just a slide show of '80s and '90s references that completely failed to capture what made those good, or even understand them.

It was a quick read and the entire book can be summed up as generational pandering.

That was so fucking weird and gross. Thank you for sharing.

This was really sad and arrogant

bruh just search for "homemade" on PornHub

lol wtf

Dunno when he made that (1990s? Early 2000s?), but nowadays even those "nerdy, smart" women are easy to find in porn. Hentai also has that in droves.

DCEU was and is a trainwreck but the trailer for their game DC online game was banging: https://youtu.be/0WYwXer0sgU?si=XN_Xp6wyS10X2SID