Epic Games Lands $2 Billion As Sony Bets On Its Metaverse (crunchbase.com) 50
No one wants to be left behind in the metaverse. From a report: Two more big companies tossed their hats -- or at least dollars -- into the metaverse ring on Monday, as North Carolina-based Epic Games announced a $2 billion investment that values it at $31.5 billion. Epic said the new funding will "advance the company's vision to build the metaverse and support its continued growth." Under terms of the agreement, both Sony and KIRKBI -- the family-owned holding and investment company behind The LEGO Group -- each invest $1 billion. Just last week, Epic and Lego announced a partnership in developing a "family-friendly" metaverse for kids.
Who is using this stuff?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it seem crazy to anyone else that a company is dropping two billion on a Metaverse when none have come even close to being that successful thus far?
It just seems like madness that so many companies are dropping vast sums into something I don't hear about people using, or wanting, or liking.
I mean I am older so maybe I am missing something here but even though I don't like or use newer social media like TikTok I can at least understand the popularity and see it tangibly with people I talk to making use of it often.
I am even kind of a fan of virtual reality stuff, it's just that I don't see the meta verses being built as being anything other than a fairly niche market.
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It is VR chat 2.0 or perhaps second life 2.0. Basically another attempt to make you want to spend time inside a boring game.
There is a reason why games and gaming prosper and second life and such not so much. Games are entertainment second life is.. what?
Will there eventually be some 3D virtual places for things like meetings, likely so, as we have seen Zoom meetings and similar take over much now, but they will not be a "Metaverse" where people spend a lot of time.
So yes, it is crazy.
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Not a big Minecraft fan?
Second Life even after the hype was over had a hardcore and profitable niche of users. It's in the same type of "games" as Minecraft, Roblox and Gary's Mod, but with more porn. It could have been a lot more successful if they hadn't pissed their money away on Sansar. I think a lot of people involved were too afraid to completely embrace the game for what it was, essentially 4chan 3D, which are the wrong kind of people to have in your company. They should only hire libertarians, liber
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Linden Labs made a few of mistakes with Sansar:
1. The biggest one was breaking content. Content Creators will only put up with this once, maybe twice, before they get tired of being jerked around. Moreover, people who pay for content expect their content to work. Go figure. When you build a UGC (User-Generated Content) platform you can't literally afford to "play" with people's dollars and go "Whoops, we broke content. Again."
2. Internal Politics and a Bad Bet. Second Life has never understood the impor
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Second Life was absolute garbage and Roblox is right behind it. Libertarians wouldn't help, because they're just as retarded, if not moreso, then the original developers.
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People honestly believe hollywood will be the future.
The first company to make that future reality cashes in
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In your own words, you said it is VR chat. That's not the same as a game, and if you go into a virtual world - Second Life or Meta or whatever - expecting it to have the look and feel of a game, you're doing it wrong. That's like going into IRC or Usenet and complaining that there's no way to score points against other players. Were people crazy to spend their time on those platforms? Well, maybe so but not in the way you mean.
If social interaction by way of just meeting people, chatting with them, and virt
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If Apple launches a pair of good wireless VR/AR glasses, suddenly everyone.
Apple is going the other way (Score:2)
If Apple launches a pair of good wireless VR/AR glasses, suddenly everyone.
Apple's AR glasses are all about augmenting the real world, pretty much exactly the opposite of a Metaverse.
If I have to bet between VR and AR, I'd say AR is hands down the thing that would be most widely used. It's just way more practical.
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The leaked info so far predicts the the first edition to be a AR/VR headset with micro-oled screen ... that's never going to be the kind of futuristic AR glasses people will wear outside, even with an Apple logo. I think it will be more VR than AR, with AR likely done by blending camera images with 3D, rather than overlapping 3D images with the real world. Cute for showing 3D representations of interior decoration etc, but not scifi level AR just yet.
At some point they have might have something like reflect
Still see it as mostly AR (Score:1)
that's never going to be the kind of futuristic AR glasses people will wear outside
I wasn't really thinking outside, AR stuff is plenty useful inside. AR stuff outside would be somewhat useful but like you say we are a long way away from that being something you wear everywhere.
I think it will be more VR than AR, with AR likely done by blending camera images with 3D
Based on the way they have leaned super heavily into AR frameworks, I see it is being much more AR than VR, no matter what form the glasses ta
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Until it's see through the AR is a gimmick and see through pretty much require some type of projection, not micro-oled.
It works OK already (Score:1)
Until it's see through the AR is a gimmick
You can already get a hint from the Oculus Quest that AR through screens over your eyes can be pretty effective... if Apple has really good cameras (and Apple does small low light cameras well) in their headset they could have very effective AR.
I wouldn't want to use it outside but for indoor use it could work really well.
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Apple's AR glasses are all about augmenting the real world, pretty much exactly the opposite of a Metaverse. If I have to bet between VR and AR, I'd say AR is hands down the thing that would be most widely used. It's just way more practical.
I bet that about 99% of the investment into "metaverse" is for foundational code, data, techniques, inventions that will be applied equally in VR and AR. Fast high-res displays. Presence. Skeletal tracking. Marketplaces. Tools for users to create 3d content. Tracking. I wouldn't be surprised if this is so much true that company leaders and investors use the term "metaverse" to encompass both.
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With their Unreal Engine 5 they're going to offer what they call "Large World Coordinates". Simply put, 64 bit transforms for world space. Due to floating point precision limitations of 32 bit, you're effectively limited to 20km*20km*20km map sizes, beyond which precision drops to spatial resolutions of 10cm, which makes the transforms rather unstable in 3D space and ugly.
Until now they worked around that precision issue with world or
Great points (Score:1)
Those are some great points you make, I agree maybe they can get some fundamental tech improvements out of it, or maybe just a better understanding of real-world networking limitations. Though like you say, I wonder how much they could learn beyond what they already know from Fortnite.
I have felt your pain in other ways in regards to 32-bit floating point, it's really shocking how quickly you can run into meaningful errors in many domains using that level of precision.
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Opportunity Cost (Score:1)
When you have relatively infinite money, what is the downside?
I agree it's not like they will run out of money...
The downside I see is mainly opportunity cost of the things they could have been working on otherwise, that's really the point of annoyance to me as a consumer who owns a Sony gaming device. I'd rather they spend more time on something I would use.
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C'mon meta is the next "big thing". Of course its going to make money.
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Does it seem crazy to anyone else that a company is dropping two billion on a Metaverse when none have come even close to being that successful thus far?
Define unsuccessful. I think you're getting your idea of the "Metaverse" from what Zuckerberg is feeding you. The reality is Epic already run a very successful metaverse. Fortnite is a platform that is built entirely on pop culture content, constantly changing and incorporating new social trends constantly. You can judge the success of the metaverse by a) how much diverse non core content is incorporated, and b) how many people sue over it, and Epic even got sued for dance moves it's incorporated.
Say what y
I must be getting old...? (Score:2)
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You are definitely getting old.
But thankfully even people investing in the metaverse can't actually tell you what it is.
You have to see (Score:4, Funny)
but wtf is a metaverse?
Unfortunately, no one can be told what the metaverse is. You have to see it for yourself - for this low $9.99/month subscription fee. Join now. That was not a request.
Re: I must be getting old...? (Score:2)
You are getting old. Metaverse is the promise of immortality.
Seriously, though, the âoepromiseâ is something like ready player one or neuromancer or Belle, or the matrix. Mudâ(TM)s were never my bag, they move too slow and, well, i like physical contact. Online community is cool still though, even realtime ones with good graphics. Maybe by the time weâ(TM)re in the old folks home compute power will be good enough to add some zest to our final hours.
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LEGO... again? (Score:2)
Billions for fictional worlds (Score:1)
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It won't as long as people value scarcity and can brag to their friends about having a cool item. Buying the item in the real world or virtual allows you bragging rights.
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Don't underestimate the coercive power of money and influencers.
Companies are going all in on the metaverse because they recognize that once you're in the metaverse the company has near total control of your perception. Which it can then use to monetize the living shit out of you.
Basically, the profit potential here is so astronomical that it becomes imperative to get in on the game 5-15 years early.
And once the metaverse become a practical system, you'll easily start to suck in people like DnD players by c
Please leave me behind outside the metaverse (Score:2)
I do not want this. I don't know anyone who wants this. This is dumb and I sincerely hope Facebook or Meta or whatever they call themselves loses a bunch of money on this idiocy.
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Because it doesn't offer any of that. It offers corporate pablum in a 3D format. And I'm sorry if you like them but VR glasses just are never going to replace monitors. This tech has been around for decades. I first used VR in 1996. Nobody likes it.
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The technology has just never had mass appeal. The average media consumer likes monitors and hates wearing a VR rig. They are incredibly anti-social and isolating, and for many people, cause nasty dizziness and nausea.
But even if the technology were popular, Facebook isn't the company I want pioneering any sort of content for it.
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Dude, you are just talking about garden variety VR, not this fucking metaverse thing Facebook is pushing.
Ask yourself why 3D TV has always been such a big failure. Unless it is for work, normal people simply do not want to wear dorky headsets that blind them to the outside world. And a full 15% of the population is simply unable to use them without vomiting and headaches.
And I am sorry but your optimism is naïve. Back in the nineties, I was similarly optimistic for the Internet, and look what an absolu
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Well that would be nice. Bit of history on my side, I dated Mark Pesci (I'm bi) for a while back when he worked at USC. He's the guy who invented VRML. We've had the protocol stacks for a while, very few people have been interested in the decades since then. It seems to be corporations pushing this latest foray into shared online 3d spaces. It's not an organic demand from the market, it's a corporate push to be the dominant force in a new market.
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Lego + Fortnite make an interesting formula (Score:2)
Anything videogame will be called metaverse because it carries a market premium.
Now think about a Lego branded Fortnite with more possibilities for customization and building stuff - better parental controls, privacy, and built from the ground up with kid safety in mind.
The biggest problem with Roblox is that it is a child safety nightmare, while Fortnite is somewhat violent.
If I worked at this new venture (Fortnite+Lego) - and all the building bloc
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The biggest problem with Roblox is that it is a child safety nightmare
Don't forget the part where they screw kids out of their (parent's) money.
Oh Sony, WHY????? (Score:1)
Stop funding Timmy's anti-gamer anti-competitive stupidity. If it weren't for Fortnite, they would be a company with one good game engine and countless failures. Let Epic die and let someone with brains lead the way into the Omniverse (The word "metaverse" is ruined by another stupid company name-grabbing)
The new 3D TV (Score:2)