The metaverse is dumb and gay
Zuckerberg got a shellacking this week for proudly posting this selfie. He celebrated one of his VR products expanding into France and Spain with this dead-eyed robot standing in front of two glommy clipart clichés. Who wouldn’t want to live in cyberspace!
Never send a socially abnormal nerd to build your interactive experience.
Meta sank $2.81 billion into this stuff in just the second quarter of 2022 and it’s still this ugly.
Thing is, so many other apps are beautiful. AAA games are an absolute blast in VR. But single person experiences are tightly curated. They can afford high quality 3D models because they control everything in the environment so carefully.
For a social VR application, you’ll have lots of people interacting and everyone needs an individually recognizable avatar. That leads to simple, awful images like the above.
They’re going to need much more processing or much better designers. And that’s just to deal with the ugliness of the metaverse. The uselessness is a whole ‘nother thing.
Posted: August 23rd, 2022 under computer graphics.
Comments: 10
Comments
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: August 23, 2022, 8:51 pm
Are you still as deeply immersed in the VR experience as you were when you first realized that the world is three-dimensional?
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: August 23, 2022, 9:18 pm
But…can you still grope things?
I mean, what’s the point of having a schlockaverse if you can be “groped” by someone else’s armless, lower torsoless avatar without being able to escape!
The horror!
I realize in the future I’ll miss the opportunity to virtually visit the former marvels of Europe, that are now being turned into woke, powerless, “migrant” filled dungheaps that rival the back streets of the seedier parts of the third world, but I think I’ll manage to struggle by without it.
The mileage of the enlightened, woke, and perpetually offended will vary of course.
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: August 23, 2022, 10:51 pm
I think the metaVRse needs to be hit with a neuron bomb.
edit p.s. — The background in that image looks like something out of a plus-size “fat is beautiful” lingerie catalog.
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: August 23, 2022, 11:44 pm
Ya know though, an actual picture of Zuckerborg would be worse, so there is that.
He’s almost as creepy as that kid that shot up the elementary school in Connecticut.
Comment from Gromulin
Time: August 24, 2022, 12:59 am
Yeah, put me down for the “I just don’t get it” group. Why? Why would I want to spend time in a poorly constructed 90’s video game? Human loser has a gazillion bucks, tries to create his own reality. Isn’t that James Cameron’s space with space smurfs?
Comment from MrKnowitall
Time: August 24, 2022, 12:34 pm
If you want an open-ended virtual world that’s done far better, then checkout Sansar, which is done by the same folks that brought you Second Life (a 2D virtual world). Some truly creative people in Sansar. It’s unfortunate that it’s really geared toward people who are fluent with 3D graphic programs like Blender and Unity, at least as it gets traction. As the ability to purchase more sophisticated objects and avatars off the shelf comes online, it becomes a better place for the casual user, like Second Life is now. Available on Steam, of course.
You get Lone Echo yet?
Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: August 24, 2022, 2:31 pm
Conrats to LavenderGirl who won another Dick with Len Dawson…
Leonard Ray Dawson (June 20, 1935 – August 24, 2022)
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: August 24, 2022, 6:38 pm
Oh, MrKnowitall, I surely did. I’m right at the very end (no spoilers please!). I have an idea how it’s going to end, but what a ride!
SomeVeg, the best-crafted VR experiences are really very impressive. So much so that I can’t bring myself to play non-VR games any more. The good news is, many games in my library have remastered themselves in VR and offered the VR version for free. So I have lots of games queued up.
Comment from BJM
Time: August 24, 2022, 7:58 pm
Please tell me that’s not La Sagrada Familia? Looks like something from The Great British Bake Off’s showstopper challenge…no I take that back the bakers would do a better representation.
Mean while Elon’s beavering away launching satellites. Nice to see the UK isn’t losing it’s edge.
Thus far I’m very pleased with Starlink Gen2…added two mesh wifi extenders and Bazinga! Space X isn’t rolling out faster than they can build ground stations, we have two in our cell, so latency hasn’t been an issue with Steam.
It truly is a game changer for rural folk. Here’s a third-party Starlink Coverage Tracker: starlink dot sx
I can watch this app for ages; but then I also enjoy the mindless fun and patter of the Tampa International plane spotter Capt Steven. Yes, I know, easily entertained I am.
Comment from MrKnowitall
Time: August 24, 2022, 9:25 pm
No spoilers, other than there is a Lone Echo 2 available when you finish this one. I haven’t played it yet, but I hear it’s very good. I love flying around with wrist jets!
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