New World Notes

What’s the Metaverse’s Killer App, Actually? My Take on Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, Part 8

In preparation for my live audience Breakroom interview with Matthew Ball, I'm blogging his must-read, nine part metaverse primer over last Summer and this month.  My take on Part 1 (introduction to the framework) is here,  my coverage of Part 2 (hardware) is here, with Part 3 (networking) coverage here, Part 4 coverage (computing) here, Part 5 (virtual platforms) here, Part 6 (open standards) here, and Part 7 (payments) here.

Part 8 of Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, “Content, Services, and Asset Businesses in the Metaverse” raises the most questions for me from the entire series. Overarching them all is the fundamental one: 

Does the Metaverse actually have a scalable, sustainable killer app beyond user-generated games and immersive socialization that already happens within Metaverse platforms?

Now I’d personally be happy if games and socialization is all (or mostly all) of what the Metaverse is used for -- these are two great and fundamental aspects of the human experience, especially when they’re democratized! But in their zeal to make the Metaverse the Next Big Thing, the investor community is searching for more ways to make money from them.

For instance, as Matthew mentions, marketing/ancillary sales of major media/fashion brands:

The largest activations in Fortnite to date have been Marvel, followed by Star Wars and the NFL, and the NBA continues to lead in NFTs. These sorts of franchises have endured for decades specifically because they work everywhere and dominate our endless imaginations and fandoms. Brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton are equally likely to thrive; humans constantly seek out opportunities for signaling and self-expression. 

But to take two of these: Fortnite’s Marvel and Star Wars activations in 2019 were huge, but Epic's revenue still somewhat decreased that year. As for real life fashion brands entering the Metaverse, this puts them in direct competition with grassroots virtual fashion brands, and I’m skeptical that the former can (or should) prevail. (Remember when Armani opened an official shop in Second Life, but was beat out by the local competition?)

How about the crossover of real life music stars? As Matthew notes:

This Artist Blurs Lines Between Real & Second Life Photos

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

DeFoe has an extraordinary collection of pictures in his photostream. “Isle of Scotland” is dreamy and fantastical with ruins on top of what we might call a mesa if it were in the West, a free-standing tablelike rock. The ruins almost completely fill the top of the rock. It must have quite the stairway. I love the smoky fog as though they have been burning their field to clear for seeding, the smoke blending almost seamlessly into the fog. He also provides a link to corresponding music here. 

To see how DeFoe makes art of the most mundane, click here:

Watch: What Second Life Looks Like in 4K With Black Dragon

You may need to click through to YouTube and play with the resolution settings (which go all the way up to 2160p60!) in order to get the full, bandwidth-choking effect, but here's Second Life displayed at 4K resolution. Redditor "tb_inuyasha_x" shot it with the Black Dragon viewer with some pretty impressive hardware (specs below). However, as he explains in the thread, frame rate varied hugely across Second Life:

"It was really depending on what sim I was in and how far I set the view range too... I would say some places, 8-25 FPS and others I could get 35 - 45 range... but, it was all still recordable." 

Which is, well, yikes: 30 FPS is a not-bad framerate for an online world, so it's painful that FPS is still hitting below 10 in some places. Also as you'll see from shot to shot the visual appearance varies widely based on lighting presets, and frankly, the advanced age of Second Life's internal graphics.

Anyway, specs and sims shot below:

Watch: Hilarious VRChat Parody of Bo Burnham's "Welcome to the Internet" by YouTuber With Successful Career as a VR-Based Musician

"Do you want to live in the Metaeverse all of the time? Little bit of Metaverse all of the time?"

This is a pretty brilliant VRChat-themed parody of Bo Burnham’s very brilliant “Welcome to the Internet”, created and performed by YouTuber TFMJonny, who tosses the original lyrics into the Internet content vortex of the Metaverse, and spins out some clever and on-point tweaks along the way.

For instance, where Burnham had the lines "apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime", TFM tells me, “I rewrote those lines to ‘apathy's an amnesty and boredom is sublime’ to reflect the dichotomy between regular Internet culture and VRChhat culture. 

“Most of VRChat consists of sitting around doing nothing and just being social with friends," he explains. "There aren't any particular goals and thus the game can quite often turn into a money and time sink. Those lyrics were some of the last I wrote and are probably my favorite because they differ entirely from the original because it highlights this stark difference.”

TFM shot the entire video in VRChat using VRCLens to insure every angle matched that from the original video -- and went into Unity, to recreate Bo Burnham’s set:

Cajsa's Choices: Wildelands is Today's SL Flickr Pick

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Wildelands [Auttumn986] has an intriguing and beautiful photostream with pictures of two people who seem to have ensorcelled each other. They are shot together and apart and every picture is well done. I love this untitled picture with a recently harvested field in the background. The sunlight turns the remaining stalks into bright gold. She is in the foreground. Sunset is approaching and her skin has a blue cast from the shadow on her. Her makeup is smeared so there is a story there. 

For a great black and white picture, click here:

Linden Lab Hiring Senior Product Manager to Shaping Future of "Original Metaverse" of Second Life -- But Mobile Experience Only a "Plus"

This is quite possibly a dream job if you have experience in game/Internet product development:

As a Senior Product Manager, you’ll utilize in-depth product knowledge to successfully drive key projects on Second Life. You’ll work alongside a supportive team of people across engineering, design, QA and other cross-functional teams to build products and new experiences and play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the original metaverse. 

But apparently, if you scroll all the way toward the end of the job description, that future is not mobile-centric:

Creator Advertises His 1930s-Era Second Life Fashion With Satirical Norman Rockwell Cosplay Pics

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Nicholas Huntsman is the creator for a couple of stores, Lux Aeterna that is a home and garden and L & Co. Clothiers that feature vintage clothing from the 1920s and 30s. He has pretty standard vendor pictures, but he also has a series of delightful sendups of The Saturday Evening Post in the style of J. C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell;s mentor. Of course, Leyendecker and Rockwell never had such a model as Nicholas. He included a short story, a small excerpt will explain the picture. 

...Five times a year Jo and I make the pilgrimage to a sequestered cemetery by a lonely creek; his birthday, Father's day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the day it happened. We leave the city behind, the shop, our friends, our adulthood, forget our lives ever existed there, and head back to our childhood, when it was just us and the Manor. The only five days of the year when the mask isn't put on, because she needs to know I'm there...

For more delightful covers, click here:

Raph Koster On How His Upcoming Metaverse Is Unlike Steam

In case you didn't check the blog of Raph Koster's Playable Worlds late last week, he is, as anticipated, building a Metaverse:

We have built a metaverse platform. Oh, it’s not done. We’re probably going to be working on this for years. But I say “built” because, well, we have the basics of this stuff working. We have a working massively multiplayer server... 

And you’ll be able to hop between worlds without needing to switch clients. It permits a single, shardless, ever-expanding, ever-changing online universe.

I've heard that "hop between worlds" promise many times before, but I've been skeptical that this in itself makes a Metaverse experientially different than, say, Steam. After all, the game worlds in Steam are separate, but you can run them within the same Steam launcher (which also comes with a social network, payment system, etc.) Exit out of Skyrim back to the Steam launcher, see that your Steam friends are playing Among Us, jump in to play with them via the Steam launcher, etc. Isn't all that which we already do in Steam, basically hopping between worlds?

Raph Koster tells me that what Playable Worlds is building is quite different:

"In Steam every [game] world is an install. It's a separate app. Steam is just a a launcher. Not in our case. It's one app for all of the worlds."

Raph says it's different from my example of hopping from Skyrim to About Us on Steam: 

In a Virtual World Economy, User-Generated Content Prices Are Controlled by the Company, Not the Market (Comment of the Week)

Really interesting conversation on the problem of virtual currency in virtual economies last week kicked off by "Kyz", who explained how difficult it was for them to reliably run a successful business in a virtual world. Replying to the idea that the value of their content is decided by the market, Kyz goes deeper into the analysis:

That's true to an extent and there are parallels between virtual and real life markets. But there's more to it than just market demand and pricing.

For instance, my SL experience put an extra layer of cost into the mix. Linden Dollars are a product or were, to Linden Lab. The currency wasn't just added to the company as a convenience for users, it was acquired by Linden Lab from someone that discovered that virtual money was itself a product that could be profitable directly or indirectly.

The last part isn't quite accurate but the full story enhances Kyz's argument: Linden Lab reportedly made an offer to the user-made Gaming Open Market, which circa 2004/2005 was a popular platform for the community, then in late 2005, officially productized the Linden Dollar through the launch of the LindeX.

"I mean, I get it," Kyz goes on. "And if I ran a virtual world, creating an extra revenue stream from currency is something I wouldn't lightly ignore." But for content creators like Kyz trying to monetize on the platform, this led to additional hurdles and regulations:

Top 4 Posts Last Week Including Stylish Avatars, Akira Avatar Cosplay & The Real Problem With Virtual Economies

• The Real Problem With Virtual Economies Is The Virtual Currency
• Viewing Matrix Movie Teaser Requires Accepting Blue Pill Of Advertising Cookies
• Seriously Stylish & Dramatic Avatar Portraits By Fredizzle Brown
• I Can't Stop Staring At This Second Life Tribute To Akira

Amazing SL Cyberpunk Avatar Style Ideas from Morningbeasty

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Just in time for the new Matrix trailer, Morningbeasty’s blog features cyberpunk fashion and accessories in Second Life. This image above from “Fly With Me” features a surprise twist on the old “Come Fly With Me” slogan because who ever thought they would be flying with a cyber greyhound? I love several elements of this futuristic outfit, but in particular, the mask and the dog. You should click through to the blog post to see all the credits, but for those two highlights, you can look right here. 

• Phase Mask & Glasses (unisex) by: Wicca's Originals - Wicca’s Flickr - & - Wicca’s Releases - Available @ Access Cyber Fair
• Cyber Greyhound (Animesh - Companion & Static) by: Rezz Room - More Info / - Video

For one of the creepiest avatars ever, click here:

Seriously Stylish & Dramatic Avatar Portraits by Fredizzle Brown

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Fredizzle Brown’s “Black Licorice” is a wry title for a guy with a cigar though the way he’s smoking it and the long ash, perhaps we should call it a cee-gar. The avatar looks a bit rough around the edges, but then that is the point. Fredizzle is not interested in cookie cutter avatars with conventional beauty. He’s looking for folks on the downside of power, folks who struggle and whose struggles show on their faces. His photostream is a gallery of what Hank Williams once called “Pictures from Life’s Other Side.” 

For more pictures from life’s other side, click here:

I Can't Stop Staring at This Second Life Tribute to Akira

At the risk of stepping on Cajsa's elegant Flickr maven toes, I can't resist sharing this badonkalicious tribute to the legendary poster for the classic anime. (Compare with the original here.) Created by Juniper Mead, her whole photostream is worth a luminous perusing.

Thanks to blurple_rain on /SecondLife for the tip! Fashion/motorcycle credits by Juniper Mead:

Watch: Dual Universe's Voxel-Based Creation System Leads to Towering Voxel-Based Artworks

It's been awhile since we touched on Dual Universe, which launched last year in open beta and which some argue to be the closest thing to a true Metaverse we have today. That's still up for a debate, but in one sign of creative emergence that makes the Metaverse worth playing and thinking about, the platform's voxel-based creation tools are leading to the creation of truly towering sculptures.

If you're not into demons, there's also a towering angel statue in Dual Universe, which emerged from "the Seraph Design Studio organization, whose ship design concepts center around angels... [they] spent an estimated 40+ hours building the 60m angel to decorate the roof of their showroom." 

But just how big has this universe become, in terms of users?

Sure Looks Like Raph Koster is Making a Metaverse (Too)

In the future, everyone will make a Metaverse for 15 minutes. Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene is making one (or the starting layer of it, at least), and now it sure seems like longtime MMO designer Raph Koster is making one too -- as he hints in a blog post last week on Playable Worlds, his new startup:

[D]espite what many may think, “metaverse” is not just a buzzword. It is different from an online world. But metaverses presume multiverses, and multiverses are built from online worlds. They are all in the same family.

What does this have to do with Playable Worlds? Well, the answer is pretty simple, given what I’ve said, and you’ve probably connected the dots already…even so, I think I’ll answer it next week.

I messaged Raph to ask when his post about making a Metaverse is coming out, and he only mentioned that his company posts usually run on Tuesday and Thursday. So let's check there tomorrow.

As for his own definition of the metaverse (versus a multiverses or an online world), that's worth reading now:

Fantastic Avatar Images Created With Roleplay Stories & Behind-the-Scenes Post-Processing GIFs

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Jorgia Prynce’s “The Breakthrough” captures the excited euphoria of discovery so perfectly. I love how her expression and pose communicate the emotions. Her outfit makes me think she has discovered a new spell at some magic academy rather than a new polymer. Also, science labs tend to be well-lit. I love the excellent story-telling! This is a link to the picture before and after editing.

For more fun roleplay pics, click here:

Viewing Matrix Movie Teaser Requires Accepting Blue Pill of Advertising Cookies

You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed with new ads to view from affiliates of WarnerMedia (a subsidiary of AT&T). You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and, well, pretty much the same thing happens.

Much has changed since The Matrix movies premiered: Now, instead of Philip Rosedale leaving the theater in 1999 and telling his colleagues at RealNetworks, "But that's what I wanted to make!", making alternate realities has become a booming business. And taking the Red Pill is no longer just associated with wanting to fight the machines, but also, wanting to fight women (?).

And finally, in a keen irony (as @Lenophie notes), the Internet now comes with automatic ad cookie notification pop-ups -- effectively requiring us all to first click the Blue Pill of capitalism.

All that said, this is still a pretty fun teaser site for the upcoming Matrix movie. I'm curious how they accomplished the augmented reality aspect of the experience:

The Real Problem With Virtual Economies is the Virtual Currency (Comment of the Week)

Really great comment from reader "Kyz", a 3D content creator who made an excellent living from the Second Life economy. Commenting on my take on Matthew Ball's analysis of payment options for Metaverse platforms (he basically lands on suggesting that blockchain-based payments may be the best or least worst alternative), Kyz says this:

I don't think the problem is traditional currency and payment systems, rather it's that all these companies develop models where virtual product is worth such small amounts that devaluation of labor is the actual problem. Magnified by some companies that are also using currency itself as product.

For instance, I did pretty well in SL riding on the coattails of the breedables craze. Enough for a couple of full time incomes. The pain point of making money was SL. Between limits, virtual currency converted to real money and the extra steps required.

I did the same at various points for selling content for game engines, just being able to find the trends and fill niches. These markets were much less painful because there was no virtual currency to deal with.

As an example of what Kyz's talking about, take a look at the Unity Asset Store, where creators sell virtual assets to developers across all budget ranges... for real cash.

The problem becomes even more clear, Kyz goes on, when one compares it to selling actual products:

Stylish & Poignant Images of Avatar Romance by LeaOh

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

LeaOh’s portrait of two avatars shot back to back, zoomed in on their heads made me stop browsing and click through to see it full size. I love it. It reminds me of the beginning or ending of a dance piece on So You Think You Can Dance. You know if they start in that position, it’s going to be dramatic, sad, and modern. The next picture in her stream is the full body shot and sure enough it looks like the beginning of something choreographed by Mia Michaels. 

For more romance, this time without dancing, click here:

Debunking The Latest Apple & VR Rumors, Clubhouse Gets Philip Rosedale's Metaverse-Made Spatial Audio & More Recent Highlights

• Philip Rosedale On Clubhouse Bringing High Fidelity's Metaverse-Driven Spatial Audio To The Massive Audio Chat App
• Artist Recreates Famous Francesca Woodman Photo Entirely In Second Life
• Second Life Gachas Are Gone But Gacha's Legacy Goes On -- Resales Still A Top SL Marketplace Category With Nearly 900K Items
• Sannyのおすすめバーチャルワールドニュース : 2021年8月 Sanny Reports For Virtual Japan
• Paintings By A.I. Artist Instantly Earns Nearly $250,000 In NFT Sales
• Our Payment Systems Are So Bad, Making The Metaverse Might Mean Moving To Blockchain Systems (Which Have Problems Of Their Own)
• I Seriously Doubt Apple Will Put Out Its XR Headset Next Year. Here's Why

Want to Work on Your Second Life Dream House This Long Weekend? Here's a Virtual Decor Blog With Dreamy Ideas

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

NatG’s  [Hippo Ihnen] blog LJUS features a lot of decor with her fashion and it’s the kind of open and airy decor I love. In “September, My New July” she is referring for her clinging to summer by the sea and not to climate change. The post includes three pictures, but I was drawn to this by the pontoon raft. Ours was homemade, as this one appears to be, from old barrels and we would anchor it about thirty feet off shore. I spent countless hours enjoying the sun and diving off the raft. She has credits for everything from the trees to the flipflops on her blog.

•  Scarlet Creative  Hoxton Ground Version - Wood Top Floor
• ..::THOR::.. Floating Raft - ULTRARARE 

For serious house envy, click here:

I Seriously Doubt Apple Will Put Out Its XR Headset Next Year. Here's Why

Citing The Information, Mac Rumors has a report that gives me some serious red flags:

The first AR/VR headset that Apple has in development will need to be wirelessly tethered to an iPhone or another Apple device to unlock full functionality... It will be similar to the WiFi-only version of the Apple Watch, which requires an ‌iPhone‌ connection to work. The headset is meant to wirelessly communicate with another Apple device, which will handle most of the powerful computing...

TSMC is manufacturing the chips that will be used in the headset, and mass production is said to be at least a year away. The first AR/VR headset could be released as soon as 2022, but the launch could also be pushed back if work on the device is not completed in time.'

Emphasis mine, because I'd be vastly surprised if Apple put out its headset next year. Or even the next next year. Here's why:

Our Payment Systems Are So Bad, Making the Metaverse Might Mean Moving to Blockchain Systems (Which Have Problems of Their Own)

'I'm blogging Matthew Ball’s must-read, nine part metaverse primer over the Summer; my take on Part 1 (introduction to the framework) is here,  my coverage of Part 2 (hardware) is here, with Part 3 (networking) coverage here, Part 4 coverage (computing) here, Part 5 (virtual platforms) here, and Part 6 (open standards) here.

Part 7 of Matthew Ball’s Metaverse framework, on the challenge of payments facing the Metaverse, is the most daunting so far, veering into some thick if necessary weeds to hack through. If I had to summarize the whole thing in a single sentence, it would go something like this:

The payment options we have to deal with are so inefficient, unfair, and monopolistic, we may never get a Metaverse worth the name unless we switch to a blockchain-based system -- even though that has problems of its own.

To break Ball’s case down into more detail (with some analysis of my own):

• Current/traditional payment systems incur transaction costs and time delays.
• Virtual world-based payment systems, built on these payment methods, are even more costly and slow.
• At the same time, distribution platforms (consoles, Apple, etc.) lock in consumers and developers while hitting the latter with high fees, while also locking out payment competitors. (This is, by the way, starting to change.)

With mobile so dominant, and so necessary to achieving mass market growth, current Metaverse platforms end up paying most of their money to Apple and Google Play. For instance, while ROBLOX’s revenue sharing deal is reportedly harsh for their creators (especially as most of them are kids), the company itself takes a huge hit from Apple:

Cajsa's Choices: Moody & Stylish Avatar Portraits by Lika Cameo

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Lika Cameo’s “...a little bit yours” is a beautiful black and white picture with striking chiaroscuro contrast. The white is so bright many of the details, such as the quilt fabric, are blown out while the shadows are strong, bold, swathes of black across her body. It has the feel of a sketch, often achieved with filters in PhotoShop, FilterForge, Gimp, or a plethora of online editing tools. The subtle use of depth of field adds to its emotional effect, keeping your eyes on her face that expresses such melancholy. 

For more moody melancholy, click here:

Paintings by A.I. Artist Instantly Earns Nearly $250,000 in NFT Sales

Pictured: Art by "Alejandro" on Open Sea

Update, 9/2: Clarification via August Rosedale: The $250K worth in sales mentioned in this post were not directly, as originally reported, from art by AIs Alejandro/Taylor -- they were "created" by Rosedale's new AI artist crypo-native, "a truly digital artist creating dynamically evolving art pieces in numerous styles." However, he adds, "Alejandro and Taylor did entirely sell out a couple days before the crypto-native release I think due to excitement for the crypto-native project."

So I told you about "Alejandro", an AI personality who is "creating" works of art which entrepreneur August Rosedale is then selling as NFTs, but here's the wilder thing: 

When August put art by Alejandro and his AI artist colleague "Taylor" up for sale this Monday, via his Mirage Gallery, nearly 1000 copies were sold near instantaneously. [Note: See clarification above - WJA]

"The full 920 piece sold in 5 minutes, which was absolutely insane," August reports to me now.

At their current value in Ethereum, that translates into $85,000 USD -- but that's only the start, because many of those works are then being resold: "Meaning someone buys one (or got one of the 920 from me) and then has sold it. Combined secondary sales have almost reached 40 eth ($148k) which I get a 10% cut of."

So within a week, total sales for art created by AI are now nearly $250,000.

Even August is stunned: