With all the hype around THE METAVERSE lately, this was bound to happen -- though I'm somewhat surprised it's coming from the CEO of AR-based virtual world creator Niantic:
A lot of people these days seem very interested in bringing this near-future vision of a virtual world to life, including some of the biggest names in technology and gaming. But in fact these novels served as warnings about a dystopian future of technology gone wrong. As a society, we can hope that the world doesn’t devolve into the kind of place that drives sci-fi heroes to escape into a virtual one — or we can work to make sure that doesn’t happen. At Niantic, we choose the latter. We believe we can use technology to lean into the ‘reality’ of augmented reality — encouraging everyone, ourselves included, to stand up, walk outside, and connect with people and the world around us. This is what we humans are born to do, the result of two millions years of human evolution, and as a result those are the things that make us the happiest. Technology should be used to make these core human experiences better — not to replace them.
Once again, based on what Neal Stephenson himself told me, Snow Crash's Metaverse is not exactly a dystopian warning. (We are starting to get into "Let me tell you what Fahrenheit 451 is really about, Ray Bradbury" territory with this novel!)
In any case, I'm glad to see this debate met -- I admire Niantic's technology and design team quite a bit, and would really love to see a mixed reality virtual world become a viable model. That said, the jury's out on whether Niantic itself is the one to pull what it has in mind off -- again from the post:
The shift to the real-world metaverse represents a sea change in computing that’s as significant as earlier developments like personal computing, the internet, and mobile. Helping to achieve this meta-shift is our purpose at Niantic, but we recognize that it won’t be solely our work. Such a massive evolution will require the work of big companies, startups, and individuals around the world to become a reality. We have identified critical leverage points where we think Niantic can make a difference in moving this massive transformation forward: our own games and applications, the Lightship Platform, the map, and industry-spanning initiatives like our hardware reference design that leverage the expertise and investment of many towards a common goal.
Trouble is, while Niantic's Pokémon GO is a hit -- actually the only AR app with a large active userbase -- their follow-up, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, is not: According to Sensor Tower, the mobile game is only making $100K a month. (And yes, it was floundering even before Harry Potter's author launched into her odd tirades against trans people.) So against my own wishes and certainly contrary to what Niantic wants, the market for a "real-world metaverse" (as Niantic CEO John Hanke calls it in this post) is far from proven.
Image via: Yes, Pokémon GO Is Still Massive Worldwide (If Less So In The US)
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