Here's ten New World Notes posts from 2021 highlighting noteworthy trends, features, controversies, or challenges that we're very likely to see come cropping up in various forms in 2022 and for that matter in years to come:
ROBLOX Reportedly Pressures Journalist Covering Platform's In-Game Market "In Which Children Are Encouraged To Gamble Real Money" (December 2021)
At some point, you have to think, controversial stories like this will become a much larger headache for ROBLOX in general and Metaverse platforms in particular.
Decentraland Stats: 300K Monthly Active Users, Under 20K Daily Users
With no shortage of breathless stories this year about a putative "Metaverse real estate boom", we're likely to see a slew of stories asking whether these purchases were leading to an actual boom of users interested in that real estate. (And expect similar themes to bubble up around the broader NFT craze.)
Facebook's Biggest Metaverse Safety Problem Is Baked Into Facebook's Brand
Can Facebook/Meta actually transition into becoming a Metaverse company when its DNA is so essentially not very Metaverse-y? Find out in 2021!
80% Of Facebook Employees Believe This Week's Whistleblower Revelations Will Damage Company, According To Massive Internal Poll
Same theme as above, but more government regulation-y.
Anyone In El Salvador Actually Using Bitcoin? Evidence Seems Scarce
Same as above, but more "virtual currency is disrupting Central America and leading to a crisis"-y.
Five more beyond the break:
This New VRChat World Is Created By Someone Whose Game Worlds Are So Popular, She Now Makes A Full-Time Living Via Fan Donations
Since it's likely that VRChat will launch its monetization tools next year, we're going to see more grassroots success stories like this, but on a broader level.
Portrait Of The Artist As A Young A.I.: Rude & Pretentious Art Magazine-Style Questions For "Alejandro"
One my of favorite interviews in 2021 is with an AI. While I'm skeptical the actual AI-based art will be more than a fad, the sheer depth and complexity of Alejandro's replies are something we'll see more of in various other projects.
Surprising Gamer Study: Avatar Gender Preference Remains Unchanged For Over 20 Years -- And Very Few Female Gamers Choose Male Avatars
As 3D avatars become more and more mainstream, we'll see how our assumptions around real world gender are echoed in our avatar choices.
Niantic Throws Down Gauntlet Against The Virtual World Metaverse -- But Making Its "Real-World Metaverse" Will Be A Challenge
Pokémon Go make an AR-based Metaverse worth the name? We'll soon see!
The Metaverse Wars Are Here: Epic Gets $1 Billion From Sony & Other Major Players To Build Unreal-Based Metaverse
Grand daddy Epic has been playing in the Metaverse waters for decades. (Recall that Fortnite was apparently inspired by an early version of Second Life.) Expect Epic to challenge its younger upstarts for this space in 2022.
What other stories from 2021 should we be sure to watch?
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