Sweeny Swindles

Drifting away from reality

So what's up with that Metaverse thing? You know- Metaverse? It was that pathetic marketing buzzword purloined from a dystopian sci-fi novel and repurposed into a limp glorification of monopolisation and corporate centralisation under the guise of 'revolutionising the internet'. Basically, some foolish individual treated the marketing boards of big tech companies to a binge of movies like The Matrix, Ready Player One and other dystopias that play around with the idea of interpersonal dissociation brought on by the unstoppable proliferation of socialisation stunting virtual interfaces- and those executives did the predictable thing and said "Let's make our own socialisation stunting virtual interface and make money off of it!" You have to be some absolutely special breed of moron to host giant marketing pushes for a fad literally named off the big bad thing from a novel called 'Snow Crash'.  The actual definition of skimming the cliffnotes before writing the essay.

Of course, the whole idea of the Metaverse was attached to the wave of cryptocurrency revival off the wave of that other nowhere fad, NFTs. (Another easily predictable dud which somehow took the world by semi-storm for a year and a bit.) And again, devote just the slightest iota of thought into it and none of these systems really make sense together. NFTs and Crypto was borne from the idea of decentralisation of digital ownership and money from the central banking institutions and traditional copyrighting platforms respectively- whereas all fully formed conceptualisations of the mythical 'Metaverse' quite literally proposed the linking of all marketplaces, services and social media networks under a one-stop-shop portal/platform/prison. Even NFTs were fancied as some bizarre way of linking together various disparate concepts, like games from different publishers, various distinctly different copyright fields from images to syndicated television and even the idea of gainful employment and gaming. All absolutely antithetical conjunctions to the core ideals of Crypto. (But what does a little thing like sense matter to these people?)

Now it seems the veil has been lifted. After a full year of every desperate company under the sun announcing some form of a metaverse and being mocked for it, and Facebook literally divesting all of it's heart and soul into the idea so much that it changed it's name to 'Meta'- (Although that was probably also to escape easy name-recognition to the many internal crimes they have been pegged for over the years including but in no way limited to flagrant misuse of user data and assisted genocide.) the farm bell has rung but no chickens have returned to roost. They've all flown the coop and taken several billion of research and development funds with them. It's no longer just a joke to announce a metaverse project, it's actively harmful to your bottom line as everyone has come to realise what a pointless waste of effort it all was from the word go.

Generative AI was, of course, the final nail. A hot new trend for these people to chase, and whatsmore this one actually works a little. And again, it feeds into that desire for companies to fall into the exact traps that generations of sci-fi authors have warned against, regarding over reliance on AI over humans. Not that the artificial 'intelligence' we have now has any capability of becoming sentient and taking over the world- but in a much more real way people's jobs are in peril thanks to AI soundly taking the talents of these people and replicating them whole hat. Artists, journalists and actors are suddenly in the crosshairs for unemployment thanks to the sporadic and entirely unregulated proliferation of AI, and that prospective cost cutting alone is immediately more monetary appetising than the Metaverse ever was in it's entire lifespan, if we don't count the false value generated by Mark Zuckerberg with his hairbrained and increadibly expensive dedication to the worst business redirect of all time. (I'm just sad he finally snapped out of it. I wanted to see him sink his entire fortune chasing that rabbit into wonderland.)

But even as we sit on the otherend of the Metaverse world wondering what it was that just blew through us and disappeared in as much of a flurry; there are those still stuck stubbornly in what was, unable to move on and get with the times of today. I think it's a lag that settles in with age, a desire for the clock of progression to slow down just that little bit so you can get used to what is exciting today; that your mind warps your perception to think "This is still a thing, right?" Some people still don't have Facebook figured out, oblivious to the fact it's called 'Meta' now and nobody earnestly uses it as a social media platform who can help it. Youtube Shorts is still a wonder to a generation who stubbornly refuses to engage with Tiktok. (A generation that includes me, by the by.) And CEOs from the techfield who like to think themselves somewhat savvy and with it can't accept that the Metaverse is dead.

I'm sure that if the burning pyre of Twitter wasn't keeping him well and truly hands-full busy, Elon Musk would be weighing in on this matter; but until he's finished roasting alive with his cesspit of a platform, we've got Epic Games head Tim Sweeny ready and willing to make a fool of himself for public entertainment. Because you see, recently the fellows over at Business Insider posted their own, increadibly comprehensive, breakdown on the death of the Metaverse as a sort of open-casket eulogy of the terrible idea killed off in it's infancy. A fine read, but when you think yourself the vanguard of all things tech and revolutionary, such a statement can be interpreted as a shot across the brow. I'm sure Tim Sweeny must have thought "We disrupted Steam with our newness and people made fun of us the same way- I need to rush to my buddy Zuck's defence and ensure I'm on the right side of history for this one!" Image preening makes fools of us all.

"The Metaverse is dead! Let's organize an online wake so that we 600,000,000 monthly active users in Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, PUBG Mobile, Sandbox, and VRChat can mourn its passing together in real-time 3D." Tweeted Tim, presumably whilst smiling and laughing uncomfortably between strangled sobs. In hindsight I know this can kind of read like a biting spit at the corpse of the Metaverse, but let me assure that in the replies he wants to bat for the notion that the Metaverse is still alive. Apparently he conflates the idea of the Metaverse and gaming as a whole into one unholy amalgamation in a warped belief that the 'Metaverse' is the natural successor to gaming because... they both run from computers? I don't... I assume Tim didn't do well in English at school, because that correlation is pathetic to say the least.

To the CEO mindset, admitting defeat is like committing infidelity with a recently sanctified farmyard animal- it's as taboo as taboo gets. So even faced with the definition of exactly what a Metaverse would be, as described endlessly by company after company badly regurgitating the rhetoric of Mark Zuckerberg like a failed game of Chinese Whispers, Sweeny prefers to blind himself to the truth and pretend that any game with an active internet connection is now a 'Metaverse'. Roblox? I guess that is a social platform to some description. Fortnite? That's certainly what it's going for, he would know being the CEO. Minecraft? Umm... not really by design... or even by utility... but I see where he's trying to go. VRChat? There's no functionality to that game but the idea is reminiscent of what a Metaverse wants to become I guess. PUBG Mobile? Just what? Why only the Mobile version of PUBG? Is he feeling okay? Oh, and Sandbox- can't forget my favourite game- Sandbox. Let this be an example why we, as a rule, need to go get our CEO's spayed before they spout stupid stuff on the Internet. It's simply better for everyone this way.