cheese_greaterWTF is "the Metaverse", how did it cost $80 billion, and why is it just 2^nd^ Life?
- an online persistent 3D world with avatars tied to real identities, tied to VR hardware.
- or, a failed project, since Meta is likely mothballing most of it.
- it was the first potentially big consumer of modern VR hardware, and was built up from scratch.
- If Meta assigned 320 people to develop it and the supporting hardware and technologies, add in cost of hardware and after a year you’ve easily spent $80mil, even if you have nothing to show for it.
- because that’s the only bit they fully completed before cutting the funding firehose. Of course, it’s “2nd life IN VR!”, not just a simple re-do. Personally, I think they would have done better to base it on a Minecraft-like concept.
- Remember that 2nd Life is really just a glorified MOO with graphical overlay. The Sims is really a similar concept too, as is Eve Online.