This category is for all the new cryptocurrency- and blockchain-based social VR spaces and virtual worlds (Decentraland, The Deep, Ethernia, Mark Space, Somnium Space, Staramba Spaces, Terra Virtua, VIBEHub, Virtual Universe, etc.)
Not too long ago, I wrote up a blogpost about an NFT-based metaverse project called Wilder World. As part of my research, I joined the Wilder World Discord server. This morning, I got a direct message from someone with the account name Wilder World, with a come-on to invest in a “limited-time presale” of Wilder World virtual land.
As I suspected, this was a scam. I know this because I know that legitimate NFT metaverse projects do not direct message users via Discord. (I have seen similar messages before, borrowing the names of projects such as Cryptoland, Decentraland, and Somnium Space, to the point where I recently issued a warning via Twitter:
I also got a DM via Discord from them this morning. In the past month, I have received phishing offers from scammers impersonating Cryptovoxels, Decentraland and Somnium Space. Caveat emptor! These are all scams. #MetaverseNFT #Metaverse
Getting back to the scammer from Wilder World, I read the message carefully, and noticed a couple of signs that something wasn’t quite right.
First, in a direct message, Discord will inform you if you and the other person have any Discord servers in common. The fact that Wilder World and I had “no servers in common” is a big red flag. You seriously mean to tell me that the REAL Wilder World would contact me from a Discord account that doesn’t even belong to the official Wilder World Discord server?
Second, I checked the URL against the list of official links in the #official-links channel on the official Wilder World Discord server, and did NOT find this new, suspicious URL on it! (I blurred out part of the URL address in the previous image.) If the Discord server does not have such a list (and all legitimate projects should), then look for it on the official website. Never click on a new, unfamiliar URL you have not thoroughly investigated first!
It is all too easy to target people who have joined an official Discord server for NFT metaverse projects, since you can easily see who else is with you on the server (just check the far right-hand column). It’s also very easy to create a false account by stealing an official logo and calling yourself the project’s name (e.g. “Wilder World”). There is nothing stopping you from creating as many Discord accounts called Wilder World as you wish, since each one has a separate, randomly-generated four-digit suffix at the end of the username (see image, right).
And, unfortunately, some people always fall for this particular scam which appropriated the logo and name of Wilder World, using a well-written come-on and a fake website to take that person’s hard-earned cryptocurrency:
A: That was a scam, I think Victim: are serious?! ffs
B: There is no land stuff [right now] The focus is on Pets.
Victim: I just filled it out!
A: So any land sale is a scam [right now]
Victim: omg did I just get scammed
C: There was a scammer yesterday DM’ing people
Victim: wtf it was a message from Wilder World D: From a scam CLONE E: oh noooooooo Wilder World never DMs u!! F: Was a scammer with a WW logo on their profile G: [refers Victim to the #report-scammers channel]
H: Land is not for sale yet, only raffle for mint list is available on [Wilder World] website, click the link in announcements
And I went over to take a look at the #report-scammers channel on the official Wilder World Discord server, to see this, plus numerous other scams being reported on. The Victim did report this scam on that channel (see image right), but unfortunately, any money he thought he was spending on NFT-based virtual land in Wilder World is unrecoverable.The scammer, once he or she fleeces a number of people, then deletes the Discord account and the website, and vanishes into the night—likely to repeat the same scam on a different target in future.
So, once again, I am going to list the things that you can do to avoid getting scammed via a direct message on Discord for the various and sundry NFT metaverse projects:
Legitimate projects will not direct message you on Discord. Instead, they will use an #announcements channel on their official Discord server, or perhaps post a blogpost on their official website.
Always check any DM you receive via Discord to see what servers you and the other person have in common. If you and the other person have “No servers in common” (particularly, the official Discord for the legitimate project), that is a red flag! I belong to almost a hundred Discord servers related to social VR, virtual worlds, and the metaverse, and I now routinely block any DM from someone where I have “No servers in common”. The reasoning is this: anybody whom I am interested in talking to should belong to at least one of the same Discord servers as I do!
Check the various channels of the legitimate NFT metaverse project Discord server carefully. Look for an official announcements channel. Look for an official links/URLs channel, either on the Discord or on the project’s official website. Look for a channel to report potential scams and scammers.
Always stop and ask yourself if something is too good to be true. Be highly suspicious of any “good-will gesture” such as the following example, taken directly from today’s Wilder World scammer: “As many of you may have expected, there has been talks of a land sale coming up and we are excited to officially announce…As a way of giving back to those who supported Wilder World early, we will be hosting a limited-time presale to raise liquidity and allow our users to buy the land early before…”.
EDUCATE YOURSELF ON BLOCKCHAIN, CRYPTOCURRENCIES, AND NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS! If you aren’t willing to take the time to learn how all this works, you are better off staying out of this arena until you do.
I leave you with a few articles on the subject of blockchain/crypto/NFT scams (I’m sure you can find many more on your own):
REMEMBER: Do EVERY. SINGLE. SCRAP. of your homework before investing in any blockchain. cryptocurrency, or NFT project! Be especially cautious when you receive a direct message on Discord!!! Caveat emptor!
UPDATE 4:17 p.m.: Someone on the official Wilder World Discord server shared the following handy tip:
You should turn off server DMs from any NFT Discord you’re in – just click on the server name, select Privacy settings from the drop down menu, and switch them off. NFT Discords will never DM you directly.
This man is Kendrick Nguyen. Five years ago, he founded an investment firm called Republic, focused on opportunities in startups, real estate, video games, and crypto. On Oct. 19th, 2021, TechCrunch reporter Connie Loizos wrote:
Where many see regulatory murkiness, the five-year-old, New York-based investing platform Republic sees opportunity. Indeed, while many outfits grapple with whether to distance themselves from certain digital assets, Republic — whose CEO, Kendrick Nguyen, started his career in securities litigation with Goodwin Procter — has focused from the start on establishing itself as a go-to brand for what Nguyen calls “compliant tokenization.”
…
Just today, the company is announcing a $150 million Series B round led by Valor Equity Partners, which follows a $36 million Series A round that the company announced in March from Galaxy Interactive, Motley Fool Ventures, HOF Capital, Tribe Capital and CoinFund. (Those earlier investors just re-upped, by the way, and were joined by new backers Pillar VC, Brevan Howard, GoldenTree and Atreides.)
Altogether, says Nguyen, Republic, which employs 200 people, had raised more than $50 million in equity financing ahead of this newest round, and more than $20 million in a token sale.
The outfit is certainly busy putting it all to work. Republic already comprises several different business arms, including a popular retail investment platform that invites people to invest with as little as $10; a private capital division with almost $1 billion in assets under management that funnels accredited investors into startups; and a blockchain consultancy arm that provides technical, financing, distribution and tokenization services.
Republic also right now has two affiliated closed-end investment funds deploying capital into startups and crypto projects, along with a digital investment arm operating as Republic Realm that focuses exclusively on metaverses and NFTs.
Over 100 metaverse real estate developments (including the Metajuku shopping district in Decentraland)
My avatar standing in the Metajuku shopping district in Decentraland
It’s clear that Everyrealm has serious money to spend (they’ve already raised US$60 million), and they intend to invest it in a variety of metaverse platforms! Anita reports:
Everyrealm hopes to become “the gateway to the entire metaverse ecosystem,” according to the company. It is invested in 25 different metaverses and owns 3,000+ NFTs today, Yorio said.
“We started out investing [in the metaverse], but we’ve since expanded our mandate to do a lot more than that. We see ourselves as developers of metaverse content, so we don’t just passively invest and sit back and wait for other people to build things,” Yorio said. The company has built on top of many of its virtual properties — for example, it launched a retail store concept in Decentraland two weeks ago, which it plans to expand into other metaverse platforms, Yorio said. Indeed, 10,000 virtual items in the store sold out in the span of an hour, she added.
Apparently, they have set up a virtual campus in the blockchain-based social VR platform Somnium Space, and Somnium Space CEO Artur Sychov himself will be teaching “a class at the Academy about VR and the future of the metaverse:”
Tuition for four weeks, which includes a “limited edition Republic Realm Academy NFT Tuition Badge”, which will “be your campus ID card and unlock all Republic Realm Academy resources and initiatives at the start of the term”, six online courses, plus “limited office hours with professors, subject to availability”, costs US$1,000…
Let’s face it: it’s to Cathy’s and Artur’s and so many other people’s advantage to sell (and yes, I deliberately use the word sell) as many people as they can on this frankly blinkered perspective on the metaverse—even to the point of offering thousand-dollar certificates for things could probably be learned just as easily from others for free! The overall messaging here is that the non-blockchain-based metaverse platforms which predate this boom in artificially-scarce NFT-based real estate are simply not worth bothering with or investing in.
Well, I now publicly will eat some crow, because buried in Anita’s TechCrunch report is the following news nugget:
Everyrealm also operates a virtual educational campus called Realm Academy in the Somnium Space metaverse, where users can learn more about web3 concepts through online courses. Its inaugural class has 500 students who have paid $1,000 each to attend, Yorio said.
If Janine Yorio is to be believed (and frankly, I have zero reason to doubt her), Everyrealm cleared 500 x US1,000 = US$500,000 from the first offering of their six-course educational program. That’s right—a cool half-million dollars! I guess I was seriously wrong about people not being interested in signing up for their courses, and I am willing to admit that I was wrong. Hey, it does happen—sometimes… 😉
As featured in Vogue today, designer Jonathan Simkhai has partnered with metaverse developer Everyrealm and metaverse production house Blueberry Entertainment to produce an exciting new Metaverse Fashion Week event inside Second Life – and you are invited!
Check out this video sneak peek of what to expect on the runway. Video Production by Vrutega.
Irritatingly, the above link to “several runway shows scheduled throughout this week” only takes you to the sim where the events are taking place, but without the details of when they were happening! Fortunately, Inara Pey has all the details in a detailed write-up on her blog:
The individual in question is New York fashion designer and 2015 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner, Jonathan Simkhai. As a part of the New York Fashion Week event, he offered a special preview of some of his designs from his Autumn / Winter 2022 (AW22) collection at a special fashion show that took place in Second Life.
In all 11 pieces from the collection have been visualised for Second Life by none other than Mishi McDuff (aka Blueberryxx), founder and owner of SL’s popular Blueberry brand (and, I will admit, one of my go-to designers on the admittedly rare occasions I feel I need to spruce up my virtual wardrobe). In bringing the designs to SL, Blueberry has also given them a special “metaverse flair” – utilising the unique advantages of the digital world to offer twists to some of the items that cannot be replicated in the physical world – such as a sequined dress that gradually loses its embellishments and morphs into a bodysuit as the model walks the runway.
The items were presented to an invited audience of models, influencers, celebrities, and journalists from the fashion, technology and lifestyle industries. They had the opportunity to see the virtual items ahead of Simkhai presenting their physical world equivalents on the New York catwalk, so the guests could witness the virtual garments and their unique properties up close – and even try them on.
I think that this is a brilliant move by Everyrealm. Why? Because none of the NFT metaverse platforms they currently invest in (Decentraland, Somnium Space, Axie Infinity, etc.) have anything which compares to the mature, fully-evolved dressable avatar system which has evolved over the 18+ years of the history of Second Life! Here’s one of the pictures used in the (unfortunately paywalled) Vogue Business article:
And you can bet that Linden Lab is on board with this; how often does Second Life get mentioned in Vogue, plus fashion and tech news outlets like British GLAMOUR, Mobile Marketing, and the Fashion Network? As Inara says:
This may sound like something straight out of 2006-2008, when many physical world brands tried to hop into SL in the belief it would magically allow them to grow their market influence, but actually it isn’t. The Simkhai / Blueberry relationship is far more symbiotic and engaging, and for two reasons.
The first is that as well as being presented to invited guests, the Second Life Simkhai collection will be the subject of a series of catwalk shows open to Second Life residents on Thursday February 17th / Friday February 18th, with shows set hourly from 13:00 through 16:00 (inclusive – see the Destination Guide link at the end of this article). Not only will these serve to show the designs to the Second Life community, they will also – according to Vogue’s Maghan McDowell – allow SL users to purchase them at around L$1,000 per item.
So, if you missed out on today’s fashion shows, you can try to catch one tomorrow! I do have my eye on that haute couture dress illustrated in the Vogue Business article above! According to a press release posted to Reddit:
Everyrealm, metaverse investor and developer, announced the launch of an NFT sale featuring select looks from the first-ever Metaverse Fashion Week show, which premiered on February 14th, 2022 in the Second Life metaverse.
The metaverse fashion show was produced by Everyrealm and Blueberry Entertainment and featured women’s fashion designer and New York Fashion Week staple Jonathan Simkhai as the debut designer. A day ahead of his seasonal physical presentation, eleven of the designer’s new season looks were digitally reimagined for the metaverse.
“Like fashion, NFTs are about self expression. NFTs inside people’s crypto wallets are becoming the fabric of their digital identities. As digital identities become increasingly important, fashion lends itself to be a natural extension of metaverse and NFT activation,” said Julia Schwarts, SVP, Everyrealm.
The NFT sale will offer members of the web3 community to not only own a piece of fashion history, but also wear it on their avatars, the company said.
NFT holders will be able to wear NFT digital wearables across 1,400 partner platforms, including Somnium Space, Pixelynx, and others.
The digital wearables NFT collection will feature six looks from the Jonathan Simkhai Metaverse Fashion Week show.
The first Metaverse Fashion Week is scheduled to take place from March 24 to March 27, 2022. This follows the IRL catwalks in the major fashion cities of the world; Paris, Milan, London and New York.
These NFTs, which cost anywhere from US$200-600 apiece, confer the following “benefits” (please note that this does not apply to sales within Second Life; as mentioned earlier, SL versions of these virtual garments, made in association with well-known womenswear designer Blueberry, will cost about L$1,000 each, a relative bargain!):
Ability to wear Jonathan Simkhai NFT wearables as your avatar in the metaverse
Access to future Everyrealm digital wearables activations
Whitelisting for future digital wearables drops
Keep in mind that your ability to actually wear these garments on your avatar in the various NFT metaverse platforms is heavily dependent upon the ability of the various companies building those platforms to support it (I can guarantee you that the lovely Lucee dress shown above will not look nearly as sparkly on the current crop of Decentraland avatars, for example, let alone the voxel-based blockchain-based platforms like Cryptovoxels and The Sandbox!)
Therefore, many of these “benefits”, like so much for sale in this current season of blockchain, crypto, and NFT-based metaverse madness, are essentially the opportunity to flex and/or gloat to your friends…and to be first in line for the next line-up of expensive NFT-based avatar wearables!
However, I do have to hand it to Everyrealm. The company is certainly putting its money where its mouth is, and they are making a significant splash in the metaverse in a short time. I honestly cannot think of another firm which has its fingers in so many metaverse pies, all at the same time! More power to them.
As I often say on my blog, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” and Everyrealm is attracting big money (and attention) to the ever-evolving and mutating metaverse! Who knows, maybe Second Life will be home to a few more fashion shows linked to real-world, big-name designers? As we can see, there’s still a valuable place for older, non-NFT-based metaverse platforms like SL in this season of the NFT metaverse!
Metaverse Fashion Week 2022
2022 is promising to be a very interesting year, I predict! Stay tuned! I leave you with this (undated) writeup by David Murphy of MobileMarketing:
Metaverse Fashion Week, an event produced by Everyrealm and Blueberry Entertainment, took place yesterday, featuring Jonathan Simkhai as the debut designer. The event occurred day prior to the physical Jonathan Simkhai 2022 presentation at New York Fashion Week, making the real-world designer the first ever to show it’s Fall/Winter 2022 digital wearables collection ahead of their physical counterparts…
Guest took their seats in the larger-than-life bespoke set made specifically for the fashion event in the Second Life metaverse. The secluded location was inspired by natural elements such as rock, water, air, and fire. Simkhai’s latest collection was showcased on the avatar models during the 8-minute presentation. Simkhai debuted 11 designs from his Fall/Winter 2022 collection, which were digitally reimagined for the Metaverse.
The garments are converted from the real-world version into 3D digital models using design software and video gaming technology. The Second Life Marketplace has been selling digital clothing and accessories from Blueberry since 2011. Wearables and clothing are among the most popular types of commerce in Second Life’s $650m dollar virtual economy.
Founded by Mishi McDuff in 2012 as a solo creator on Second Life, Blueberry has sold more than 20m on digital wearables, amassed a library of more than 10,000 digital SKUs optimized for hundreds of design attributes, and scaled an engaged community of loyal customers. Blueberry is already live on multiple metaverse platforms, and is actively expanding its brand and community to other web 2.0 and 3.0 metaverses.
This Sunday, after a weekend spent working on various deadline-driven projects for my full-time paying job as a university librarian, I lay down on the sofa, exhausted, and opened up YouTube on my trusty iPad, eager to see what their recommendations algorithm would suggest to me on this fine and frosty Winnipeg evening (-20°C/-4°F).
Yes, that’s right! It’s a brand new platform called MetaWorld! (Oh, joy! Oh, bliss!)
Here’s the requisite promo video:
Yes, that’s right, there are now three different projects called MetaWorld! This latest one is by an Australian company, so (to keep it separate from the other two), I’m just going to call it Australian MetaWorld.
Honestly, I totallywould watch a reality TV show where Judge Judy presides over a court case where all the companies building the various and sundry MetaWorlds are suing each other for copyright infringement! 🤣
Seriously, though…couldn’t the company behind Australian MetaWorld come up with any other name? Didn’t anybody bother to Google “metaworld” to see what other platforms have already snagged that name? (I’m quite sure there’s more than two…somebody took over Dedric Reid’s old website domain name, so there’s at least three out there now!)
The first MetaWorld (this is the Dedric Reid project)The second MetaWorld (by the people who took over Dedric Reid’s original MetaWorld website)The third (Australian) MetaWorld
Here, from their Kickstarter page, is a bit about the company behind this third MetaWorld:
Hi there, my name is Matthew Sheath and I am the CEO of Elite Interactive Gaming Studios, the creator of the MetaWorld. We are a software company based in Sydney, Australia and we have a small team of 5 programmers and designers currently working on our MetaWorld project. I have been in the software and gaming industry for over 20 years and have worked on many different software applications for companies in the finance, gaming, and business sectors.
During my time in the industry I have developed my skills across many different platforms, and have accrued a vast knowledge of computer programming and software applications. For the previous six years, we have been mainly focusing on projects using Unreal Engine 4 and we are very excited with the upcoming release of Unreal Engine 5 (UE5).
Unreal Engine 5 offers programmers exciting new possibilities to break boundaries in the gaming industry like never before. With the introduction of World Partition and a new robust multiplayer framework, UE5 gives us the opportunity to create worlds with many more multiplayers than ever before. We are currently working on a ground breaking new host server platform called MetaHost, which will allow more users at any one time to access the MetaWorld and interact with hundreds and even thousands of other users in the MetaWorld.
Well, Australian MetaWorld looked at Metafluence, and said, “hold my beer”…because here’s what it has:
Australian MetaWorld looked at Metafluence and said “hold my beer”…seriously, you couldn’t make up this shit if you tried! 🙄 The jokes just write themselves at this point…
So here’s the rundown, with all the metajargon…with descriptions taken from their Kickstarter page (oh yes, they have one of those, too; more on that later):
MetaEvents: “Host, perform and visit real time live music and events at the various stadiums and venues scattered throughout the MetaWorld.”
MetaMusic: “Well known and aspiring musicians will be able to book performance time slots and promote their performances ahead of time to fill venues and entertain crowds of fans.”
MetaSports: “Host, spectate or play in real time sporting events at the various stadiums and venues scattered throughout the MetaWorld.”
MetaGaming: “MetaGaming is the MetaWorld live multiplayer gaming platform that will enable members to host or join multiplayer games in various gaming genres.”
MetaShopping: “MetaShopping will offer an expansive array of shopping facilities, where you can purchase digital real world products and services for your homes, businesses and Metatars. Shop online in the comfort of your MetaHome, or visit the shopping precincts in person with friends using your Metatar.”
MetaSocial: “MetaSocial is the social networking platform we use to stay connected in MetaWorld. Keep in touch with your friends, family and business contacts using your interactive MetaWorld Personal Communications Device (MPCD). Choose to connect your MPCD to your phone, to receive alerts when you receive messages from friends or business contacts in the MetaWorld.”
Metatars! “Metatars are the are the characters we create and use to move around and interact with other people in the MetaWorld. Metatars are created using Metahumans, a brand new innovation by Epic Games and Unreal Engine. You will be able to create characters to look like yourself, or anyone you choose to.”
MetaHomes! “Come home to comfort and style in your brand new MetaHome. Beautifully designed homes and personal spaces will be available for you to enjoy in the MetaWorld. You can build your very own dream home, purchase an existing home, or rent a property that is perfect for you.”
MetaBusiness! “There are many different business opportunities and ways to promote and build a successful business in the MetaWorld. Whether you have a new concept for a start up business, or an already proven track record for success, you can take advantage of the endless opportunities to promote your business brand and increase sales.”
MetaFinances! “MetaFinances is your one stop shop for all of your financial and banking needs in the MetaWorld. Visit the MetaFinances tab at the top of the MetaWorld website to view the detailed lists all of the MetaWorld services that MetaFinances provides.”
CRYPTOS!!! “Cryptos is the currency used to purchase all land, buildings, building materials, vehicles, services, businesses, food and drinks, clothing and all items used within the MetaWorld Metaverse.”
METAWALLET!!! “The Cryptos will be exchangeable for real world currency using the MetaWallet feature, allowing you to withdraw your Cryptos into your nominated bank account and receiving the exchange rate value at time of withdrawal. All of your Cryptos will be stored in your electronic MetaWallet and used for purchasing items in the MetaWorld.”
CRYPTOSMARKET!!! “The CryptosMarket is the MetaWorlds equivalent to the stock market and will be responsible for keeping track of the value and exchange rate of the Cryptos in real time. A comprehensive software program is being built to handle all of the CryptosMarket requirements.
METABANK!!! “MetaBank is our online financial app that allows businesses to easily keep track of MetaWorld business transactions and safely and securely withdraw real funds into their nominated banking account.”
METATRADE!!!1! “You will be able to buy and sell anything you own in MetaWorld on the MetaTrade trading platform. Land deeds, real estate, building supplies, businesses, investments, vehicles and preowned items can all be purchased and sold using MetaTrade, and will fluctuate in value depending on many different factors. These factors will include things such as neighbouring land values, popularity and demand, age and condition, growth of investment and past business success.”
METACREATOR!!!!!1!!1!“MetaCreator – Making your dreams a reality. Our select team of licensed MetaWorld creators will help you to achieve anything you want or need in the MetaWorld. They will include everything you need from architects, builders, programmers and designers.”
METAVEHICLES!!!!!1!!1!!!!!1!!! “A beautiful, ever increasing range of vehicles is available to own in the MetaWorld. These include vehicles such as cars, trucks, motorbikes, boats and aircraft. You wont need vehicles to get around MetaWorld thanks to the innovative MetaWave instant transfer system, but they are nice to own and cruise around town in when you feel the need. MetaVehicles will increase or decrease in value at times, and can be bought and sold on the MetaTrade trading platform.”
METAWAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!! “You will be able to move to any location in the MetaWorld instantly using MetaWave. MetaWave will be accessible through your MetaWorld Personal Communications Device (MPCD) and will transport you to any predefined location you need to get to. This service will cost Cryptos to use and the price will vary depending on the distance required to travel. To save money, for short trips it may be worthwhile to use one of your other modes of transport such as one of your vehicles or the public transport systems which will be operating throughout the MetaWorld.”
Oh f**k this, I have to go metavomit 🤮 …you can read about MetaConstructions on your own, if you’re still interested. Sweet minty Jesus. Elite Interactive Gaming Studios definitely needs some responsible adult supervision when it comes to naming products. MetaWave? It’s called TELEPORTING, people. 🙄
A company of five people, no matter how wildly talented and experienced you are, cannot even begin to build everything so breathlessly promised in the Kickstarter description and on the website for Australian MetaWorld. That’s a red flag, right there. (At least they’re a step up from Dedric Reid, who has no “team” to speak of.)
And using MetaHuman for avatars? I hate to break it to you, but that is also a huge red flag to me. There is no way in hell they are going to get such highly-detailed and resource-heavy avatars into any metaverse platform and expect it to perform at scale! Even bringing a small group of such avatars together would bring any computer rendering them to a stuttering halt (so much for the crowds of hundreds and thousands of Metatars at MetaEvents!). It’s just completely, utterly ludicrous.
As I said at the start of this blogpost, I have KiraTV to thank for first alerting me to Australian MetaWorld, so I leave you with his snarky take on this project:
As KiraTV did, I did some searching for the name of the company that is supposedly building Australian MetaWorld, Elite Interactive Gaming Studios. Like him, I came up with a lot of companies with similar-sounding names, but nothing. Nada. Zip, Bupkis. A Google search on “Elite Interactive Gaming Studios” Australia pulls up exactly one hit: the Kickstarter page. Hmmm….
At about the two-thirds mark, KiraTV does a reverse image search of one of the pictures used in the promotional materials for Australian MetaWorld (a futuristic-looking stage), to discover that it’s taken directly from an advertisement for an Unreal asset which literally anybody can buy and use.
He also points out that there are no avatars (sorry, Metatars) walking around the footage of the downtown cityscape used in the promo video (another red flag…it likely is another Unreal asset picked up at a store). Much like Dedric Reid’s MetaWorld, Australian MetaWorld appears to consist of pre-packaged assets thrown together into a slick-looking video, all to persuade you to invest, with maximum buzzwords per minute.
Oh yes, and did I mention? Australian MetaWorld has a Kickstarter, where they have already raised almost $14,000 Australian? Funny how these NFT metaverse projects all raise their money up front…before launching anything.
So, yeah, there’s a MetaWorld. No, not the first MetaWorld, and not the second one, either; this is the NEW one (although, if you squint, they sure do look a lot alike). Welcome to The War of the MetaWorlds, folks. Pop some popcorn and pull up a seat, because this looks like it’s going to an epic battle!
Or, not… 😉
At this point, based on all three MetaWorlds, plus innumerable other NFT/crypto metaverse projects to which I’ve been giving some serious side-eye, the modus operandi for these sorts of projects seems to be:
Step 1: Buy a bunch of pre-made Unity (or Unreal) assets, the more realistic-looking the better.
Step 2: Create a slick promo video using those assets (or even better, reuse existing video and images used to promote these assets!).
Step 3: Mint a cryptocurrency and some NFTs for assets like virtual land, virtual vehicles, avatar wearables, etc.—whatever you think you can sell to people who don’t know much about the metaverse. (Sneakers, even though you don’t have avatars or even a platform yet where you can wear them? No problem!)
Step 4: Create a slick website with a lot of jargon, and lots of images and videos of the assets you bought in Step 1, to promote your new platform and sell your associated cryptocurrency and NFTs. Appeal to users’ FOMO and use lots of buzzwords like “blockchain” and as many “meta” terms as you can coin!
Step 5: PROFIT! (It doesn’t matter if you can actually deliver a product; you already collected your money in Step 4.)
P.S. I would love it if those of you with more world-building experience could carefully watch the Australian MetaWorld promo video I linked to up top, and tell me from where they grabbed the various assets used: the house, the concert, the sports matches, the game, etc. My hundreds of blog readers (and the over 600 members of the RyanSchultz.com Discord server) are the best army of metaverse bullshit detectors out there! We’ve already done this for Dedric Reid’s MetaWorld, and now I ask you to look at this new one, too.
Thanks in advance! I cannot wait to see what you discover! ❤️
UPDATE February 7th, 2022: Well, that didn’t take very long at all! Enverex, a member of the RyanSchultz.com Discord, tells me:
Here’s your break down. Very annoyed that I can’t figure out what the music video/event is though.
Many thanks to you for your diligent detective work, Enverex! He adds, “the house may look more familiar from this image [of the Hillview asset] (which ironically isn’t compatible with UE5 it seems? LOL. Supported Engine Versions 4.21 – 4.25, 4.27)”:
Image of the house used in the Australian MetaWorld promo video
Here’s a still of the concert footage from the promo video; can anybody help us find out where it’s from? (Google image search isn’t helpful here.) Thanks!
UPDATE February 8th, 2022: I have it from a reliable source that Dedric Reid is once again shilling his MetaWorld on the social audio app Clubhouse. In addition, I have found a fourth MetaWorld, although it appears to be more a token than a metaverse platform:
And then there’s a sixth MetaWorld, a Chinese blockchain-based game:
Which only goes to prove that all the people building these projects are singularly lacking in imagination when it comes to naming their products. C’mon, people. Don’t be so lazy! (I reminds me of the two platforms called Oasis, although one of them has now ceased operations.)
I leave you with my standard warning: Please remember to do EVERY. SINGLE. SCRAP. of your own research before investing a penny in ANY blockchain, crypto, or NFT project! Caveat Emptor!
UPDATE February 15th, 2022: A big thank you to eagle-eyed reader Daniel Trujillo, who emailed to tell me he had located the source of the concert footage! It’s Madison Beer’s avatar in Life Support, an immersive reality concert experience:
So, every single scrap of footage in that Australian MetaWorld promotional video is bought, borrowed, or stolen from somewhere else…there’s no there there, people! And I believe that it is highly unlikely that there will ever be an actual, working metaverse platform, and that those who are already investing in their Kickstarter campaign will not get anything back for their money. Look before you leap; research before you buy!
While I have mentioned The Sandbox before on this blog, I decided that it was high time to write an update about the hot new blockchain-based, voxel-themed virtual world, which has attracted such intense interest and speculation, even before the doors open to the general public!
Here’s a teaser trailer from last year, which gives an overview of what The Sandbox is all about:
According to an introductory article written in June 2020, The Sandbox started as a mobile game:
The Sandbox is best known for its two smash mobile hits The Sandbox (2011) and The Sandbox Evolution (2016), which combined generated 40 million downloads across iOS and Android. In 2018, developer/Publisher Pixowl decided to bring this successful User Generated Content gaming IP and large community of creators from mobile to the blockchain ecosystem. The goal: disrupt existing game makers like Minecraft and Roblox by providing creators with true ownership of their creations as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and reward them for their participation in the ecosystem.
What’s even more eyebrow-raising is that, in the past week, almost ten million dollars (U.S.) worth of virtual property has changed hands—and all this before an official launch of The Sandbox! The previously-mentioned Republic Realm shared the following infographic in a recent blogpost, showing just how the value of recent sales in The Sandbox far, far outstrips that of other, already-launched blockchain-based competitors such as Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, and Somnium Space:
So, what is it about The Sandbox that people are falling all over themselves in bidding wars for virtual property? Well, on their website, the company describes their product as follows:
The Sandbox is a virtual Metaverse where players can play, build, own, and monetize their virtual experiences. We empower artists, creators, and players to build the platform they’ve always envisioned, providing them with the means to unleash their creativity.
The Sandbox, in addition to its NFT-based virtual land, has a cryptocurrency called (of course!) SAND, which you can use to buy and sell assets on their Marketplace, such as voxel sneakers for your avatar:
Among the partners participating in The Sandbox (and presumably selling officially branded merch you can’t get anywhere else!) are Adidas, Atari, deadmau5, Snoop Dogg, the Smurfs (?!), the Care Bears (?!?!??), and the zombie franchise The Walking Dead. Looks like somebody at the company building The Sandbox has been quite busy on the marketing, sponsorships, and partnerships front, people!
The Sandbox also seems to be positioning itself as a Roblox and Minecraft competitor, in that it boasts a Game Maker, which allows users to create their own games on the platform without needing to know how to code:
Another key component of The Sandbox is a downloadable program called VoxEdit. which “allows you to create, rig, and animate your own voxel-based NFTs” and “sell them on The Sandbox’s marketplace”:
As I mentioned earlier, The Sandbox is not open to the general public yet. They recently concluded a first closed alpha test, with a limited group of alpha testers, and apparently, they are planning a second alpha test (“Alpha Season 2”) sometime in the near future:
All in all, The Sandbox seems to have done a masterful job of promotion and marketing. They have successfully generated a level of hype that I have not witnessed in the blockchain-based virtual world space since Decentraland raised millions of dollars in its epic ICO!
P.S. As I expect I will be writing more about The Sandbox in future, I have decided to create a new blog category called The Sandbox, and go back and add this new category to all the older blogposts where I mentioned the platform.
