Tag: Tony Vitillo

April Fools Day in the Metaverse: Enjoy the Delicious Snark and Pranks!

HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: The RyanSchultz.com blog will be on an indefinite hiatus, as I am working on a brand new project: writing up a proposal for a VR lab for my university library system! More details here. I’ll be back as soon as I can, folks!

Yesterday, April 1st, was April Fools Day, when people often pull pranks on each other. I wanted to share with you two such pranks, one by Tom Ffiske, and the other by Tony Vitillo (a.k.a. SkarredGhost). Both are active commentators on the evolving metaverse marketplace and, like me, they sometimes poke fun at some of its absurdities!

Tom posted the following to Twitter:

When you visit the website, you are greeted with:

Welcome to the SUPER MEGA ULTRA METAVERSE SUMMIT

Party like it’s 2099 with the world’s largest metaverse conference, with over twenty people confirmed to attend. Get ready to go through an overly complicated sign-up process with zero guidance, and enter the one and only metaverse (apart from Second Life decades ago). All transactions use MetaCoin, a cryptocurrency running on a decentralised network that can be yours for the low price of $0.99 (then $3,000 after gas fees). Are you ready to join the party? 

This parody of the worst of the blockchain metaverse conference events offers the most delicious snark:

Easy to access: Simply buy a VR headset during a semiconductor crisis, and you can party with your friends while jigging in your tiny flat.

Introducing MetaCoin: Escape the banks! All transactions will use MetaCoin, a cryptocurrency that truly democractizes access to finance. Only 70% is owned by the founder.

Enter the metaverse: We have built a metaverse thatrepresenta the future, only there is zero interoperability and we will stop updating it after the weekend.

Among the (fictitious) guest speakers:

Richard Ryder: Sponsoring the event and will send you a follow-up email next week. And the week after.

Sarah Sarahbard: Launched a failed crypto project last month, and is looking to pump up its value before selling her stake.

Derrick Dickard: A futurologist who read about the metaverse on Forbes, and will pretend to be an expert until next year,

Savage, but accurate!

Tony issued a timely commentary on the trend of Horizon Worlds, Rec Room. AltspaceVR, and other metaverse platforms where the avatars lack the lower half of their body, tweeting:

You can read more about Legverse on their official website. Tony is even kind enough to offer a media kit for us bloggers!

Thank you to Tom Ffiske and Tony Vitillo!

P.S. Somebody also messaged me yesterday, saying that Meta had bought Second Life, which of course was an April Fools joke as well!

HitMotion: Reloaded Is the First Fitness Game Using Pass-Through Mixed Reality on the Vive Focus Plus

If you are interested in following the goings-on in the world of virtual reality, one of blogs you should read regularly is by an Italian guy named Tony Vitillo (a.k.a. SkarredGhost), whose blog, The Ghost Howls, often has reviews of products and interesting news reports about the VR industry. I admire Tony for daring to follow his dream to turn his love for VR into a full-time business!

And recently Tony’s company, New Technology Walkers, announced HitMotion: Reloaded, the first fitness game using pass-through mixed reality on the Vive Focus Plus headset:

New Technology Walkers today announces that its first game “HitMotion: Reloaded” has been released worldwide on Viveport M. This is the first fitness game in pass-through mixed reality ever released and at the beginning will be exclusive for the Vive Focus Plus, the only device offering this functionality in a reliable way. The price is $5.59/€4.99/RMB39.90.

The game had been announced by NTW’s co-founder Antony “Skarredghost” Vitillo during the Vive Ecosystem Conference 2019 in Shenzhen, China as one of the launch titles for the Vive Focus Plus. In these months, the game has gone through a complete overhaul, passing from the free tech demo released in March to a complete game distributed worldwide now.

Here’s a 30-second promotional trailer for the new game:

One advantage of using the Vive Focus Plus wireless headset is that the game can use the pass-through mixed-reality feature to avoid you accidentally punching holes in any of your walls, or breaking any furniture! Given the rise of VR headset accidents (leading to the posting of mishaps to places like the VRtoER subReddit group), this is potentially a major selling point for HitMotion: Reloaded.

However, the Vive Focus Plus is still a newer headset, so not that many people own it yet, and HitMotion is not yet available for any other models of VR headsets. Whether or not it will be appearing on other headsets depends heavily on how much they will be able to improve their pass-through vision. I don’t think we can expect to see this game appearing for the popular Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headsets anytime soon.

This is another example of an expanding market for VR use: personal fitness. Many people are already working out, getting fit, and losing weight using VR apps such as Beat Saber. I wish Tony every success in his endeavour, and I look forward to seeing what other VR/AR/XR fitness apps will be appearing in the future.

If you want more information about HitMotion: Reloaded, here is their website, their Facebook page, and their Instagram. You can also follow Tony on Twitter.