Enter the VR.
I love technology, probably a little more than is technically healthy. It’s odd, at least in my mind, how long I’ve waited to give VR a bit of a spin. It would seem like a slam dunk, especially with my love of computer games (owning every gaming platform out there). Perhaps, rightly, I classified it as too early, not having any real standards, a wide distribution of entrants and a mish-mash of operating system/hardware combos.
I recently acquired an Oculus Quest 2 because I’d run out of new technology to fill my boots with (the M1 MacBook 16 was languishing in an extended delivery queue).
The price point is very reasonable given what’s on offer, but it’s not just this; it’s the ease of use. There’s no need to festoon your living room, study, or sitting room with a variety of motion tracking devices, cables and other widgets. As it’s version 2, most the annoying kinks have been worked out, and it’s generally “A tidy little device”.
VR Experience
It’s literally and figuratively an eye-opener. It’s got to be the first time any new technology has actually made me laugh with how amazeballs it was. There’s an intro to the Quest 2 / VR where you hold hands and dance with a robot; that did it for me. It’s not that I’ve been waiting all my life to dance with a robot; it’s more how immersive and hugely fun the whole package is. Hand tracking, head tracking, the soundstage, and the ability to move and interact in a physical space (walking and moving around the room do similar in the virtual space) combined together is a magic combination.
Games are just as fun; I nearly fell over twice, once when a virtual boxer got right into my face and landed his first punch and the second time when I’d missed a zombie behind me and spun around when I heard the sound of footsteps.
NFTs and the dream of virtual equality
As a young man, we’re talking 15-20 or so years ago (by my calculation); I was idealistic, the hubris of youth still entrenched. I had dreams of where I would be, what I could achieve and how the world might change.
One of my beliefs was that VR would level the playing field, anyone could reimagine themselves physically, and the need for physically manufactured “trinkets” and non-essential items could simply be created, used and enjoyed in virtual space removing wasting the earth’s resources.
Digital equality where creativity and humanity would sit side by side, enjoying an inclusive diversity. We would be judged by what we are inside rather than the things we choose to purchase to represent a vision of ourselves in the real world. I was young right?
I’m not saying I wholly subscribe to this now; the problem might better be tackled more productively in the real rather than the Digitial world.
Enter NFT’s. The ability to limit a Digitial asset, which is limitless (nearly), in its ability to be faultlessly copied and distributed.
The dichotomy here is drawing a line between rewarding those who decide to create using their skills needing to be rewarded and the ability for all people to access everything, to enjoy all that there is to offer without once again drawing the physical boundaries of the world outside of VR. Both are valid, and some systematic way to address both concerns is probably needed (the currency of Likes might be used as a replacement status symbol, for example).
NFT’s are a halting baby step in this direction. NFT’s are being used to define ownership as a secondary concern. The primary objective seems to be a financial instrument used to create profit and opportunity, not value in its traditional sense. Needless to say, any early-stage technology or a new way of collating value, creativity and currency is likely to evolve as its uses become more widespread and the real features are surfaced in a way that isn’t transient or based on a momentary fad.
Anyway, I’m letting the thread of my thoughts spool out on the page, so I’d better draw it together into some meaningful conclusion.
It looks like humans have landed in “the metaverse” and that it’s reasonably cheap to access what’s out there at the moment. Business models are being created, and stakes are being hammered down to mark out landscapes waiting to be populated by would-be pioneers looking for their digital freehold.
Summing up (eventually)
It’s an exciting and delicate time; we must be thoughtful of who provides the infrastructure for these new digital vistas and how we want what’s inside them to be governed so as not to exploit their populations or the creators building things within them. The Quest 2 is a port-hole sized view of this new world, pack your bags and jump on board; it’s going to be an interesting voyage.
