Making a Metaverse that matters : from Snow Crash & Second Life to a virtual world worth fighting for / Wagner James Au.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Au, Wagner James, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Metaverse.

Second Life (Web site).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxxix, 342 pages) : illustrations

Other Title:

From Snow Crash and Second Life to a virtual world worth fighting for

Place of Publication:

Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2023]

Biography/History:

WAGNER JAMES AU is the author of The Making of Second Life (HarperCollins, 2008), based on his experiences as the first journalist officially embedded in a metaverse platform.

Summary:

"An up-close account from the world's first metaverse-embedded reporter. In Making a Metaverse That Matters: From Snow Crash & Second Life to A Virtual World Worth Fighting For, the celebrated author of The Making of Second Life and Game Design Secrets, Wagner James Au, delivers an engrossing exploration of how nascent metaverse platforms have already captured the imagination of millions. Featuring powerful stories and dozens of incisive interviews with insiders including Metaverse creator Neal Stephenson himself, the author uses his unique, grassroots-level perspective as the first reporter embedded in a metaverse platform"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Preface

Introduction : five stories about five core metaverse concepts

Part I : conception. Chapter 1. Crash course - a simple history of a complex idea ; Creating the metaverse immediately after Snow Crash ; Reclaiming the metaverse's definition taken from its sources

Chapter 2. Second Life and the mystery of the first metaverse platform ; Part 1 : rise and fall ; Part 2 : postmortum ; Part 3 : Second Life forever

Chapter 3. How Facebook became Meta (but lost the metaverse on the way) ; The second life of Oculus ; Acquisition bias ; Horizon lines ; Ingrained identity ; The second life of Horizons?

Part II : realization. Chapter 4. Kid stuff : Minecraft, and the rise of Roblox ; Minecraft, the metaverse generation and the rise of metaverse TV ; How blocky avatars encourage creativity ; Portrait of the artist as a young Jamaican woman ; The trouble with getting children in the metaverse ; Getting started in Roblox

Chapter 5. Battle royal for the Fortnite metaverse ; Inside the alliance ; Advice for brands ; Advice for creators - especially women

Chapter 6. Neal Stephenson enters the metaverse - Lamina1, blockchain, and the utopia of ownership ; Imagining the metaverse-as-a-service ; Redefining the metaverse with the metaverse's creator ; A brief history of the cryptoverse ; Lamina1's theory of value ; A literary arc to Lamina1

Chapter 7. VRChat and finding furry anime utopia ; Knuckling under ; Game of trust ; Communities create community ; A community endlessly creating ; EAC and the ironic challenge of metaverse community management ; VRChat swallows the Internet ; The lure of the market and the future of VRChat ; Getting started

Part III : promises and perils. Chapter 8. VR, interoperability, Web3, and other metaverse myths ; Myth : VR is essential to the metaverse ; Myth : the metaverse must incorporate augmented reality ; Myth : Web3 is part of the metaverse! (or vice verse) ; Myth : photorealistic human avatars and world graphics are the metaverse's end goal ; Myth : the metaverse must interoperate across the Internet ; Myth : the metaverse is for everyone! ; Myth : there is only one metaverse

Chapter 9. Sex, abuse, and the eternal content moderation challenge ; Ever-perennial metaverse problems : sex, trolling and harassment and underage users ; Building a better moderated metaverse

Chapter 10. Metaverse real-world use cases - separating substance from hype ; Understanding real metaverse use cases

Chapter 11. Overcoming the metaverse age cliff and the immersion funnel ; Aging out ; Inside the immersion funnel ; Widening the funnel ; Bridging the age cliff ; Journeying across the age cliff with Jenova Chen ; Metaverse mindshare and a new state of play

Part IV : a metaverse worth fighting for. Chapter 12. Future paths ; Jenova Chen and the metaverse theme park ; Connecting across generations ; AI and the metaverse ; Streaming the metaverse in our hands ; Looking for a lean-forward metaverse. Chapter 13. Future pitfalls - manipulations, takedowns, and the experience machine ; The dangers of an unregulated metaverse ; Confronting the experience machine

Chapter 14. Metaverse lessons for the next 30 years ; Community creates value - not the other way around ; Accessibility isn't optional : it's fundamental ; A game first and foremost ; Collaborative, in-world creation remains the gold standard ; Time shifting and social media are essential to the metaverse ; Avatars shape culture ; Community and company must grow together

Afterword : where in the virtual world the platforms and people from this book are now.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781394155828

1394155824

OCLC:

1380467957