Gaming – whatleydude

‘Metaverse? What Metaverse?’

A video replay of my presentation at the recent BIMA Beyond: The Conference.

On June 29th, 2022 I was invited to speak at the BIMA Beyond Conference at Ministry of Sound, London. The talk itself, titled ‘Metaverse? What Metaverse?’ sparked a fair bit of interest (with one slide in-particular catching a fair amount of attention on LinkedIn – lol) and so, with BIMA’s permission, I’ve re-recorded the talk to camera for those that were unable to make it on the day.

If it’s at all helpful, I’ve also made the slides available on Google Slides (with additional speaker notes) so if you don’t want to watch the video, you can read along at home instead 🙂

The central premise is simple: the metaverse doesn’t exist.

The online virtual spaces that people are calling The Metaverse today are either dead and empty 3D spaces OR they’re simply video games, where hundreds of millions of players are already gaming day in, day out.

Why lean into a meaningless word when you can just do something cool in gaming instead?

‘The Metaverse doesn’t exist, you’re talking about gaming.’

This article was first published on The Drum – 17th May 2022 and is reproduced here with permission.

Depending on what you read, who you believe or what colour wool is being pulled over your eyes this week (it’s blue, it’s always blue), the metaverse could literally be any number of things, so let’s set some ground rules:

Rule 1: The metaverse does not exist. This is abundantly true. Whether you look it up on Wikipedia, read up on the dictionary definition or simply look at a briefing from Cambridge University’s Bennett Institute for Public Policy, they all say the same thing: the metaverse does not exist.

Rule 2: People that say the metaverse exists have no idea what they are talking about. Anybody that tells you they’re doing something ‘in the metaverse’ either has no idea what they’re talking about or is being willfully misleading about something cool in video games.

‘But what about Nikeland in Roblox?’ you might ask. Well, Roblox is not The Metaverse. Fortnite is not The Metaverse. Animal Crossing is not The Metaverse. Minecraft is not The Metaverse.

Mr Bean selling NFTs of his face is not the bloody metaverse.

(I wish I was making this one up)

I’ll say it again for the people at the back, the metaverse does not exist.

The things I’ve listed above are video games (well, all bar one of them). Great video games at that. With pre-existing communities of players of all ages and generational cohorts who are used to socialising, exploring and gaming together in the virtual online worlds and spaces where these games take place.

The metaverse is not a thing. Online virtual spaces where people have been hanging out to achieve things together have been around for decades. And if we just call things what they are, these things are video games.

Games.
Gaming.
Gamers.

These are not dirty words. It’s OK to say them out loud. They shouldn’t be frowned upon in the marketing dept (although metaverse should be) and in fact they should be held up and embraced. Sure, the metaverse sounds sexy and yes, I’m certain you all read about Gucci this and Balenciaga that in your Substack of choice last month, but these things are (mostly – but we’ll come back to that) just good video games partnerships.

And that’s OK.

So what if your Facebook/Instagram rep has been trying to sell you on just how much Meta are all building towards the metaverse (although how long for remains to be seen – quick, pivot to video!), just because they say tell you brands should all ‘GET READY! For! The! Metaverse!‘ it doesn’t make it real.

A 3D interconnected version of the internet where we all trade T-shirts as NFTs as seamlessly as we move around from one platform to another is about as realistic as the science-fiction movies rolled out in the opening slides of every single presentation you’ve ever seen on the topic (just add Snowcrash or Ready Player One to your next marketing conference bingo card, see what happens).

It ain’t happening this financial year, bud.
I highly doubt it’ll be in for next year either.

But hey, I tell you what. Let’s change track for a moment. Why not let’s indulge it for a second? Let’s imagine the metaverse did exist:

Are you tired of spending every waking hour on Zoom/Teams/Google looking at real people?
Why not do the same but with virtual people!
Imagine what you’ll do there…

Yes, actually. What will you do there?

In 2005, tech founder and investor Jyri Engeström coined the term ‘social object theory’. Building on the work of sociologist Karin Knorr Cetina, Engeström came up with – and subsequently implemented (we miss you, Jaiku) – this theory as part of his explanation as to why some social media networks succeed and some fail.

Social media networks need objects. Or, as Jyri put it: ‘Social network theory fails to recognize such real-world dynamics because its notion of sociality is limited to just people.’

Simply ‘connecting people’ is not enough. For example, Engeström argued at the time that much of the success of Flickr (remember Flickr?) was because user-generated photography served as social objects around which conversations of social networks could form.

And he was right.

This perhaps goes a long way to explain the success of Instagram (and, if we had more time, would no doubt provide a decent foundational argument for the vacant pornography of trauma that you see displayed on LinkedIn every day). But we’re not here to talk about that.

The point is: when online, people need something to talk about. They need ‘object centered sociality’. If you’re gathering, then the reason you gather needs to have purpose. On Instagram, it’s that amazing photo you took at Coachella. On Facebook, it’s your nan’s birthday. In Whatsapp, it’s the memed version of your best mate’s most recent terrible opinion. Posting images, videos, links, news stories, the latest misinformation from your Next Door community… it’s all what brings us together.

Without that reason, that thing to do or discuss, hanging out online is boring – meaningless, even. At best, this manifests itself as doom scrolling. At worst, it’s the endless monotony of over-filtered BS that fundamentally has no real meaning on real life except perhaps for the people desperately trying to present a version of themselves that people might like or talk about.

Which brings us back to our make-believe friend, the metaverse. If the metaverse ever did exist in any meaningful or successful way, then at the heart of it would need to be a reason for people to come together – a reason for people to converse, socialise and to play. A social object.

Or… a video game.

The good news is video games are already here. And they’re huge!

Understanding the audience – the communities – at the heart of this brave new world is key to any brand success in the future. But this brave new world is older than I am. And if you ask any of the inhabitants if they’ve been to the metaverse, they’ll laugh you out of group chat and kick you from the Discord server before you’ve even had a chance to show your logo in the first three seconds.

My point is, the metaverse and its inhabitants are all hypothetical. Gamers and players are real. And they’re already here.

So stop being afraid of the ’G’ word, drop the metaverse-hype, and come play.

A closer look at LEGO’s plan for a kid-friendly ‘metaverse’

Last week – and in light of the Epic x Lego partnership announcement – the nice people at Adweek asked me to comment asked me for some opinion on it all.

The Epic x Lego partnership (or ‘team up’ as they wonderfully call it) is one of the most interesting things to happen in the ‘metaverse’ space to date.

Why?

First, the announcement itself sets a clear agenda for Lego’s future in digital spaces. Second, it underlines Epic’s commitment to building safer online spaces for children to interact. This can only be a good thing.

If you look at online spaces worlds where children currently interact, you’re looking at Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite. Epic already has Fortnite but Epic does not have a Roblox or a Minecraft (aka: a platform that skews younger and for imaginations and builder to run wild).

So it’s a win/win.

Epic gets its own Roblox (and a phenomenal, globally-trusted kid-friendly brand to match), and Lego gets to start building something incredible with a respected partner that they know can live (and hold) to their brand values.

The deepening of the partnership with the further announcement that Epic have received $2 billion round of funding from existing investor Sony Group Corporation – as well as KIRKBI, the family-owned holding and investment company behind The LEGO Group, is a one two punch that very much cements Epic’s longer-term ambitions.

They mean business.

Which can only be a good thing for all of us. Because if you remove the marketing hype around the metaverse (and there’s a lot – so it might take a while) and look at this announcement for what it is, I believe we’re looking at the early beginnings of what could grow into a new persistent online gaming-led social space.

One that’s child-friendly, endorsed and built with digital Lego, powered by the powerful technology and talent at Epic, and almost certainly free to play.

It’s a way off, I’m sure. But if you take the even longer view on this, and look ahead to metaverse building companies being pulled in front of the DCMS, the European Commission, or even the US Senate. …who are legislators going to listen to when it comes to the safety of our children online? Mark Zuckerberg or Lego?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

An edited down version of this commentary was originally published on Adweek, April 11th, 2022.

3D Printing THORN from Destiny

What’s that? 3D printing a gun from a video game? HOW NERDY DO YOU GET, WHATLEY?!

This is a super-nerdy post that encompasses online gaming, 3D-printing, and one awesome kick-ass summer project for one awesome kick-ass gamer.

You have been warned.

…

Still here? OK!

There’s a game I play on my PlayStation 4.

It’s called DESTINY.

It’s a team game and it is awesome to play online with friends. There was a gun in the previous version (aka ‘year one’/vanilla Destiny, we’re now into year two, The Taken King (which is awesome btw, you should get it)) that everybody hated.

It was called THORN.

It looks like this:

The weapon still exists in-game (but was nerfed for year two) and was, for most of the first year of Destiny, the bane of many a player. If you completed the epic quest to get said gun (and used it when playing other people online) you were not liked at all.

Why? It was a two hit kill, with a sniper-rifle-like rangeÂ and poison-laced bullets.

It was a horrid, horrid gun.

My friends hated it.

I hated it.

So, when you really want to say a proper cheeky but really massive thank you to someone you play with online for being an awesome Destiny gamer over the past year or so, what better gift to get them than the 3D-printed model of the gun they hate most?

This is how it happened.

I work at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising and, fortunately for me, as part of Ogilvy Group UK, we get access to the awesome people that work at Ogilvy Labs.

Ogilvy Labs just so happen to have a 3D printer.

An Ultimaker 2, to be precise.

This one, in fact.

After chasing it down in the building (things can wander) it transpired that my mate Jon just so happened to be looking after it.

‘Could you do me a favour, Jon?’

‘Sure man, send me the files and let me have a look and we’ll see.’

Fortunately, 3D print files can be found relatively easily online (why charge for something that you need a Â£2,000 machine to print in the first place, right?) and so after a short spot of Googling, I found the files on My Mini Factory (free sign up to download but if you’re REALLY lazy, I’ve saved them for you right here).

Jon reckoned he could do it but asked that I bought my own plastic. The exact type required for our machine was 3mm PLA 100m coil. Faberdashery is a pretty good website for this kinda stuff and for Â£24, it had exactly what I needed.

A few days later, we were in business.

And Jon (and his man, Lorenzo) got to work.

A few weeks later… this appeared.

This is the barrel of the gun known as THORN.

It took a few hours and the other parts, according to the experts, were definitely going to take longer. That is, if they worked out at all. The printer was used to much smaller jobs you see and they’d never put it through its paces like this before.

But the thing about Ogilvy folk, they’re a tad determined…

Two weeks later, I had a call from Jon.

‘Can you pop down, mate. I wanna show you something.’

And he did.

Amazing, right?

And HUGE.

The whole thing looked fantastic and, to top it off (and something I didn’t spot when I downloaded the files) you could put an elastic band inside so that the trigger would actually work with the hammer as a faux firing mechanism.

IMMENSE.

Eleven separate parts, two of which can move together, printed over several days and we were almost there.

OK, so maybe only halfway there.

The other thing that you need to create something like this is access to some artistic talent. Someone who could turn their hand to a project like this and be almost guaranteed outstanding results.

I happen to know that someone.

And this is what she did…

Step one: disassemble and spray paint the base layer.

Step two: reassemble and admire handy work.

Step three: apply black paint.

Step four: scratch black paint away (to get the rugged, worn away / grubby look the gun sports in-game).

Step five: Add a dash of green to the ‘eyes’ for the poison and…

YOUR GUN IS COMPLETE!

You may now sit back and admire your handy work.

TA DA!

Isn’t it gorgeous?

It made me very, very happy.

Thank you to Jon, Lorenzo, and Annabelle. You have made a gamer named Phil very, very happy indeed.

That My Mini Factory link above has this gun, fully printed and painted for $299. It cost me Â£24 and two fairly large favours [pending].

Yeah, I’d say that worked out alright.

—

If you have a PS4 and play Destiny, feel free to add me on PSN. ‘Whatleydude’ is the handle (of course) and you should definitely, definitely seek out the gaming clan ‘MidlifeGamer’ – a nicer bunch of gaming men and women I never did meet.

The Good Old Days

When I was a kid we had a thing called Video City.

My friend Roger inadvertently shared this with me.

And I like it (in a sad yet nostalgic-totally-on-point kinda way).

– via Neatorama

When I was a kid we had a thing called Video City. I remember renting things like The Never Ending Story, They Live, and Transformers: The Movie. When Blockbuster opened in my home town it was like all my Christmases had come at once; not only could you rent videos but you could get video games as well!

Weekends would never be the same again.

Bodger will remember these great days. Tony will too.

Tecmo World Wrestling for the NES.

Mortal Kombat for the MegaDrive.

The good old days.

Xbox One or PlayStation 4? [UPDATED]

This gamer has made up his mind.

[image via Tech Radar]

Back in the day, I was always a Nintendo fan. My first console was the original Nintendo Entertainment System, the NES and after that, the SNES. Then came the N64 (my first ever release day console purchase – man that thing was expensive). Many a day and night was spent Mario Karting with friends on that baby.

After that, I owned a GameCube [and came extremely close to picking up a Panasonic Q, but that’s another story]. At some point after this, I fell down some stairs and was bed-ridden for a fortnight. It was during this time that I was lent an original Xbox along with a copies of Halo and Burnout: Vengeance. I’d followed the Burnout serious on the GameCube but the Xbox sequels were immense. I could feel a change coming but it was not coming any time soon as, at some point later, the Nintendo fan in me bought a Wii.

But something was missing. Yes I had Zelda and Mario and Resident Evil 4. But I wanted more. I wanted proper online play. I wanted something in high definition. My friend Roger had just got an Xbox 360 and so now I wanted an Xbox 360 purely so she and I could play together.

Six months or so later, towards the end of 2008 my friend Josh gave me his Xbox 360. I fell in love, and all was awesome. I’ve been an Xbox-er ever since.

I have never owned a PlayStation.

But this year, I think that’s going to change.

When the Xbox One was announced back in May of this year, there was a big hoo-hah around how it would become the media centre for the front room. The TV integration, the awesome new Kinect 2.0, everything about it meant that this little baby would be the only thing we’d ever need.

Then… it ran into a little trouble.

First the machine wouldn’t let you lend games to your friends (not in the traditional sense at least) without paying for it, then it had to ‘check in’ online every 24hrs. Then, in the face of huge negative reaction, Microsoft cancelled all that, but then the Kinect would be ‘spying’ on your every move, and then Microsoft had to clarify on that too.

Even after all that PR pain, I was still leaning towards getting an Xbox One. I love my 360, and I love my Kinect too (yes, I really do use the voice activation stuff). The deal-maker for me would’ve been if Microsoft launched the One in the UK with Sky TV as a partner. I’m a Sky subscriber and having the Xbox work well with that, in the same way that it worked in the US partners, well it’d make the whole ‘TV’ thing worth it.

I’ve got friends in the gaming industry, and I know a few reviewers too. Word was leaking: the One is a pain to develop for. The PS4 is a dream. The One doesn’t have ANY media partners at launch. Whispers became louder… and then came the Eurogamer Expo.

The Eurogamer event at London’s Olympia back in September offered up a chance to play the latest games on the latest systems. Geeks among nerds, my friend Matt and I ventured forth. I played Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag (AC:IV) on the PS4 and Killer Instinct on the One. The former impressed, the latter did not.

In the pub afterwards, more PS4 rumours were afoot. A quick show of hands of the group we were chatting to proved that pretty much everyone was getting a PS4 first and then waiting to see if the One was going to improve after. But by then, it might be too late.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is the latest mega title to be released in the COD series. Due to the differences in the operating systems between the One and the PS4, the former can only run the game at 720p (the latter hitting full 1080p). Deal breaker?

For some? Definitely.
For me? Maybe.

Last night I went along to the #XboxOneTour, an invitation only event where – similarly to Eurogamer – you got to play the latest titles on newest system, but with the obvious focus on the Xbox One. I got hands on time with Dead Rising 3, Killer Instinct (again), Ryse, and Forza. They also had FIFA 14, Battlefield 4, and some Kinect stuff too but none of that interests me. I must admit, I was surprisingly impressed with Ryse as up until yesterday I thought it looked, and therefore was, rubbish.

Dead Rising 3 was fairly meh, Killer Instinct looks great, but is fundamentally still Killer Instinct at its core, and Forza? I just don’t get Forza. I left feeling quite underwhelmed (not least because the 5pm-10pm slot actually meant ‘turn up at 5pm and stand outside in the freezing cold until 5:30pm’, or because of any every day sexism – not just because of that) mainly because I just expected more.

I really wanted the Xbox One to blow me away and it didn’t. At all.

I played AC:IV for 15mins on the PS4 back in September, and that did more for me than any amount of Xbox One propaganda ever could. It’s a shame. But I’m a gamer, and therefore I want the best system for games. My gamer buddies? They’ve made their mind up. Which means I have too: if I want the best gaming experience and I want to play online where my friends are – there’s only one choice.

I fancy a change.

I’m going to the dark side.

I’m getting a PlayStation 4.

__________________________________

UPDATE: Here’s a 30min podcast where a friend and I go into a bit more detail on what consoles we’re choosing and why.

Five things on Friday #38

Things of note for the week ending September 21st

1. Genetic Portraits
Photographer Ulric Collette has been shooting a range of ‘genetic portraits’ taking two members of the same family and splicing them back together for some quite staggering results. This one above is one of my favourites, but the full set is worth a look too. It’s weird as hell, but awesome at the same time. YES!

2. Assassin’s Creed
I’m still hooked (about two hours into Brotherhood now, FYI) and now the girl is going away for a week (boo!) and I’m going to dive into AC like there’s no tomorrow (yay!) and mission it until there is literally nothing left in my sights but Revelations. Oh, and then AC:III obviously.

Why is this important? Well, it’s a nice pre-amble to this wicked little Assassin’s Creed Parkour video that was kickin’ around a while back.

Any excuse.

On that note…

3. Death by Gaming
There’s a great article over on Eurogamer about there being something in the air at game/internet cafÃ©s in Taiwan –

At 10pm the previous day Chen had taken a seat in the farthest corner of an internet cafÃ© in New Taipei City, Taiwan. He lit a cigarette and began to play League of Legends. Chen played the online game for close to 23 hours, occasionally sleeping for a short while at his monitor before picking up where he’d left off.
–
While the popular cafÃ© was half-full that night, the moment of the 23 year-old’s death passed unobserved. No one noticed the melted ice-cubes in his overflowing cup, the ghostly pallor of his cheeks, the idling of his on-screen avatar. It was only when the girl on the front desk went to inform Chen his time was up that, with a gentle nudge of the shoulder, he toppled stiffly.

And –

But I’m not really worried that something like that might ever happen here. We have a system to prevent customers from sitting in front of the computer for too long… We don’t allow any customers to play for more than three days at a time.

More.

Perhaps I’ll just play for a couple of hours after all…

4. Imagine
I’m getting back into books again (having spent most mornings these past few months reading my GReader) and my current book of choice is ‘Imagine: How Creativity Works’ by Jonah Lehrer.

The chapter I’ve just finished deals with the much-documented link between depression and creativity. A few choice quotes for you –

‘If you’re at the cutting edge, then you’re going to bleed’, – Nancy Andreasen

‘The bad post is usually unconscious where he ought be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious’, – T. S. Eliot.

And this, from the author –

‘There is nothing romantic about this kind of creativity, which consists mostly of sweat, sadness, and failure. It’s the red pen on the page and the discarded sketch, the trashed prototype and the failed first draft. It’s ruminating in the backs of taxis and popping pills until the poem is finished.’

The next chapter is about losing yourself in the moment, using Yo Yo Ma as a case study.
Love.

Get this book.

5. Kids are mental – aka the best Star Wars story you’ve never heard
I spotted this on Super Punch the other morning and then not soon after, it appeared on Kotaku – so I’m fairly sure this has been ’round the world twice already but still – it’s totally worth (re)sharing.

One guy, talking about the The Empire Strikes Back reenactments he was involved with back when he was at summer camp –

The second year I was there, we planned the best (and arguably the most dangerous) game that camp has ever seen. We wanted to do our best to re-create the Battle of Hoth, in The Empire Strikes Back. We built plywood AT-AT shells with handles on the inside and a slot cut in the front, that two guys could get in. We tied ropes to bicycles and milk crates to the ropes to make snowspeeders with the tether cannons, just like in the movie. We even got stilts to re-create the AT-STs…

Read it all.

It’s amazing.

—

Bonuses this week; Fast Company says that ‘Experimentation is the new Planning‘, iO9 has found a quite frankly awesome set of Heath Ledger / Joker promo photos that were never used; and on this week’s episode of The Voicemail Stefan and I have a proper good moan about exactly how bad the maps are on iOS6.

Whatley out.

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