Welcome to a week of exclusives, mayhem and wild gameplay as BYTE CITY joins the METACRUN.CH family for one week only. I’ve been in love with BYTE CITY for a while now and I’m so happy to share a brand new way of meeting friends and playing games in a futuristic world of adrenaline-fuelled fun!
Coursework
The Hundreds, everyone's fave cult fashion brand is opening its Metaverse shop. Nestled inside some.place–better known for Brie Larson's personal gallery and NFT platform—it’s a twin of its store in El Ay but with added exclusives, NFT drops and more. I'm not going to be really salty about this, but it probably seems like I might be—because this looks like a school project. If some.place handles brands and labels like this in the metaverse, I’m off to Decentraland because they’re doing a really pedestrian Pride event. I liked it when Avakin Life did theirs, but now everyone is getting in on the game and still no one is doing anything to improve user numbers (it’s certainly not MVFW and it’s not this either) So come on guys and girls of The Hundreds—why don’t you go some place where the people are?
The Theme for Great Cities
Fuzimiao. Ming Palace. The Porcelain Tower and the Jiangsu Art Museum. There are so many things that Nanjing is famous for. And now: the metaverse; for it has been declared that Nanjing—the capital city of China's Eastern Jiangsu Province—has thrown its hat into the ring by inaugurating their China Metaverse technology and application innovation platform and their strategy to bring metaverse research and development across the country. Academic institutions and enterprises will create, collaborate and imagine the future in carefully developed workspaces. Other Chinese cities are participating in this “competition” and I can think of one good reason why this is the best thing that could happen to China. As you’re reading this I can hear you nodding loudly. You know. I’m here for Sister Milk Tea.
Send Me the Memo
Improbable has launched something called the “Metaverse society”: it’s a think tank. It’s a think tank that I didn’t get invited to. I’m okay about it. Because this think tank is a result of “refocus” of the business which is trying really hard to do infrastructure as a service since cancelling their military and gaming project(s). Listen, Improbable are ok. But since everybody's trying to kill the metaverse, it seems like a really interesting time to explore what the possibilities are of creating a think tank that's focused on blockchain tech and Metaverse and all that kind of good stuff. Again, I wasn't invited—but I get it, it’s a sales pitch—doubling down on the metaverse by creating a think tank is the same as taking out a full-page in MCV/Develop (Metacrun.ch is available) to advertise your services. They want to “accelerate their path to profitability.” So that’s how you say think tank.
Dr Meh
Another week, another absolutely weird brand activation in The Sandbox. This week comes from the BBC and Doctor bloody Who or Top bloody Gear, who cares, it’s this week’s story. Together they are teaming up to do some interactive, immersive content. Listen, guys, we've gotta get down to what the brass tacks of these activations actually are so I’ll be the first to ask: where are the users? What is the point of doing this stuff without them? If you're just going to create an expensive press release, it really is getting pretty tiring. No wonder everyone's moving away from metaverse because it's totally pointless to just go *Oh, yeah, we're doing this brand activation*, and then a few months later, it disappears without a trace.
OMGOMGOMG It's a Space Mission
Finally, some good news. Space Launch Delta 45 is going to use the metaverse to create a simulation twin, which is brilliant. They're doing it at Cape Canaveral. Yay! They're creating a digital 3D Metaverse, merging virtual and physical worlds to create an actual digital twin of takeoff. Wooo! I'm so excited that this demonstration—which has been funded by Space Force, the spaceport Integration Office—is going to simulate launches using real world telemetry data from commercial rockets and high resolution satellite imagery from Maxar at Cape Canaveral, they're using Cesium visualisation, and Unreal Engine (I don’t know which ones, I’m guessing 5) and… Nvidia's Omniverse collaboration platform. Jensen Huang be praised! Finally, we can be a part of something we can understand, that will inspire people to want to travel into space. That's what the metaverse should be doing. It's not about showing off your latest flex or whether you can do some nonsense brand activation of Doctor Who. These guys and girls are not scared to take risks.
That’s enough metaverse for this week. Or is it? We’re so giddy (like goats) to welcome BYTE CITY to the family this week. We will be doing some awesome collabs—so why not stick around? Keep an eye out and even participate!
Also, if you’re even more in the mood—I’ve just recorded my latest Metacrun.ch meets with Jean-Philippe M.L Schepens co-founder and CEO of AxonJay. Want to know more? Head over to our Metacrun.ch Meets section of the Metacrun.ch website now! Feeling FOMO about our BYTE CITY collab? Get in touch to find out how you can feature your business in our massively subscribed newsletter.
