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How VR launches took money and ran to metaverse

Engadget first connected with Reid in 2016, when a UK founder named Improbable organized an internal conference. and the MetaWorld prototype display Spatial OS, start server technology. Reid was one of several developers using the public SDK, and the Impossible MetaWorld concept created a useful demonstration to promote an “open public platform.”

Once he set up that model, Improbable stopped promoting or mentioning MetaWorld altogether. By 2017, questions were being raised about Reid’s ability to fulfill his aspirations, which include avatar systems, a living world as large as the state of Maryland, real wealth, natural simulations and the potential for diversity. of VR headphones.

Reid began Indiegogo campaign in April 2017, a move that prompted former MetaWorld businessman and graphic designer Carelton DiLeo to resign from the project. DiLeo added that “currently he is not working for MetaWorld” and does not know how Reid planned to “fulfill the fund’s promise.”

The Indiegogo campaign was not successful, eventually raising $ 3,674 of the $ 50,000 adjustable goal, meaning Reid had to keep all the money he had promised. This was followed by a new way of managing money: considering land. In September 2017, The road to VR he also said that Reid is selling real estate with real money, and detailed the many questions surrounding the project. The land was available for sale in three installments, ranging from $ 15 per quarter per acre to $ 100 per acre, although it is not known what players will do with the site, how the economy will prosper or how people who have not bought the land will. join the game.

MetaWorld was listed on Steam as the theme of Early Access in 2017, promoting innovative and transparent, public-driven development. There were no real games to play, no world to explore, but Reid was selling the site to MetaWorld regardless. Get started September 28, 2017, a blog post in the MetaWorld Steam group stated that site titles are being sent to depositors, with the help of cryptocurrency Reid created a MetaCoin.

In its September 2017 issue, The road to VR concluded, “MetaWorld is moving to Early Access, which backslide to be a bit of a hassle, but the inconsistency of information about the mechanics and systems of the game should cause you to worry about the stability of the MMO that has not yet been released.”

By the beginning of 2018, Reid claimed that it had been selling cryptocurrencies for several years to make MetaWorld assets, using start-up capital to build a MetaCoin wallet. He said he was not making any money in the process, and all of the money coming into MetaWorld was converted into a cryptocurrency and stored in a single location called Metabank, where directly invested in this new asset.

The 2016 MetaWorld prototype Engadget met.

MetaWorld

Reid told Engadget in 2018, “We are a humanitarian group. That’s why we’ve been doing this, taking money and turning it into a cryptocurrency, and making a fortune.”

About a year after saying this, Reid dropped his last message in the original MetaWorld Discord and disappeared from the server.

A few weeks after Reid quietly left, user Immortal posted at the reception desk, “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anything about this game and it’s been a long time since my money has been well received. Does anyone know anything about this release or is this one of them?” things that did not happen? “

“I do not expect anything to happen,” user Myrothas replied. “He asked for a refund last year and many times. All I heard was: send me a letter. I did this several times and I did not respond. The red flag to me.”

Myrothas, real name Johannes Fischer, shared with Engadget an email exchange for 2018 where he requested a refund through the MetaWorld support system. “I supported the project about a year ago and I hope it will be out soon,” he wrote in an email. I want to ask for a refund. He allegedly never received his money.

Engadget interviewed Reid twice in 2018. In this interview, Reid explained how paying customers build MetaWorld only, and how cryptocurrency can make the whole thing work like a decentralized, libertarian dreamscape. With the players responsible for making money and developing MetaWorld themselves, it was hard to know what Reid was selling.

A year after the launch of its mass media campaign, Reid said he had MetaWorld’s “Unity-created design”, and plans to transfer this to the Spatial OS ecosystem – though Iprobable, the parent company Spatial OS, did not. t support the project. He also said that he created a VR generator and a solid avatar machine with “head tracking, eyes, blinking, eye contact, lip alignment, top-down support,” although this has not been demonstrated.

Many of Reid’s goals have not been realized. The MetaWorld release date was repeated over and over again, until finally the Steam page just read, “Soon.” Reid showed the most reliable sites on YouTube and Discord, and later revealed that MetaWorld would be a Google Blocks project, which makes those things impossible. MetaWorld did not exist.

“We had a lot of broken promises when we first started, which was a very good flag,” the first parent told Engadget anonymously. We will call them Morgan. “And the locals were quick to do the show.”

Engadget spoke with 11 fundraisers at MetaWorld, including people who were most affected by the community and often contacted Reid directly. Many of these members requested anonymity, assuming Reid had their information and did not trust him that he was not abusing it.

MetaWorld Discord
Users are enjoying the first Discord server in 2020. (Grow)

MetaWorld / Discord

After months of early misses and absurd promises, MetaWorld members found Reid using images from the 3D TurboSquid model page to sell real estate and sports items, and said they had changed the details of the engine and development process. . As people can request a return on Discord’s original server, Reid calls them a troll and deletes their messages.

At the time, when MetaWorld members were asking for a refund, Reid told Engadget that he was “in the process of making a good return” and wanted to honor the request, but it was difficult to do so without further ado. development. Not that Reid planned to do a lot of development on his own – as he described it, he was a creator, a young man with a vision. According to its plan, the community is able to create real content and create games, by purchasing their access to MetaWorld.

“It was during that time that we learned that users would also be responsible for making things,” Morgan said. “Property in any category from house to animal … but we will also be responsible for creating jobs, and doing said jobs to earn money on the blockchain.”

In addition, Reid told Engadget that he was planning to reintroduce the work that is currently being done in billions of companies such as Facebook, IBM and Google. He also said that the agencies have already built the VR world, avatar systems and AI systems, and said they will only use this to create MetaWorld. He seemed indifferent to the principles of philosophy and trade secrets.

“In my opinion, all the writing is done and documented,” Reid said. A few minutes later, he continued, “The script that drives the creative genius – Watson, or just name your AI number – exists, doesn’t it? Then I can play with the mind, when the codes were already written, right? You know what I mean? “And I’m thinking of understanding the code – I also write the code. But instead of just worrying about writing, I like to dream and just understand how things work.”

In the end, Reid was selling the original idea Roblox, in VR and adults. But first, he was asking the players to build the game and pay him for the opportunity. Other than that, he said, creating MetaWorld was an easy step.

“These things are like, it’s not rocket science,” he said. “It’s very straightforward to throw a few things around and make a few simulations, a few VR experiments and integrate them. It’s not a difficult part, like making some VR games.”

The well-known 2016 show, which was built before DiLeo was released, is the only public evidence that Reid’s MetaWorld existed as a place where people could not live. DiLeo went on to create his own test site using Spatial OS, and he sold in October 2018 at Somnium Space, which is an established, stable VR blockchain-powered platform. As part of the partnership, Somnium Space provided refunds and exchanges to MetaWorld’s outraged customers, in an effort to reaffirm their confidence in the overall development of VR.

In October 2021, two years after Reid’s final message in the old Discord, a new MetaWorld server appeared. It had a new logo, affiliated with its Clubhouse team, as well as the same words as before. The “passport” method is linked to a page where people can pay $ 10, $ 20 or $ 30 to “gain public access,” the opportunity to build MetaWorld, as well as the initial call for future NFT releases.

At the time of publication, MetaWorld NFTs have raised 5,126 MATICs (approximately $ 11,000) since its inception on November 25th.

MetaWorld NFT sampling
List of MetaWorld NFTs.

MetaWorld / Niftykit

Reid now sells properties and properties like NFTs on the Polygon network, and people are buying. The venue starts from $ 50 to $ 600, which is paid for by Polygon’s MATIC, while “Piano House” costs $ 650 and appears to be available for a fee only. The MetaWorld website states that only 10 of these houses are designed and compared.

“A lot of fun, creative ideas and a passion for the future,” Discord user Clare Bratina wrote on the new MetaWorld server on November 25th. “I support the creators and look forward to learning how to create metaverse and metaworld.”

From time to time in a new server, a member randomly sends spam along the way with warnings that MetaWorld is fraudulent, and Reid refuses and removes the messages. As in ancient times.

There is one new, unexpected aspect of the revised MetaWorld campaign: Reid, who is black, is targeting people of color.


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