News
Oculus was the most downloaded app this Christmas — Quartz
Along with being the third highest selling game platform in 2021 the Oculus app, used to manage content on the VR headset, became number one in the U.S. Apple App Store on Christmas day. It was within the top five in more than ten other countries, indicating that the headset was a popular gift last year.
Why Unity scooped up Weta Digital’s 3D tools for $1.6B
Unity remains one of the few competitors for Epic Games' Unreal Engine, and had been building and acquiring told that expand its use into creating effects for movies. Buying the tools division of one of the world's best digital effects companies is Unity's continued growth being their indie games engine origins.
Reading
Are consumers aware of policies that protect online privacy?
"How would our law’s interpretations of privacy change if our devices could be viewed as a part of our minds?" This article introduces The Extended Mind, a theory examining the relationship between our minds and how we organize our lives to extend our memory into the outside world. This is worth read and understanding as this theory applies to how we will engage with the Metaverse and placing pieces of ourselves across multiple digital worlds.
How is the metaverse developing in APAC?
APAC (aka Asia-Pacific) does not get much focus in the US when it comes to the Metaverse, so coming across well researched statistics and commentary is wonderful when it happens. The stats and figures here are worth keeping in mind when talking about the Metaverse and its place in culture from a global perspective.
What the metaverse will (and won’t) be, according to 28 experts
Even though Metaverse is being used to describe emerging virtual worlds it is still being defined by the people helping to bring it to life. So this article asking 28 experts to share what they see the Metaverse including (and also excluding) shares some insights that we hadn't considered when we were thinking of what the future holds.
One More Thing
HalfDive -World's First VR system optimized for use in bed- by Diver-X — Kickstarter
Anime fans can spot the influence by the name of this Kickstarter (see Sword Art Online). VR that you experience lying down opens the possibilities for lessening fatigue and allowing people with limited mobility access to the Metaverse.
Commentary
Welcome to the first issue of 2022, and are we excited. You may have noticed that you're receiving this on a Tuesday instead of a Monday and that is not by accident. We've decided to switch things up a bit in the new year and are trying out a new publishing day. If this changes again we'll be sure to give advance notice so you don't miss out the links you have been waiting all week to see.
Last year's shakeups in the VR space have pushed the technology from being a few years away from adoption reaching a sustainable mainstream audience. We feel that going forward if anyone is not convinced that VR has very good adoption across the world we just have to remind them that the Oculus Quest 2 is outselling the next generation Xbox console. One of the top three most popular gaming platforms has a smaller user base than Meta's VR headset.
Let that sink in a bit. It's truly something we did not expect for a while but it has already happened. We are living in the early days of the Metaverse.
Thank you for reading and subscribing, and we'll see you next week!
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