Video games have come a long way from their humble beginnings. What was once a niche and simplistic medium of entertainment has exploded over the past few decades into becoming one of the facilitators for some of the biggest media franchises in the world. The industry is bigger than ever and thriving so healthily – and yet it is being threatened. Video games are art, there is no arguing against that, however the commodification of the industry through the pursuit of a ‘metaverse’ is threatening the artistic integrity of the industry as a whole.
For those who are not in the know, the metaverse is a “neologism typically used to describe the concept of a future iteration of the internet, made up of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe”. While this definition is somewhat limited in its application – offering a rather narrow view of the metaverse – it is sufficient enough as a launching point to explain why so many companies are wanting to turn this concept into a reality – and why that’s a bad thing.
One of the key characteristics of the metaverse is the idea of a shared connectedness. While that may seem like a good thing initially, upon further inspection, it is much more sinister. Of course, as mentioned, the idea of the metaverse is simply that for now – an idea. It is nakedly clear that we are heading into this direction however, with the best example currently being Fortnite.
I know it’s cool to rag on Fortnite, with many claiming it to be a dead game with a child-heavy playerbase. Regardless of the (un)common consensus of the game, Fortnite is factually and objectively one of the biggest games in the world. The team at Epic Games have used this to the benefit of the game, allowing them to collaborate with major IPs and facilitating some awesome moments. One of the biggest highlights came with the Avengers crossover event allowing players to embody many of the heroes while an entire other group of people played as Thanos and his army. All of this coincided with the release of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame and helped to create a zeitgeist moment such as which many would agree had never been seen before. It helped to elevate Fortnite, the Avengers and the discourse surrounding it all to new heights. One of the primary purposes of the media is to entertain – and entertain it did.
Unfortunately, this success did not go unnoticed, and it is likely to have been the inception of the metaverse beginning to take hold within the video games industry. “So what’s the problem?“ I hear you ask – and you have a valid point! I just discussed how early concepts of the metaverse helped to create an awesome gaming moment, and so if it can do that, why wouldn’t we want more of that? As I said at the beginning, the commodification of the metaverse has already taken a stronghold and it now serves only to extract as much time and money out of people.
While some may consider this slightly extreme, I do believe that the …….