Please Stop

Yesterday, Futureverse–which calls itself “a leading AI and metaverse technology and content company”--announced the creation of a studio called Readyverse, which intends to create “The Readyverse,” a metaverse with exclusive rights to both the book and film versions of dystopic metaverse tale Ready Player One. I’ll give you a moment to scream.

The press release contains all the words you’ve come to hate: 

Readyverse Studios is building the definitive destination for fans to explore their favorite stories and IP in the metaverse, leveraging web3, metaverse games and experiences, augmented reality, and virtual reality technologies. 

Here are some more horrible words: 

Readyverse Studios is laying the groundwork to bring the promise of the open metaverse depicted in Cline's Ready Player One novel and the blockbuster film adaptation into a tangible reality; a multi-world, multi-IP, interoperable open metaverse experience for mass consumers. 

While The Readyverse will be created in partnership with film rights holder Warner Bros Discovery and Ready Player One author Ernest Cline, the press release warns, “Additional brands and franchises joining The Readyverse will be announced soon.” We’re in real “battlefield of Thundercats versus Transformers” territory here! 

While putting everything inside everything else probably appeals to the people who make money off everything or off the container for that everything, real people’s interactions with it are reduced to shouting “I recognize that!” every time something they recognize flits past their eyeballs. Ready Player One is already this. Do we need to take that a step further? 

In the press release, Cline says, “The future has arrived even more quickly than I imagined… I'm confident with this team, we have the brightest minds and biggest hearts in place to lead us into the next chapter of our collective future.” 

Lucky for all of us, so far this is just a press release and a website where you can give Readyverse your email address for eventual early access. Let’s go touch some grass before all we have left is virtual, Marvel-themed grass sponsored by corporations.