Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
about
Category: Making the Metaverse
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Adam Frisby, CEO of metaverse platform creator Sine Wave Entertainment, has been developing with the Unity 3D engine since 2006. So in the wake of former CEO John Riccitiello's self-defenestration from the company earlier this week, he's one of the best qualified people to explain what the company needs to do, to build back its…
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There's been lots of interesting conversation over my post last week criticizing Meta's ultra-real human IRL avatars, and why they're not actually wanted in metaverse platforms — with many VR enthusiasts telling me I'm wrong because of, well, reasons. I even got into a back and forth with someone from Meta on social media, who…
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I wrote this last month after taking the temperature of various Unity insiders: I would not even be surprised if Unity CEO John Riccitiello, who pushed for the price increase – after basically promising not to do it a few years ago – is forced to step down. If anything, the surprise is today's news did not…
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Resonite is a new free-to-play metaverse platform launching on Steam today, and it has a fairly wild history. It's lead developed by Frooxius, who up until very recently, was lead developer of Neos, another platform with extremely impressive features and content. But after reports that there was a sharp disagreement about integrating cryptocurrency into Neos,…
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Chart via Metaversed Contrary to common Internet wisdom, the Metaverse not only refuses to die, but keeps steadfastly growing in the only place that ultimately matters — monthly active users: There are now over 600m monthly active users! That's the major headline from our newly published Q4 2023 Metaverse Universe report, tracking virtual world…
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Infographic via Game Discover Hard news from Tim Sweeney at Epic: As we shared earlier, we are laying off around 16% of Epic employees… For a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators. I had…
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Interesting new Linden Lab job listing which strongly suggests the company is adding more web functionality to the OG metaverse platform: We’re looking for a Web Engineering Intern to make a significant impact on our virtual world platform, which has been at the forefront of innovation for almost two decades. We are seeking a highly motivated…
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Above: Adam Frisby in the Unity-based Breakroom (with Philip Rosedale) In case you missed it, after a couple weeks of volcanic pushback against a price increase announcement, Unity on Friday published details amending that quite a bit: Now, users on the Unity Personal subscription plan will not be charged the new fee, and Unity will…
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Pictured: Intrance and LAGurlz, creators of the hit Roblox experience Starving Artist As Roblox reaches upwards of 300 million monthly active users and continues expanding its feature set, one common reaction is basically: Wait, isn't that just a game platform for kids with blocky, LEGO-like avatars? Yes… and very much no. As I explain in…
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If you or your kid played Fortnite between January 2017 and September 2022, you may be eligible to get a refund from a $520 million settlement between Epic and the Federal Trade Commission for bending online privacy laws protecting minors and getting those minors to buy in-game items from gacha-style* loot boxes. Go here to…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 