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On a side note, in Ben Thompson's Stratechery interview with the CEO of Unity this week, the Unity CEO used the term "Web 3" multiple times, but he was referrin

On a side note, in Ben Thompson's Stratechery interview with the CEO of Unity this week, the Unity CEO used the term "Web 3" multiple times, but he was referring to a 3D/XR-enabled web rather than developments related to crypto. And I'm sure there will be many more takes to come on what the next version of the web will be. https://stratechery.com/2021/unity-buys-weta-digital-an-interview-with-unity-ceo-john-riccitiello/ https://stratechery.com/2021/unity-buys-weta-digital-an-inte...

k__ 5y ago
I heard people claiming web3 since web2 was coined. Semantic web, 3D web, and whatnot.
nkellenicki 5y ago
I find it similar to the two currently in-vogue uses of the world "Metaverse" - you've got the crypto/web3 people using it to describe a world where NFT's are usable and recognised across software (ie. Armor you buy in Call of Duty is useable in Battlefield), and Facebook/Meta, trying to build a social VR environment not entirely unlike the vision of Ready Player One. It's entirely probably they'll merge at some point if they haven't already.
- babyshake 5y ago
  Where better to utilize NFTs (digital art, mainly) than virtual and augmented reality?
- simonw 5y ago
  This idea, "Armor you buy in Call of Duty is useable in Battlefield", to me illustrates so much that is frothy and unrealistic about this space. Think about what it would actually take to implement such a thing: - Call of Duty and Battlefield - rival games from rival companies - would need to agree to an integration at a VERY deep level - They would have to share the same asset formats, such that an asset designed for one game could be used in another - Issues of balance would have to be resolved: just sharing 3D models wouldn't be enough, they would need to agree on a system for modelling damage, armour piercing capabilities, visual effects... - Then they would have to add blockchain integration deep enough that weapons a player obtains in the game are represented in a way that the other games can see. - ... not to mention figure out some kind of exchange rate / add some kind of additional economy to their games, which would need to be shared across different games such that e.g. a pistol in Battlefield wasn't worth the same as a machine gun in Call of Duty That's just off the top of my head. And... they're supposed to be games! Game design is about balance - creating a set of rules that players enjoy. Allowing some cryptocurrency-billionaire to jump into any game they like with the best possible guns and armour doesn't sound any fun at all. Pretty much every idea I see coming out of this space has the same problem: it sounds plausible in a high-level hand-wavy, but collapses the moment you start to dig into the details of how it would work. (My absolute favourite bad idea is still real estate on the blockchain, where presumably if I forget my password I can no longer sell my house)
  - zenlikethat 5y ago
    I don't really think of that proposed use case the way you are presenting it there -- I think of it more as, there will be a massive public cache of items, available to buy and sell on a neutral marketplace like OpenSea, which only one user can hold at a time, that game developers can bring in-game if they so choose. The implementation details would be unique to each game, and driven by demand of the NFT holders, so maybe some would be better in one game than in another. And I'm not some NFT zealot by the way. I just think the way you're presenting that use case is quite a strawman. You're saying the companies have to agree to a bunch of stuff, but they don't, and that's the whole potential imo -- each can pick and choose how and if they want to bring a given NFT in-game. Walking through your points -- - Rival companies have to agree to integration at a deep level -- they both have to independently decide to support a given NFT type, yes, but they don't have to agree with each other about how it's integrated. For instance, one might allow you to don your armor purely for aesthetics, whereas the other might add some performance advantage for owning it. - They have to share asset formats -- not true -- the original NFT might point to some image, but each game could simply verify token ownership, and have their own assets representing it. Loot, for instance, is just text on a background. There's a lot of room for creativity in interpreting how those text descriptions might be implemented. - Issues of balance have to be shared -- not true -- because each game could balance and implement the item the way they choose. And again, the base case could be a pure aesthetic implementation. - They have to add deep blockchain integration -- I don't follow your point there -- they certainly would have to call the chain to verify NFT ownership, but again, they don't have to agree how to represent the items. - Exchange rate -- isn't that the point of a public market like OpenSea? The market is already there, bidding and offering every day. - Billionaires paying to win -- who's to say some games wouldn't invert what you'd expect so that common NFTs can actually keep up alongside rares, or even have advantages over them? Maybe in pitting a mob of commons against the rares, for instance. Again, this introduces more possible choice for players -- if some company today breaks their game mechanics to favor pay to win, you don't have a way to move your existing investment in that game anywhere else. Whereas if frustration grows with some popular NFT game, a competitor could come along with better balance and eat their lunch.
    - 5y ago
- TacticalCoder 5y ago
  > ... currently in-vogue Around 2014 I looked, out of curiosity, into Ethereum and its EVM before Ethereum came out. Back then I even ran a node on... a Raspberry Pi (!). If I remember correctly even in 2014/2015, the official Ethereum client/node, written in Go, called "geth", was already using the term "web3" everywhere. I'm not saying it's good or bad that people are using that term but all I'm saying is Ethereum using the term "web3" predates the "Metaverse" announcement by at least seven years IIRC. It may be "en vogue" now but credit where it's due: Ethereum was using that term a long time ago already.
wpietri 5y ago
I'll note that the "Semantic Web" was the first contender for being "Web 3": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web So as far as I'm concerned the name is perfect, in that it stands for hype and hazy thinkfluencing that is trying to puff itself up into looking like foundational change.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  I'm going to record that in the blockchain to remind posterity that puffery is not the antithesis of what has already been released.
  - outside1234 5y ago
    Let us know when it is done processing 15 hours and one rainforest from now.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      I seem to have run out of disk space during the initial configuration of downloading the blockchain. Oh well.

k__ 5y ago

I heard people claiming web3 since web2 was coined. Semantic web, 3D web, and whatnot.

nkellenicki 5y ago

I find it similar to the two currently in-vogue uses of the world "Metaverse" - you've got the crypto/web3 people using it to describe a world where NFT's are usable and recognised across software (ie. Armor you buy in Call of Duty is useable in Battlefield), and Facebook/Meta, trying to build a social VR environment not entirely unlike the vision of Ready Player One. It's entirely probably they'll merge at some point if they haven't already.

babyshake 5y ago
Where better to utilize NFTs (digital art, mainly) than virtual and augmented reality?
simonw 5y ago
This idea, "Armor you buy in Call of Duty is useable in Battlefield", to me illustrates so much that is frothy and unrealistic about this space. Think about what it would actually take to implement such a thing: - Call of Duty and Battlefield - rival games from rival companies - would need to agree to an integration at a VERY deep level - They would have to share the same asset formats, such that an asset designed for one game could be used in another - Issues of balance would have to be resolved: just sharing 3D models wouldn't be enough, they would need to agree on a system for modelling damage, armour piercing capabilities, visual effects... - Then they would have to add blockchain integration deep enough that weapons a player obtains in the game are represented in a way that the other games can see. - ... not to mention figure out some kind of exchange rate / add some kind of additional economy to their games, which would need to be shared across different games such that e.g. a pistol in Battlefield wasn't worth the same as a machine gun in Call of Duty That's just off the top of my head. And... they're supposed to be games! Game design is about balance - creating a set of rules that players enjoy. Allowing some cryptocurrency-billionaire to jump into any game they like with the best possible guns and armour doesn't sound any fun at all. Pretty much every idea I see coming out of this space has the same problem: it sounds plausible in a high-level hand-wavy, but collapses the moment you start to dig into the details of how it would work. (My absolute favourite bad idea is still real estate on the blockchain, where presumably if I forget my password I can no longer sell my house)
- zenlikethat 5y ago
  I don't really think of that proposed use case the way you are presenting it there -- I think of it more as, there will be a massive public cache of items, available to buy and sell on a neutral marketplace like OpenSea, which only one user can hold at a time, that game developers can bring in-game if they so choose. The implementation details would be unique to each game, and driven by demand of the NFT holders, so maybe some would be better in one game than in another. And I'm not some NFT zealot by the way. I just think the way you're presenting that use case is quite a strawman. You're saying the companies have to agree to a bunch of stuff, but they don't, and that's the whole potential imo -- each can pick and choose how and if they want to bring a given NFT in-game. Walking through your points -- - Rival companies have to agree to integration at a deep level -- they both have to independently decide to support a given NFT type, yes, but they don't have to agree with each other about how it's integrated. For instance, one might allow you to don your armor purely for aesthetics, whereas the other might add some performance advantage for owning it. - They have to share asset formats -- not true -- the original NFT might point to some image, but each game could simply verify token ownership, and have their own assets representing it. Loot, for instance, is just text on a background. There's a lot of room for creativity in interpreting how those text descriptions might be implemented. - Issues of balance have to be shared -- not true -- because each game could balance and implement the item the way they choose. And again, the base case could be a pure aesthetic implementation. - They have to add deep blockchain integration -- I don't follow your point there -- they certainly would have to call the chain to verify NFT ownership, but again, they don't have to agree how to represent the items. - Exchange rate -- isn't that the point of a public market like OpenSea? The market is already there, bidding and offering every day. - Billionaires paying to win -- who's to say some games wouldn't invert what you'd expect so that common NFTs can actually keep up alongside rares, or even have advantages over them? Maybe in pitting a mob of commons against the rares, for instance. Again, this introduces more possible choice for players -- if some company today breaks their game mechanics to favor pay to win, you don't have a way to move your existing investment in that game anywhere else. Whereas if frustration grows with some popular NFT game, a competitor could come along with better balance and eat their lunch.
  - 5y ago
TacticalCoder 5y ago
> ... currently in-vogue Around 2014 I looked, out of curiosity, into Ethereum and its EVM before Ethereum came out. Back then I even ran a node on... a Raspberry Pi (!). If I remember correctly even in 2014/2015, the official Ethereum client/node, written in Go, called "geth", was already using the term "web3" everywhere. I'm not saying it's good or bad that people are using that term but all I'm saying is Ethereum using the term "web3" predates the "Metaverse" announcement by at least seven years IIRC. It may be "en vogue" now but credit where it's due: Ethereum was using that term a long time ago already.

wpietri 5y ago

I'll note that the "Semantic Web" was the first contender for being "Web 3": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web So as far as I'm concerned the name is perfect, in that it stands for hype and hazy thinkfluencing that is trying to puff itself up into looking like foundational change.

IncRnd 5y ago
I'm going to record that in the blockchain to remind posterity that puffery is not the antithesis of what has already been released.
- outside1234 5y ago
  Let us know when it is done processing 15 hours and one rainforest from now.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    I seem to have run out of disk space during the initial configuration of downloading the blockchain. Oh well.