4 ms·

Ready Player One – what Oculus + FB will look like?

31 points by malanj 13y ago

toast76 13y ago
This is one of the first things I thought of when I heard the announcement, but not in a good way.
- malanj 13y ago
  Yes - even for a mostly teenager aimed book, I found the dystopian future a bit jarring.
- r00fus 13y ago
  Exactly, just as if IOL bought out the Oasis headgear rights well before the Oasis really launched. Zuck is pretty much the antithesis of the James Haliday character from the book.
drawkbox 13y ago
Great book, Warner Bros. owns the rights, expect it any summer now.
- hrkristian 13y ago
  It actually is in development already.
archenemy 13y ago
I read it last week. While I enjoyed it, at times it seemed almost like a Da Vinci Code of teenage scifi, and sported an enormous namedrop of culture pop memes for advancing the plot...
- treerock 13y ago
  I liked all the 80s movie and video game stuff in the book. Though I think most of it would have been like ancient history, rather than pop culture, to the teenage readers the book is aimed at.
- DanAndersen 13y ago
  I found the weakest parts of the book to be the endless nerd pop culture references. The parts that dealt with the consequences of VR, identity, and withdrawal from society were great, but it felt like it was all wrapped in a self-conscious veneer of "hey, you recognize this nerd reference, right?" as if the author felt that the ideas couldn't stand on their own.
thinkofnothing 13y ago
Highly doubtful, unless you're sarcastically implying that FB's implementation will end up as a Disney-esque world that's obsessed about a generation long past and of little relevance 60 years in the future. If so, you might be onto something. Ready Player One was a fun read but ultimately a Willy Wonka type of story - impractical and its explanations of the actual VR implementation were questionable at best (or omitted entirely? I don't remember exactly, since my only impression at the time was that it was trivial). For better ideas on how a virtual world could work, including reasonable hard science to back up claims, read Snow Crash (Stephenson), True Names (Vinge), or Rainbow's End (Vinge) instead. After that, you will quickly realize why many VR purists absolutely detest Oculus's acquisition. As a side note, I distinctly remember Oculus PR in the past claiming they were "building the Metaverse" a la Snow Crash, but I guess they quickly jumped ship to Ready Player One's image instead. Makes sense, seeing as how spoiler alert the fictional monopoly that develops optical hardware in Snow Crash ends up completely corrupt and a perfect example of Schumpeter's classic theories on economics and innovation. I guess Oculus pictures their future selves to be enlightened, benevolent multibillionaires like Og in Ready Player One. Unfortunately, with FB in the mix and the choices Oculus has made, seems like Stephenson's vision is much much more relevant.
- digitalengineer 13y ago
  Think of education. Right now there is a great demand for video-courses. We have people looking at medium res video's and teatchers explaning and answering questions via email or skyper-sessions. Should 3D work as in Ready Player One (loved the book), why not sign in online in a 3D classroom? Or login to a pre-recorded 3D session? Make notes, highlight
  - aaron695 13y ago
    > We have people looking at medium res video Given we can't even afford high res video wouldn't 3D be meaningless :) It's not a 3D problem, it a lot of other things problem. Cost of teachers, creating environments that give automated re-enforcement. Making students actually learn / turn up. Fiction often glosses over this bit. Ready Player One was really about kick ass AI / bandwidth needed to make the environments work. Computer games are already at graphic limits. It's just taking to many people to create their environments. There was an example article on HN this week. Can't find link.
viraptor 13y ago
While we're at comparing to books, if FB tries to join Oculus with "social", I'd probably go with the castle basement from Walking on Glass: [giant field of people with their heads in ceiling holes / helmets] "Each of these people is inside the head of a human being from the past [...] these have chosen to live out what time they have left as parasites, in the minds of others in forgotten times. They experience what others have experienced, they even have the illusion of altering the past, so that they seem to exercise free will, and apparently influence what their hosts do. It is to delay death, to turn to something like a drug, to turn away from reality, to refuse to face one's own defeat. I have heard it said that this is better than nothing, but... [...] Well, the castle feeds all the people you see, at any rate. They're eased out of the head-hole and given a bowl to sup from; they sit there with empty eyes, as though asleep, drink or sup, then like zombies go back to their own little world again. Their wastes are taken away in the same trains."
trimtab 13y ago
Only in this version, the corporation behind the evil "Sixers" buys the OASIS before it ever launches corrupting the VR world to their corporate ends. Or at least, that's what a lot of the commenters on HN, Reddit, etc. appear to believe.

31 points by malanj 13y ago

toast76 13y ago

This is one of the first things I thought of when I heard the announcement, but not in a good way.

malanj 13y ago
Yes - even for a mostly teenager aimed book, I found the dystopian future a bit jarring.
r00fus 13y ago
Exactly, just as if IOL bought out the Oasis headgear rights well before the Oasis really launched. Zuck is pretty much the antithesis of the James Haliday character from the book.

drawkbox 13y ago

Great book, Warner Bros. owns the rights, expect it any summer now.

hrkristian 13y ago
It actually is in development already.

archenemy 13y ago

I read it last week. While I enjoyed it, at times it seemed almost like a Da Vinci Code of teenage scifi, and sported an enormous namedrop of culture pop memes for advancing the plot...

treerock 13y ago
I liked all the 80s movie and video game stuff in the book. Though I think most of it would have been like ancient history, rather than pop culture, to the teenage readers the book is aimed at.
DanAndersen 13y ago
I found the weakest parts of the book to be the endless nerd pop culture references. The parts that dealt with the consequences of VR, identity, and withdrawal from society were great, but it felt like it was all wrapped in a self-conscious veneer of "hey, you recognize this nerd reference, right?" as if the author felt that the ideas couldn't stand on their own.

thinkofnothing 13y ago

Highly doubtful, unless you're sarcastically implying that FB's implementation will end up as a Disney-esque world that's obsessed about a generation long past and of little relevance 60 years in the future. If so, you might be onto something. Ready Player One was a fun read but ultimately a Willy Wonka type of story - impractical and its explanations of the actual VR implementation were questionable at best (or omitted entirely? I don't remember exactly, since my only impression at the time was that it was trivial). For better ideas on how a virtual world could work, including reasonable hard science to back up claims, read Snow Crash (Stephenson), True Names (Vinge), or Rainbow's End (Vinge) instead. After that, you will quickly realize why many VR purists absolutely detest Oculus's acquisition. As a side note, I distinctly remember Oculus PR in the past claiming they were "building the Metaverse" a la Snow Crash, but I guess they quickly jumped ship to Ready Player One's image instead. Makes sense, seeing as how spoiler alert the fictional monopoly that develops optical hardware in Snow Crash ends up completely corrupt and a perfect example of Schumpeter's classic theories on economics and innovation. I guess Oculus pictures their future selves to be enlightened, benevolent multibillionaires like Og in Ready Player One. Unfortunately, with FB in the mix and the choices Oculus has made, seems like Stephenson's vision is much much more relevant.

digitalengineer 13y ago
Think of education. Right now there is a great demand for video-courses. We have people looking at medium res video's and teatchers explaning and answering questions via email or skyper-sessions. Should 3D work as in Ready Player One (loved the book), why not sign in online in a 3D classroom? Or login to a pre-recorded 3D session? Make notes, highlight
- aaron695 13y ago
  > We have people looking at medium res video Given we can't even afford high res video wouldn't 3D be meaningless :) It's not a 3D problem, it a lot of other things problem. Cost of teachers, creating environments that give automated re-enforcement. Making students actually learn / turn up. Fiction often glosses over this bit. Ready Player One was really about kick ass AI / bandwidth needed to make the environments work. Computer games are already at graphic limits. It's just taking to many people to create their environments. There was an example article on HN this week. Can't find link.

viraptor 13y ago

While we're at comparing to books, if FB tries to join Oculus with "social", I'd probably go with the castle basement from Walking on Glass: [giant field of people with their heads in ceiling holes / helmets] "Each of these people is inside the head of a human being from the past [...] these have chosen to live out what time they have left as parasites, in the minds of others in forgotten times. They experience what others have experienced, they even have the illusion of altering the past, so that they seem to exercise free will, and apparently influence what their hosts do. It is to delay death, to turn to something like a drug, to turn away from reality, to refuse to face one's own defeat. I have heard it said that this is better than nothing, but... [...] Well, the castle feeds all the people you see, at any rate. They're eased out of the head-hole and given a bowl to sup from; they sit there with empty eyes, as though asleep, drink or sup, then like zombies go back to their own little world again. Their wastes are taken away in the same trains."

trimtab 13y ago

Only in this version, the corporation behind the evil "Sixers" buys the OASIS before it ever launches corrupting the VR world to their corporate ends. Or at least, that's what a lot of the commenters on HN, Reddit, etc. appear to believe.