The Metaverse Was Around Way Before You Realized

It might seem strange to mention a free-to-play video game in the same digital breath as something meant to reinvent the entire concept of interacting online. However, Nick Statt at Protocol rightly points out that “Fortnite” has hit goals Meta is nowhere near. As Statt notes, people are actually using “Fortnite” — and it’s fun. That would be two up on Meta’s version of the metaverse.  “Fortnite” never claimed to be a revolution. As IGN has recorded, the battle royale hit was an 11th-hour creative pivot on a failing team-based shooter that stumbled sideways into global success. Now it’s a thriving digital community with as much building as blasting.

It’s the building aspect of “Fortnite” that shows a way forward for the metaverse. Spaces for global co-op creativity have existed for decades; to date, they’ve just been packaged as games. “Minecraft” beat “Fortnite” to the punch as the chosen setting for no-pressure collaboration and no-limits gaming by a solid six years. Similar communities have sprung up in “Roblox” and, to a degree, in Sony’s “Dreams” with its so-called Dreamiverse.

That’s just the young blood. Elder nerds will recall flocking to virtual settings with even less graphical pop than the waxy Styrofoam look over at Meta. The venerable “Second Life,” launched in the grim darkness of 2003, is still standing amongst prettier descendants. Enormous creative and collaborative projects also take place in MMOs like “World of Warcraft” and “EVE Online.” Browser-based oddities like “Kingdom of Loathing” still have their fans. ASCII stalwarts still populate MUDs and MUCKs. The list goes on. Believe it or not, every instance of virtualization here, from “Fortnite’s” latest update to ’90s-vintage text-based MUDs, has one quality in common that Meta has thus far missed.