The Immersive Wire - 10 October 2021 (Sunday edition)

By Tom FfiskeCurated VR/AR analysis every Wednesday and Sunday

// 10 October 2021

Virtually There

Available now for the Oculus Quest and Quest 2

MAIN STORYNFTs could be part of virtual metaverses, but nothing like today's vision

In the early 1600s, the Dutch were obsessed with tulips. The bulbs circulated at higher and higher prices, the first speculative bubble of its kind as people inflated their perceived value. The tulips were sold for thousands of guilders, passed from sailors to the misled elite, and the owners displayed their purchases with pride. But eventually, in the 1630s, the market collapsed once people saw that its inflated value deviated from its intrinsic qualities.In other words, they realised it was just a bloody tulip. I've been thinking about NFTs for some time, having some doubts about their actual usefulness - but it was this thread by Stephen Diehl that crystallised my reasoning.

• By paying an extortionate amount of money, people are chipping in to be a unique entry in a database, with a JPEG to prove its connection.

• Then, the value of the connection is inflated via speculation and hype, fuelling the increased value.

• From inside communities, it becomes a status icon to own an NFT, a golden ticket into closed spaces where owners can feel good inside an expensive clique. But from the outside, it looks like people madly hyping up internet images that people can copy-paste to their desktop.

Fundamentally, the JPEG is worth very little. But the bloat of hype around it inflates its perceived worth to ludicrous degrees, which is then used to auction off to people reeled into the NFT hype. But strip the social presence away, and you see AI-generated images which look pretty, but should not be worth thousands of dollars. It feels like calling out an emperor with no clothes, as it's simply an image with no additional value. Okay, so how does this tie into the metaverse? Well for me, I do see NFTs having value in shared social spaces. Permanent ownership of a virtual space is valuable if it is defined by a centralised system that minimises fraud. If there is no limited land that can act as an asset, then the virtual plots could be sold as NFTs to convey some sense of value. When reality is stripped away, then NFTs help to give land some worth in a virtual world. This has promise, and when the metaverse evolves, we may see decentralised chains which can work to regulate ownership, without also destroying the planet via gas fees. But the current system is broken, fuelled by speculative greed where people are blind within their own bubbles. It's nothing new that perceived value is more important than actual value; high-brow marketing thrives to inflate the value of products based on the perception of exclusivity. But while handbags and jewelry relate to the real world, so should NFTs relate more directly to a virtual one to give some meaning to their financial worth.

Share

The hit PC VR and LBE Party Game is free (of tethers)!

Featuring competitive multiplayer and single-player challenges to hone your silliest skills, Loco Dojo Unleashed will have you whacking bats, stacking moles, flinging cats, and punching cactuses, all under the watchful eye of the Grand Sensei. Have you got what it takes to take home the gold?

Available NOW for Oculus Quest & Quest 2!

Q&A

Moritz Baier-Lentz, Partner at BITKRAFT VenturesFaye Maidment, Investment Associate at BITKRAFT Ventures

What are you working on, and what’s a key learning that you’ve had from it? Frankly, virtual and augmented reality has historically been a difficult platform for venture capitalists. While most investors who explore the space are in agreement about the ultimate potential and importance of these two platforms, there has also—until recently—been a consensus that most early investments in the space haven’t lived up to their lofty expectations. This is not an uncommon pattern for emerging industries and captured well by the Gartner Hyper Cycle, which is a helpful framework for technological innovations: after an initial innovation trigger and a phase of inflated expectations, there typically follows a “trough of disillusionment” before a new technology emerges on the other side of the chiasm, ready for mass-consumer or mass-industry adoption at scale.However, as investors, we also need to constantly re-assess when the timing could be right—possibly, 2-3 years before reaching a state of mainstream adoption. With that in mind, to us, it’s becoming seemingly clear that the perfect timing could very well be now! That’s because based on the data we’re collecting, we expect to see XR headset shipments surpass game console shipments (currently approximately 50 million units per year) as early as 2024; otherwise, 2025. I think most people outside of the industry don’t think of virtual and augmented reality as mass-market technologies in such a near-term.If you had to give one piece of advice, what would you give? We’ve met many extraordinary founders, including in virtual and augmented reality, who were hesitant to reach out to certain investors because they didn’t have a personal connection—and assumed that without a warm introduction, a cold pitch that’s submitted through the website or over email would never even be considered.From our perspective, that’s really a misconception. While it’s always helpful to have a shared connection vouch for your idea, we have received (and invested) in many instances where that wasn’t the case. We certainly look at and respond to every inbound we receive. So, if you’re building something special in gaming or extended reality—please don’t be shy to put yourself out there!If you want to learn more about BITKRAFT, our perspectives on gaming and extended reality, and our portfolio companies, visit www.bitkraft.vc.

Jobs boardINTERNSHIP, US. The intern will be primarily focused on developing proficiency in the use and application of tools designed for experiences in VR/AR headsets. GRIP-IE interns will assist the Get Real management team and clients in the design, development, and implementation of features within both internal and partner platforms. Interns will follow industry best practices including continuous improvement through code reviews of existing and new code. GRIP-IE interns will also be responsible for managing communication with software vendors on a variety of topics including bug identification, feature requests, troubleshooting, and documentation materials. Click here for more. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, UK. Here at CIRCUS (an award-winning creative agency, specialists of Virtual Brand Experiences) we're on the lookout for an enthusiastic B2B Business Development Manager on a part-time, remote basis. If this sounds of interest and you love all things virtual, we'd love to tell you more. Just click here for more information. Click here for more. SENIOR WEBXR ENGINEER, US. Build a human-centric metaverse with a stellar team at www.urnowhere.com. Full-Time Position, Fully Remote Team, Core hours (10AM-5PM EST). NOWHERE aims to revolutionize gathering with patent-pending video presence technology that allows serendipitous social mingling between conversations with friends or colleagues at conferences, meetings, or parties all within dynamic web environments. Nowhere combines expertise from veteran founders, experience experts, engineers, game designers, theatre-makers, VFX artists from Windmill Factory to build a healthier digital future. Please share with anyone you think might be interested. JOIN NOWHERE.CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST - AUGMENTED REALITY, UK. Poplar.Studio is a leading AR and 3D platform for marketing and e-commerce. Join our growing team based in London (remote for the time being), and work closely with the Business Development, Production and Product teams, in order to assess the feasibility of AR client and internal projects, both from a creative and technical point of view. Develop creatives and proof of concepts across social media AR (Spark AR, Lens Studio, Effects Creator, etc.), web-browser based (8th Wall, Zappar, etc.) or app-based (Unity, ARCore, ARKit, etc.). Work alongside our amazing global AR creator community as they develop experiences for our brand and retail clients. Click here for more. VR SOFTWARE DEVELOPER (Unity3D, C#), London. Valkyrie Industries, an early stage haptics start-up, is looking for a talented and experienced Unity3D developer with a passion for VR to join the R&D team. You'll be involved throughout the development cycle and must be able to evaluate new technologies, develop new experiences from scratch and optimise existing projects. Click here for more. FULL STACK DEVELOPER, remote position. Looking for a competent Software Engineer with 4+ years of industry experience to join our dedicated Web development team. This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER (Node.js), remote position. Looking for a competent Senior Software Engineer with 5+ years of industry experience to join our dedicated Web development team. This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. SENIOR DEVELOPER (VUE.JS), remote Position. Looking for an experienced JavaScript developer who is highly skilled with Vue.js. You will be joining our Web development team to develop and enhance customer facing Web Applications, where you will be responsible for following best practices to produce modular and maintainable code. Click here for more. QA LEAD, remote positions available. Looking for a competent QA Lead with 2+ years of industry experience to join our dedicated QA Team in Waterford. This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. SENIOR UNITY GAME DEVELOPER, remote position. Looking for a competent Senior Unity Developer to join our team with 5+ years industry experience. The talented individual must have vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more.  SENIOR PRODUCT OWNER, remote position. Looking for a competent Product Owner. This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. UI DESIGNER, remote position. Looking for a competent UI Designer. This talented individual must have a vision and drive and must not be afraid to back big ideas. Click here for more. UX DESIGNER, remote position. Are you looking for a unique challenge working in virtual & augmented reality with a bleeding-edge technology company? Then read on. Click here for more.ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN DIGITAL MEDIA, UK. We are looking to appoint a dynamic and adaptable course director for our BA (Hons) in Digital Media to lead and deliver teaching, learning and assessment on the BA Digital Media and steer its next phase of growth. As well as a track record of academic leadership you will have extensive practical experience in digital media such as immersive storytelling (AR/VR/XR), modelling and animation, creative media design / production, or web / mobile app design and development. Click here for more.SENIOR IMMERSIVE LEARNING DESIGNER, UK. Make Real is looking to expand our digital learning team with a Senior Immersive Learning Designer. Your role will be to consult with clients in order to create exciting and imaginative design solutions. Your designs will affect behaviour change in order to deliver on specific learning outcomes, while being achievable within a set budget and timeline. Click here for more. SENIOR UNITY DEVELOPER, UK. As a growing and exciting business, we are looking for full-time talented multi-disciplinary Unity developers to join our expert team in central Brighton. Our ideal candidates will have a broad range of technical experience with a proven track record of delivering interactive Virtual & Augmented Reality projects across a range of HMD & mobile hardware. Working as part of our existing team of designers and artists, the roles will primarily involve the delivery of VR/AR projects for our global clients. Click here for more. Display your vacancy in front of thousands of talented VR/AR professionals in just a few clicks. Click here for more info.

Refer a friend today

Enjoy the newsletter? Consider sharing it around! Just one referral gives you and the referred a free PDF copy of The Immersive Reality Revolution. Just share the link below, and you get the book.

How to redeem: Copy and paste your personal referral link to others, then receive the PDF when they sign up:

That's all for this week! Want to have a chat, let me know about a news story, or talk business? Either reply to this email, or contact tom (at) immersivewire (dot) com. Have an excellent day!