While Meta and Mark Zuckerberg are spending billions building 'the Metaverse' a Kiwi company has teamed up with Warner Bros Discovery, the owners of Three and Newshub, to make their own version, based off a classic sci-fi story.
Back in 2018, Steven Spielberg brought the classic sci-fi story Ready Player One to the big screen.
Now a Kiwi company, Future Verse, is teaming up with Warner Bros Discovery, to make Ready Player One a reality.
The 'Readyverse' promises an online virtual reality world featuring iconic characters from both the book and potentially Warner Bros own catalogue - from Batman to Scooby Doo.
"People will not only be able to experience the ideas of Ready Player One in this world of different experiences that they can connect and jump between, but also they'll be able to experience the actual IP itself," co-founder Aaron McDonald said.
The end goal of Readyverse is to be the next evolution of the internet - much like Mark Zuckerberg envisions with his Metaverse.
"I think it's just so exciting to see another company suddenly appear out of nowhere, almost, and just say, 'hey, we have some of the biggest licenses in the world. We're trying to do something big'… I just think so exciting for the market. So, heck yeah, go to New Zealand," gaming critic Jordan Tini said.
However, much of the Readyverse will be powered by the same technology used by cryptocurrency, and that's raised eyebrows among critics.
"It was sort of very recent that Ubisoft tried to do some kind of cryptocurrency within their games, and that backfired very heavily on them," Tini said.
"I don't think there's enough trust within the community to bring those kind of sources into the game. But at the same time, if they can explain what they want to do with them, how are they going to use them and integrate them? Maybe some trust can be earned from the community for that."
Whether the Readyverse is really ready for action, we'll find out when it launches later this year.
