The reviews are in for the recent Decentraland Metaverse “Metaverse Music Festival 2022,” by Ozzy Osbourne. They are not good. The legendary IRL hard-rocking concert series Ozzfest looked like “a slideshow running on a PlayStation 2,” in the digital space according to one review. 
The Metalverse show featured “performances” by metal legends Skid Row, Megadeth, Motorhead, and Ozzy Osbourne. The Prince of Darkness performance turned out to be digital facsimiles of Ozzy stiffly “performing” on stage. No backing band, just the legendary performer’s virtual avatar looking “stiff as hell” in one review.
Metaverse mosh pit
There was a sparse crowd of player avatars just kind of standing there and maybe shuffling their feet in a goofy, lifeless dance. One review called the concertgoers “a phantasmagorical array of avatars.” (rb- I don’t know what that means – but I’m sure its not good) Not exactly the sweaty, blood-pounding experience of the Ozzfest mosh pit of my youth.
As you can see in the video, the visuals were bad. They were described as having the “set design and visual appeal that would fit better in Guitar Hero.” There were hokey banners shouting things like “Welcome to the Metalverse” and “rock your fucking heads.” The show backdrop featured an advert for NFTs. It sounds like the “corporate capitalist hellscape” that we have come to expect from social media not a show from the Black Sabbath frontman.
What is the metaverse
In plain language, the metaverse is an interactive, 3D version of today’s internet. The pipe dream is for people to travel through virtual spaces. We’ve (kind of ) seen this fad before. Second Life was the virtual world du jour in the early 2000s.
Launched in 2020, Decentraland is described as a virtual social world powered by the Ethereum blockchain. It claims to be the first decentralized metaverse. Within the Decentraland platform, users can create, experience, and monetize content and applications as well as socialize and attend events like Ozzfest.
Not many visitors
The Decentraland Metaverse isn’t exactly teeming with people. Despite a metaverse valuation of over $6.5 billion dollars, users just don’t care. There are reports that Decentraland only had 38 “active users” over a period of 24 hours. This a very low number, especially considering the company has a market cap of a $1.2 billion. These numbers really amount too much, given the amount of money being poured into metaverse platforms like Decentraland. One expert said,
Anyone telling you that there’s a metaverse today that has worked is lying through their teeth.
rb-
I get it – the metaverse is a new crypto-enabled sales channel. It is being used to promote new music, drive NFT sales, or perform in the metaverse with new audiences.But I am highly skeptical of any of these projects by the techbros to upload everything into the new-agey singularity metaverse.
I sure hope this is not the future. Where some unknown person on the intertubes can exploit and make even more money off of dead musicians and bands that no longer exist. Can you imagine a Kiss farewell 2040 show made up of deep-fake technology viewable only with a virtual reality headset rig?
I don’t want to go to a pretend concert in a pretend location.
I would rather be on the hill at Pine Knob during a June evening hearing real sounds, real sights, real smells, and real emotions, from real musicians with real fans.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.