Gamers are focusing on the game, ignoring the hype cycles around NFTs, VR headgear and crypto-based commerce. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeny addressed the GDC, noting that Fortnite's 70 million monthly active users, Roblox’s staggering 250 million monthly active users, Minecraft’s 100 million, and PubG mobile and Apex Legends, have an identifiable audience today of over 600 million active users in these virtual worlds. That’s metaverse enough for them.

Tim Sweeny says the metaverse is here, now. Figure credit: Epic Games

Sweeney spoke to the crowd about Epic’s vision for Fortnite in the open metaverse. “First of all, we're taking the Fortnite audience we have, enhancing development capabilities with the new tools and creator economy to support everybody's work. But we're also helping developers owning standalone products (to) evolve towards building Metaverse experiences themselves“ said Sweeny. “The Unreal Engine is a tool for this, the Epic Game Store is a distribution vehicle for it.”

While Sweeny’s ideas about an open metaverse based on the Unreal Engine make a certain amount of sense when it comes to connecting disparate systems without the need for hardware or crypto, there is a problem. This photo shows what this year’s GDC audience looked like. Not exactly a healthy representation of the population of potential users, is it? It seems to us that gamers are a captive metaverse audience, but the rest of us, including retail and enterprise, are still searching for the metaverse grail. 

Now that we’re all AI experts, with a couple of months under our belts, we’re discovering certain rules to live by. 

• Attribution, Attribution, Attribution. Don’t leave them guessing. It’s more honest to simply say “AI helped me create this story.
• We need a committee to explore, not ban. There’s a lot of talk by some very eminent techies and academics to ban AI until further research is done. Instead, we should be lobbying for an open committee made of all stakeholders who can provide oversight and insight.
• Stick to the facts. Chatbots like ChatGPT are OK for gathering facts (that should always be doublechecked) but there’s still something off about AI’s creative writing ability.

Read Vanity Fair’s piece on creativity vs. AI.

See how Tufts University fared when it tried to get ChatGPT to write a Pulitzer prize-winning story. (Hint: There’s something that rings hollow. )

PlannerNet focuses on bringing large opportunities to the freelance market in the meeting and events marketplace. Think of it as a B2B dating service for event creators and event staff. Listen to how Richard Parker and Sasha Smith navigate through this growing segment of the events business.

Watch a Guest Snooze in the Metaverse 
On this week’s Metacast set in Meta’s Horizon World, the guest appears to nod off mid-interview. (Yes, it happens IRL too, but uncannier in the metaverse) 

E3 RIP?
Despite the unquenchable hunger for in-person events, there will be casualties. The popular E3 gaming conference and expo has been canceled. That makes the third year in a row. The cancellation, according to Variety,  comes after some of gaming’s biggest names — including Nintendo, PlayStation, and Ubisoft — announced they would not be participating. Three years is the death knell, leaving a gap that others will come in and fill. 

Google’s Neu Project
Google has a lot of meetings. Now they’re exploring whether some attendees might need a “fidgeter” or a “sensory quiet room” to feel at home at an event. Neurodivergent people make up approximately 15 to 20 percent (one in five) of the global population, says Google. Project Neu has been exploring ways to make events more inclusive for all, such as those with ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and others. Each needs different accommodations. Working with the metaverse platform NoWhere, Google is now studying how the metaverse might drive equity and inclusion in meetings. 

Measuring Attendee Happiness
Zenus, a company that uses facial analysis (not recognition) to track engagement at events, has partnered with Freeman to bring behavioral insights to in-person events. Zenus uses cameras, its software, and the cloud to analyze an attendee’s sex and dwell time spent in an area. But most important, it can offer sentiment analysis including whether an attendee is happy and engaged. Freeman will offer the service to its exhibitors. 

Open Wide
Damn. The days of telling white lies to the dentist are gone. Dentists can now use AR to see if you’re brushing your teeth. 

Practically Speaking
Ethan Mollick is a Wharton professor on a mission to use AI to do useful things. His substack called “How to use AI to do practical stuff: A new guide” is a great intro to generative AI. 

NAB Show: A Definitive Moment for Audio and Video
The folks at NAB are celebrating the 100th anniversary of NAB and boy have they come a long way (though white socks are in again), both technologically and sociologically. This year we’ve teamed up with the NAB Show to produce some exciting content about the creator economy. Check out the schedule.

1926 NAB Board. Credit: NAB