"Ready Player One" is the story of desperate people seeking escape from a collapsing society in a predatory digital world run by super-rich oligarchs who are willing to commit mass murder to keep their positions of wealth and power. Now, a company called Futureverse has joined forces with Warner Bros. Discovery and author Ernest Cline to "make the promise of the open metaverse depicted in the novel and blockbuster film adaptation of Cline's Ready Player One a tangible reality." The creation of the Ladyverse is an attempt to bring that particular torment nexus to life.

"The future has arrived even sooner than I had imagined," Klein said. The Readyverse studio has the opportunity to leverage the innovative technology that Futureverse has been building over the years to bring the best possible version of the Metaverse to life." A future that Wade Watts and James Halliday would be proud of. ......" .

That future is one in which Watts lives as a poor orphan in "Stacks." Stacks is an overcrowded, crime-ridden shantytown of stacked trailers and mobile homes in the collapsed America of 2045. He spends his time wandering the virtual world known as the OASIS, along with countless others, searching for the solution to the puzzle of how to gain ownership of the OASIS and the untold wealth that comes with it. His quest revolves around being good at old video games and knowing a lot of 80s pop culture trivia, but there is also a lot of violence and death, as the current owner of OASIS, Innovative Online Industries, is not too keen on surrendering control Comes out.

Ready Player One became a New York Times bestseller and was widely praised for its enthusiastic embrace of geekery, but beneath the Pac-Man, Blade Runner, and Monty Python references lies a story of a world gone very, very wrong. When Watts finally wins, yes, spoiler alert, of course he wins: the only thing that has really changed is that all the money and power is in the hands of another man.

Regardless, if it happens in real life, it will surely work. This confidence is largely supported by the fact that the Readyverse seems as ethereal as any of the other bullshit meta-verses that have been teased over the past few years: a "dynamic interactive platform of interconnected digital experiences," a "provable commitment to "uphold the principles of the open metaverse: digital ownership, community-owned infrastructure, decentralization, security, and interoperability. In other words, it would be the Fortnite envisioned by NFT Bros. [Josh Hackbarth, SVP of Franchise Development for Warner Bros. Discovery, said, "We embrace its potential as we continually explore new and exciting ways to integrate it into the fan experience across our brands and franchises, We are excited to be at the forefront of technology. Ready Player One has been a cultural touchstone, inspiring innovators, creators and visionaries, and we are excited to partner with Readyverse Studios to introduce these unique characters, immersive environments and more to the Metaverse through Web 3."

Warner said.

Warner's move into this is not that surprising: for one thing, the company produced and distributed the 2018 film based on Klein's book. But the company also recently announced its desire to make its flagship franchise an "always-on" live-service style game, with the goal of "more players, on more platforms, for more time." And in terms of a profitable company, that's laudable: the implicit fourth part of that goal is, after all, "more money."

But one must also consider the Torment Nexus aspect. Even with Ready Player One, Watts, who took control of OASIS, decided to shut it down on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Despite his sometimes embarrassingly enthusiastic embrace of youthful kitsch and ephemerality, even Klein knew that too much digital disconnection is bad for you; will Readyverse follow suit?

Readyverse is slated for release in 2024. Those who want to get a good seat at the dystopian decline can sign up for early access at readyverse.com.