[serf]

>I find it completely implausible that a huge amount of people would.

there are 2.5 billion adult gamers in the world. A good percentage of that are partaking in games that easily qualify as virtual worlds.

no personal anecdote needed, huge amounts of people are already spending time in places that qualify as virtual worlds.

Our interfaces are clunky, and you can shift 'virtual world' around to mean something else, but it feels evident to me that this isn't an uncommon pastime/desire among people.

[grumbel]

> there are 2.5 billion adult gamers in the world.

I don't think casually playing a mobile game every once in a while translates to going full VR. The amount of gamers that care enough about the medium to buy a console or gaming PC is only around 500 million or so.

[red-iron-pine]

I'm an adult gamer, and I also own a Valve Index VR kit.

VR is fun, but has serious limitations. A nice way to take a walk on the rings of Saturn, but no way in hell am I going to trust it with my privacy. And it's totally overkill for something like scrolling cat-meme videos or wishing someone happy birthday via social media.

Plus the Index is pretty good but it still gives me headaches and dizziness after extended periods.

I absolutely think there is more to come with VR, but it's only after there is already a flourishing ecosystem that social media will find its place there, not before.

[hn_throwaway_99]

You're making a giant unsubstantiated leap from "there are 2.5 adult billion gamers in the world" and the idea that the current types of "virtual worlds" means that a significant number of these folks want anything resembling the metaverse.

I am one of those "adult gamers". I even occasionally play VR games with an Oculus Quest. The thought of living substantially more portions of my life "in the metaverse" is pretty much the definition of dystopia for me. I've seen Wall-E, and I'll pass, thanks.