Wagner James Au
Author, "Making a Metaverse That Matters" (Wiley). Covering & creating metaverse culture since 2003. Bylines: WSJ, Atlantic, FastCo. Join my Patreon blog for early/exclusive virtual amazingness! patreon.com/user?u=4843285
Los Angeles/Kailua
- Now free to read on my New World Notes Patreon blog: Veteran 3D artist @lex4art.bsky.social shares his highly seasoned advice on how to sell content on the leading 3D asset stores: Epic Games' FAB and Unity’s Asset Store. 👇 www.patreon.com/posts/149877...
- Now free to read: The @secondlife.bsky.social mobile app has seen explosive growth in downloads, while SL ads have been seen over 30 million times. That's thanks in large part to Linden Lab's new secret weapon. Meet the Lindens' secret weapon. 👇 www.patreon.com/posts/149355...
- Google's Project Genie is yet another example of tech companies evincing utter obliviousness to what virtual game worlds actually are and why gamers love them. The problem is so obvious, it's even in the very demo video that Google just put out.👇
- The Genie announcement boasts the ability to prompt "playable worlds", but then notes that these worlds can't adhere to "real-world physics" and that characters in them will be "less controllable". Any gamer knows that's an *instant* deal-breaker. How could Google miss this?
- Believable physics and highly controllable characters are *fundamental* to successful game worlds. It's why, for example, GTA V / Online is still incredibly popular 10 years+ after launch. Gamers *revel* in physics with characters they control. Virtual worlds without them are worthless.
- Bluesky "grew nearly 60% in 2025, from 25.9 million users to 41.2 million". 50 million is roughly when Twitter saw explosive network effect growth. Tell 9 million of your friends! techcrunch.com/2026/01/30/b...
