It’s time for a special guest! Metaverse evangelist and good friend of the show, Ian epredator Hughes joins Andy and Michael R. to get philosophical about the metaverse, and to discuss games (from the very old, to the much more recent).

Follow epredator on Twitter, and via his blog.Check out his fantastic science fiction novels: Reconfigure and Cont3xt

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

We start out this week, by wondering whether there is one, or, are there many metaverses? epred briefly refers us to The Seven Rules of the Metaverse, to set things straight.

We rewind by 4000 years, to talk about a recently discovered early board game – with no idea how it would have been played – and then, we jump right back up to date, to talk about the huge announcement of Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard. What do you think this means for the ecosystem? Tweet us to let us know!

Transitioning over to physical gaming, we change things up by discussing mixed and augmented tabletop gaming experiences. Have you tried any of these?

For the next segment, none of us are able to reliably remember whether the Playdate handheld is available yet. Philip Rosedale apparently isn’t convinced that VR is easy, and recognises the importance of mobile. Also, Roblox finally shared what happened during their big outage last year. Large systems are not easy…

We dive in to the philosophical questions around the metaverse, with two new books, Reality+ by David J Chalmers, and, How to be a God by Professor Richard Bartle. Definitely titles for your reading list!

Finally, we round up with some quick hits on Democracy 4, and a Weird Al Yankovich biopic.

Many thanks again to Ian epredator Hughes for his generous time and contributions to this week’s show.

And please! stop going to see Spider-Man!!!

Selected Article Links

* Tony Parisi: The Seven Rules of the Metaverse

* Comicbook: 4,000 Year-Old Board Game Discovered

* NYT: Microsoft will buy Activision Blizzard, betting $70 billion on the future of games

* Wired: Mirrorscape Wants to Conjure Your Favorite Tabletop Game in AR