Ernest Cline’s dystopian novel “Ready Player One”, about a virtual reality world called OASIS where people escape a bleak real world, is coming to life in an ambitious new metaverse project.
Cline has teamed up with AI and metaverse company Futureverse to create the “Readyverse” – an interactive virtual world inspired by the one depicted in Cline’s bestselling book and its 2018 film adaptation by Steven Spielberg.
Keypoints
- Ernest Cline, author of “Ready Player One”, is working with an AI company called Futureverse to create a metaverse based on the book/movie.
- They have launched a new company called Readyverse Studios to develop this metaverse, called the “Readyverse”.
- Readyverse Studios has partnered exclusively with Warner Bros. Discovery to bring the Ready Player One franchise into the metaverse.
- The Readyverse will be an interactive virtual world where people can explore environments and characters from the story through VR headsets and other devices.
- There will be opportunities for other studios and brands to create content and experiences in the Readyverse metaverse.
To bring the Readyverse to fruition, Cline and “Ready Player One” film producer Dan Farah have co-founded a new venture called Readyverse Studios. The company has partnered exclusively with Warner Bros. Discovery, which released the Ready Player One movie, to develop metaverse experiences based on the franchise across web3 platforms.
According to Futureverse’s co-founders, the Readyverse metaverse will allow people to explore environments, characters and objects from the Ready Player One universe. Users will be able to purchase custom “skins” or looks for their avatars, as well as digital assets like vehicles and real estate that are typically out of reach in the real world.
The goal is to make the Readyverse an interoperable, decentralized open metaverse powered by blockchain technology for secure digital ownership.
We couldn’t be more excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with @readyplayerone creator and producer to launch Readyverse Studios to bring leading IP and brands to the metaverse. pic.twitter.com/6sU6FpOSdE
— Futureverse (@futureverse) January 4, 2024
Bringing a major Hollywood IP like Ready Player One into a digital metaverse marks a major milestone in bridging entertainment with virtual worlds. It shows the momentum behind metaverses and the opportunity for studios to engage fans in new interactive storytelling formats. For Web3 advocates, it’s a step toward mass consumer adoption of blockchain-based metaverse experiences.
While the full scope of the Readyverse is still taking shape, fans can expect to visit virtually rendered versions of iconic settings from the Ready Player One book and film. They may be able to play games, go on quests and interact with characters like Parzival, Art3mis and IOI head Nolan Sorrento. Readyverse Studios envisions partnerships with other studios to incorporate more IPs into this open metaverse.
Silicon Valley has poured investment into metaverse and VR technology with the belief it’s the next evolution of the internet. However, some experts argue the vision in Ready Player One of everybody abandoning the real world for a utopian virtual simulation remains far from reality. Challenges around hardware constraints and mass adoption persist.
Still, the momentum behind Readyverse Studios shows major entertainment and tech players are placing their bets. For Warner Bros, the Readyverse provides more monetization of a hit franchise. For Ernest Cline, it’s a chance to fully realize the virtual world he imagined. As he put it, “The future has arrived even more quickly than I imagined.” Now fans eagerly await their golden ticket to experience this virtual OASIS.
