Niantic Raises $300 Million At $9 Billion Valuation To Build the 'Real-World Metaverse' (techcrunch.com) 33
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Niantic, the augmented reality platform that's developing games like Pokemon GO, raised $300 million from Coatue, valuing the company at $9 billion. The San Fransisco-based startup, which initially spun out of Google, will use this money to build what it calls the "real-world metaverse." As early as August, Niantic founder and CEO John Hanke has referred to the metaverse -- at least, the one that renders us bound to VR headsets, like in "Ready Player One" -- as a "dystopian nightmare."
Unlike Facebook, which changed its company name to Meta to signal its investment in VR technology, Niantic wants to develop technology that brings people closer to the outside world. Earlier this month, Niantic unveiled its Lightship AR Developer Kit (ARDK), which makes tools to develop AR games publicly available for free to anyone who has a basic knowledge of the Unity game engine. "At Niantic, we believe humans are the happiest when their virtual world leads them to a physical one," Hanke said at the time. "Unlike a sci-fi metaverse, a real-world metaverse will use technology to improve our experience of the world as we've known it for thousands of years." The funding will help expand the ARDK, which has already been used by companies like Coachella, Historic Royal Palaces, Universal Pictures, SoftBank, Warner Music Group and the PGA of America to create augmented reality experiences.
Unlike Facebook, which changed its company name to Meta to signal its investment in VR technology, Niantic wants to develop technology that brings people closer to the outside world. Earlier this month, Niantic unveiled its Lightship AR Developer Kit (ARDK), which makes tools to develop AR games publicly available for free to anyone who has a basic knowledge of the Unity game engine. "At Niantic, we believe humans are the happiest when their virtual world leads them to a physical one," Hanke said at the time. "Unlike a sci-fi metaverse, a real-world metaverse will use technology to improve our experience of the world as we've known it for thousands of years." The funding will help expand the ARDK, which has already been used by companies like Coachella, Historic Royal Palaces, Universal Pictures, SoftBank, Warner Music Group and the PGA of America to create augmented reality experiences.
Perfect Timing (Score:3)
Given the state of the World, I couldn't imagine a better time to be marketing an alternative to it.
We are currently all but addicted to the distractions offered by technology and the entertainment industry, let alone the folks who have checked out of reality by self medicating.
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Enriched Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Niantic has it right--augmented reality done best is CENTERED on the physical world and the idea that it's worth investing in our actual surroundings. Thinking about things like using Google Lens to identify a cool bird sitting in a tree, or telling me if a snake in a my yard is dangerous. Or letting me easily report to the city recent flood damage to a sidewalk.
My free advice to the Hawkes of the world: a rebrand. Augmented is too neutral of a term. Call it enriched reality. Both enriched in terms of enriched with metadata but also enriched in terms of: committed to making reality better.
Re: Enriched Reality (Score:2)
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I like your thinking, but we both know how this will end. Augmented Reality is just the next step in monetizing behavior. Now the ads will pop-up right when you walk by a store telling you all about their latest sales.
Don't even thinking about blocking the ads or, god forbid, you decide to walk outside without your "Augmented" glasses on. The self check-out cashier-less stores only work when you the glasses are streaming ads straight into your eyeballs, thanks to the strategic partnerships between the AR de
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It will be like smartphones have become now. The youngs will be all in and always have their augments strapped on. Whereas people old enough to have missed growing up with the tech will have a more casual relationship with it but still participate on some level.
Each generation will shake their head at the others thinking that their way is best.
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My free advice to the Hawkes of the world: a rebrand. Augmented is too neutral of a term. Call it enriched reality
too late! besides, we want to call people with the inevitable always-on cyber-implants "augments" or "augmented", not "enriched" which makes them sound like wonder bread.
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too late! besides, we want to call people with the inevitable always-on cyber-implants "augments" or "augmented", not "enriched" which makes them sound like wonder bread.
"New, improved Soylent Green! Now enriched!"
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You imagine a difference where there is none. If you've played one of Niantic's games, you should know that the real environment is inconsequential while you're in the game. It merely provides a scaffolding for the elements of the game. The real world becomes nothing but a backdrop. The world you perceive is just as unreal and arbitrary as a fully virtual world. It doesn't enrich the world.
The real world's function in the kind of augmented reality that these companies strive for is scarcity. Virtual real es
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Pokemon Go was really disappointing because of this. Hopefully people can do more interesting things with their SDK, although I don't imagine there's much in it that you couldn't do pretty easily with a graphics engine and open CV.
An augmented reality app running on your phone that replaces the audio guides at tourist attractions would be low hanging fruit.
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I only played Ingress back when it was new, and it was quite fun. The real environment definitively wasn't inconsequential, there were for instance portals in out of the way places which we would coordinate to take over to link over a big area, and likewise important portals where a link could block such takeovers.
And of course, the portals themselves were predominantly public artwork. I saw (and noticed) a LOT more public art when I was playing Ingress.
The problem was that it got taken over by spammers and
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I still can't get over the number of (rich and powerful) people who came out of Ready Player One and reacted, "Yes, let's. That sounds awesome," instead of the same response: "What a waste of two and a half hours."
I did not like the movie, but I see the potential for both VR and AR, and I think they'll converge. In the Quest 2 when you turn on "pass through" you start to see where things will be going. As impressive as the headsets are already, it's still going to take quite a while for this all to matter though. All the headsets are far too heavy, and the screens and cameras are all far too poor to compel most people to spend more than a small amount with them.
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Call it enriched reality. Both enriched in terms of enriched with metadata but also enriched in terms of: committed to making reality better.
I would personally prefer to purchase a product that offers intoxicated reality.
Second Life (Score:2)
Anyone remember when Second Life [wikipedia.org] was going to be the next best VR/Metaverse sensation? Apparently it's still running, but i almost forgot it existed, after the initial hype...
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That it's still running even though you (and most people) forgot about it says that it's practical and feasible.
Of course, that it's mobbed mostly by furrys who buy "functional" genitalia for their player models says that it's mostly weird and irrelevant
Re: Second Life (Score:2)
The level of success second life had despite the enormously obtuse UI shows to me there is still pent up demand for what they had to offer. Shame Linden Labs wasted all their powder on a failed curated garden follow up, instead of making VR second life with an user friendly UI. They hired too many normies.
I think a libertarian VR world with user created content could still have huge success. Of course libertarianism has always been poison to large companies, but it has now also become poison to mainstream m
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Re: Second Life (Score:2)
Phrases that tell you the company is doomed (Score:3)
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very plausible. both fb and niantic stumbled on a viral product by sheer luck, nothing else they have done seems to take off. success helps, but you can't really "buy" innovation or that level of success simply with resources, it's a gamble.
in comparison google has been way more successful in that regard and some of their has stuff actually caught on, but that's simply because they didn't stop trying crazy stuff and were happy to immediately scrap failed attempts without ceremony.
this or the whole metaverse
Niantec sounds like a tech company in a sci-fi (Score:2)
Niantec sounds like a tech company in a sci-fi dystopian hellscape.
Oh, wait, I guess that fits. Carry on, then.
Re: Niantec sounds like a tech company in a sci-fi (Score:2)
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Just in case you are really interested in the origin of the name:
"The company took its name from the whaling vessel Niantic, which came to San Francisco during the California Gold Rush in the 1800s."
(source: Wikipedia)
what about this universe (Score:2)
We can't even police the universe, what makes us think this Metaverse will be gleaming towers of gold? It will probably be a cesspool of pornography and identity theft. Where you have to pay a monthly fee to have anything but the default wallpaper in your virtual apartment.
I feel like Second Life [wikipedia.org] was about 20 years too early. I used to have a log cabin on there. My trees were butt ugly, and I didn't want to pay the guy who was selling better designed trees.
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People should own and use technology. Technology should not be using people. The distinction is easy to over look when massive profits are at stake.
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Not only that facebook has a track record of not being able to police it's own platform and has no desire to do so. Hopefully all the idiots will throw on their VR goggles and riot virtually when facebook's algorithms incite them.
Can't support this, either (Score:2)
All sci-fi is dystopian (Score:2)
For this guy to say that Ready Player One is a dystopian nightmare is like saying water is wet. I can't think of a sci-fi example that isn't dystopian in one way or another.
Dirty, dirty start -ups (Score:2)