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The idea behind the new initiative is to bring Ernest Cline's Ready Player One novel into an open, multi-world 'metaverse experience'.
Metaverse startup Futureverse, backed by 10T Holdings and Ripple Labs, has unveiled a partnership deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to bring the Ready Player One franchise to the metaverse.
In a January 4 X thread, the New Zealand-based startup said it had teamed up with Ready Player One author Ernest Cline to launch a new company called Readyverse Studios, aimed at integrating major IPs into the metaverse. . Dan Farah, the producer of the 2018 Warner Bros. film adaptation of the novel, is also listed as a co-founder of the firm.
While financial and technical details of the initiative were not revealed, Futureverse says the joint products will launch sometime in 2024 on The Root Network, a distributed ledger that uses ROOT tokens for security and governance, and Ripple's XRP. for gas rates. Amid the news, ROOT price soared more than 14% to $0.073, according to CoinGecko.
Formed in late 2022, Futureverse raised $54 million in a Series A funding round, led by 10T Holdings with participation from Ripple Labs. Prior to the funding, Futureverse integrated The Root Network with XRPL and supported the non-token standard. XRPL-based fungible known as XLS-20 nft.
Real risks in virtual reality
In mid-September 2023, the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights expressed concerns around the metaverse and emphasized the need for a comprehensive privacy law in response to significant privacy threats. According to a report from the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights (CBHR) at New York University, virtual reality (VR) experiences can cause deep and lasting psychological harm.
In addition to privacy issues, lawless virtual spaces open up unlimited opportunities for abusers. Even physical assaults in the metaverse can be psychologically damaging, as people immersed in a virtual reality world have the feeling that “what they are experiencing is real,” the report states.
The report suggests that Congress should pass a “comprehensive privacy law” to protect consumer privacy and limit the use of body data. It also calls on the government to strengthen the Federal Trade Commission's mandate to protect consumers against “unfair and deceptive practices by technology companies” and to form a federal agency charged with this mandate.
