"How's it going in VRC Jack?"
"Oh. About the same as the bar scene 30 years ago but with fewer stds."
"According to people it's a haven for pedos and trolls."
"Like I said. No different than the bar scene 30 years ago."
"So you've met some pedos in there then?"
"Na most everyone I've met has been pretty solid over all. Strong and safe queer community that doesn't put up with bullies or pedos.
Shit.
Worst interactions I've had have been either dudes trolling for ass and trying to assert their dominance by negging and harassing their "competition" or racist bullies that come full force as soon as they think you're not strait or white. So..."
"About the same as the 90's bar scene."
"Exactly."
"So what's the plan?"
"Gonna try to buy it."
"Uhhh...you can't go around buying everything Jack. You don't have all the money in the world."
"I know. Just most of it."
"Uh huh, lets' say that's true for a second isn't buying a platform going to hemorrhage money and destroy the existing community the same way X and Tik Tok have turned out?"
"Yeah, well, that's because old white men wanted to own them. I want to preserve VRC."
"Preserve VRC? Alright, I'll bite. How would you 'Preserve' VRC if you bought it?"
"First off I wouldn't be buying from the current dev team.
I'd be buying it from the community. Take the player base and estimate it's valuation at that the number of years the it's been up and running. Which would be a steam player peak of about 76,000 and another...we'll be generous and say another 20,000 on top of that to account for stand alone quest players and other random platforms. Round up in case we forgot someone or there's under reported stats to 100,000 people. Use my contract standard of $135k/yr for the past 10 years means $1.35 million per person. totaling at $135 Billion."
"Uh....Jack....that's more than some countries gdps and there's no way in hell you're ever going to be able to pay that back."
"Oh, well, not in my life time anyways."
"And where are you going to get the money for all this?"
"Oh. Mark, Elon, and Bezos are going to."
"Uh huh....again, entertaining your delusions, how does that work?"
"One is, to use current administrations standards and verbage, is an illigal immigrant living fat off of the tax payers dime. Another is a College frat boy that used his model of objectifying women and amplifying rape culture and turning it into the worlds largest social media conglomerate with out changing a stitch of the business model and aiming it minors."
"I mean...true....but what about the 3rd?"
"Oh, that ass hole owes the 13 year old me for the smirk and the business model he jacked and turned into retail monopoly."
"The Smirk really?"
"Fucking smoking gun dude. And somewhere on a floppy disk or dusty hard drive there are the chat logs from MY role playing instances that other community leaders would send their players to for rules and combat arbitration so I saved logs for review and editing down to their narratives. Imagine that. Stealing a kids business model without crediting them, then corrupting it by using it to destroy small businesses just because it would be so easy to do if you acted unethically and turned into what it is."
"Oh, and what's the legal grounds."
"The Trademark. The smirk. The profile I've been sporting for over 30 years now. Or am I the only one that actually understands that posting online is copyright to the creator?"
"Oh...."
"And it is at the creators/owner/copyright holders discretion to exercise their copyright."
"Shit..."
"Why do you think they're scared to even acknowledge my existence?"
"Do you realize the world of shit you'll be stirring up with this?"
"Yup...but. Autistic sense of justice isn't' hyperbole."
"Okay....let's table all that for a second. What the hell would you do with that platform and just pissing away $135 billion dollars?"
"The platform? Not much right now. Let it roll as it is.
The hard part, the part that I plan on doing. Tracking down world and avatar creators. Verifying they're the originators of the assets or acquired them either artistically or licensed pay them for their work, that $1.35 million. And then use the rest for development towards a 1.0 release onto Switch and PlayStation. Hiring those same creators and partnering them with their favorite fandoms and ips to build official worlds for their for them. On the PC side, I'd leave it the fucking wild west it is. Using the left over funds for a grant trust to help students build the workstations they need to work from home, or wherever they're at and not go into debt over their education."
"Wouldn't that be dividing the player base."
"Not in official worlds. Where they'll be moderated based on the ip owners requirements."
"You really think Playstation or Nintendo is going to trust you, let alone that community to protect their ip?"
"Seen the Galaxy movie yet?"
"Which movie?"
"Not important."
"Point is, I'd just have Switch and PlayStation accounts limited to official worlds and private instances of user created worlds and avatars cleared for the market place. Essentially the same thing happening with PC and mobile/standalone players because of hardware limitations just formalized for user safety and consumer protections"
"Ooookayyyy....how is that for safety and consumer protections exactly?"
1. The aforementioned pedophiles.
I'm not worried about the kids for the most part. Teach them stranger danger and turn them loose. Kids are gonna kid and you can't stop it and they're pretty fucking good at susing out strangers and people not moving right. Then, if something is too heavy for them to handle. They have people like me to turn to. Moderators, verified to the same standards as any educator or health professional, that host the instances. Play the music, start the games, boot the trolls and Chris Hanson the shit outa anyone creating that sort of mischief.
Plus, having child locks on accounts put their by their parents so that they can only visit verified instances within their educational/age level, disable direct messaging and private instance access and the only profile information being their Screen name and Avatar picture."
"Oh yeah, and how are you going to verify children's ages without exposing their personal information to abusers?"
"With their library card. At their library. With a client similar to that used by academic journals and only using a birth year. Then when the account ages out of that bracket let the person/guardian decide if they want to re verify. So like 13 base age 16 second registry and at 18...well then it's out of our hands on whether or not they want to provide any more information on the account or not, or just make a whole new one."
"That sounds....surprisingly doable."
2. Consumer protections.
World and avatar creators.
To me.
Are like club owners and tailors.
So, we'll respect them as such.
They can choose what age instances they'll allow their worlds to be used for and verified they're stable for regular use. Whether or not they would like compensation for it to be used as a home world or for private instances and clear which groups are allowed to use their worlds for hosting public events.
The tailors, given the same options. Is it an Avi they want made available in public worlds to show off their work? Or is it a bespoke avatar they created for a single person? And, does the Avatar Tailor allow the person to share it? That standard is already amongst the creator community. I just want to formalize it so that they maintain rights to their work and that the player/user/performer/host knows their avatar is theirs. Like buying a bag from Gucci or picking up a pair of pants from the thrift store.
And then, finally, what age range does that Avatar fall into so that adult avis don't end up in children's worlds.? Does it have naughty options?
"Whoa Jack...naughty options?"
"I aint' judging anyone for their orientation, proclivities, or the way they choose to interact romantically. What they do in private instances is none of my business as long as adults are not pulling children into those situations have fun, be safe, respect consent and boundaries."
"And all the existing content?"
"Like I said man, wild west. If a creator wants to delist an avatar or world because they want it to stay exclusive or monetize it in the market place? That's their choice. I'm sorry to the folks that have gotten used to wearing certain skins and avatars that the creators removed. I'm not sorry for the removal of things that shouldn't have been there to begin with. Stolen assets, ripped avatars not crediting the designers or creators, or things from Weinstein like creators."
"Think you can pull all this off."
"Has the MCU been running full steam for 20 years?"
"What's that have to do with this?"
"Don't worry about it."
"So that's your plan?"
"Take on the richest, most powerful people on the planet, rummage their pockets for almost a quarter of a Trillion Dollars and then just give that money away to artists and students?"
"Yes....well...part 1 of a 10 point plan anyways."
"10 point plan?"
"Yeah, you think I made it this far making cash grabs and no plans?"
"What's step 2 then?"
"Class trips to the moon."
"For real...?"
"Well, that's not step 2, but yeah. Step 2 is Virtual class trips to the moon and getting tours from Real astronauts and educators."
"You can't get VR into every classroom, some can't even handle VR."
"I know, it's called a Holodeck bud."
"A what?"
"Oh....umm.....A...Modern Computer Lab. You know, like the ones anyone over 30 used to play Oregon trail and learn to touch type in."
"Okay..."
"Have you been to the fishing world? Imagine that, but Oregon Trail."
"Fishing world? In VR?"
"For those that are skilled in it or trying to become so sure. But none VR options exist on desktop and various other devices. Plus, you should see the wheelchair mods I've been designing."
"Wheel chair mods?"
"Wheel chair mods."
"Yeah...um...patent pending."
"Pretty fucking full of yourself aren't you there Jack?"
"Well, I am pretty good world building and universe creation."
"I don't see that on your resume."
"Yet."
"Yet?"
*smirk*
"Fuck"
"mmhmmm"
"So you've been wasting your time in VR figuring out how to buy everything in the world. You figure something out about Iran yet?"
"....yeah..."
"Gonna spill."
"Need to verify a couple of things first, might take me a week or so."
"People don't have a week Jack."
"I know..."
"Then why drag your feet."
"Because it would just make things worse if I don't have the facts strait. You know, like a narcissistic jackass thinking they can solve world peace by bullying."
"What's your plan."
"Actual peace built through respect, reconciliation, and a way to honor those that got us here."
"Hurry."
"I'm trying."
"You're going to go fishing again aren't you?"
"You mean debate prep?"
