In an attempt to unite human culture with technology, the Irish Shebeen, the first Irish pub in the metaverse. Located in The Sandbox, this virtual bar opened its doors on St. Patrick’s Day on March 17, promising to be a place where avatars could come together to dance, sing and enjoy camaraderie. However, a Decrypt reporter’s account takes a tragicomic turn by turning the invitation to a joyous holiday into an environment filled with loneliness.
“I came to the Irish Shebeen ready to dance, talk, listen and meet people from all over the world (that’s the advantage of a virtual pub). I even had a Guinness chilling in the fridge, in case digital beers weren’t enough anymore”, the reporter mentions in a moment of emotion as he was about to enter the pub, thinking about the opportunity to merge partying with technology. However, instead of finding a tavern full of people singing with loud music in the background, he only found elevator music and silence coming from calm and inert avatars in the place. The reason for this inaction was simple: the reporter I was in a single player event.
“A question to the Sandbox representatives clarified things: the pub, created by a couple of journalists from Web3 and Hermit Crab Game Studio with the support of Kinahan’s Whiskey and 28 other organizations and entities, is for now a single player experience. “.
Although the pub is designed to work in multiplayer and be able to share with other people, not yet implemented and this is verified with the Decrypto reporter, who mentions that with the chat he could share with other people, but that they were in their own versions of the tavern, and were not really having a good time: “I asked, more rhetorically than anything else, if this was better than going to a real bar. Someone named Alkai immediately replied: ‘no’”
The reporter’s story closes with the resignation to spend the festivities in a pub full of robots that repeat animatronic movements and that respond to programmed and repetitive messages. Although it is already planned that these places allow access to more people, there are still details to improve and that keep these places in solitude.
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