Prokect Quaero was only the beginning of the massive success:
After spending €387,000 (£332,500) on creating a virtual world to promote the EU’s “global gateway” development projects, officials hoped to introduce young people to the website with a special “gala” night of “music and fun” .
“Are you ready to party?” asked the invitation to the event on Tuesday night.
Only a handful of people, appearing as avatars, turned up.
“I’m here at the ‘gala’,” tweeted Vince Chadwick, a journalist for Devex, a website providing news for the development and NGO sector. “After initial bemused chats with the roughly five other humans who showed up, I am alone.”
Good thing we have left, isn’t it.
Project Queero.
Ok. Devil’s Advocate..
It works, it is more or less delivered on time, and cost only short of 400k.
For a government IT project ( any government, anywhere…) that’s …pretty impressive.
Don’t forget that developing a working (commercial) game without the Meta Bullshyte will set you back several million to get off the ground..
And the fnar-fnarring…. Shall we List the successes and overruns of UK ( We’re British!!) IT projects?
Ah…. Thought so…
I’m so glad the British government no longer wastes any money!
Grikath: props to the IT guys who managed to do it, but I wonder what they felt when it was just ignored, as of course it was always going to be. The metaverse concept may very well kill off faecebook, which I for one won’t mourn.
It’s not only the EU wasting money on virtual reality nonsense, take a look at how much Zuckerberg has wasted on his metaverse (“now with added legs!”). Bloody stupid idea.
@TG I very carefully refrained from assessing any usefulness or effectiveness regarding the project… 😉 Just remarked on the Pot v/s Kettle paradigm.
As far as the IT lads/lasses involved are concerned.. Who cares about their Feelings? They knew ( or at least should have known ) what they were getting into when they started working for a bureaucratic mogul.
They’ve no doubt been paid, probably a glowing reference as well when it comes to the technical aspect.
And the “Metaverse”… Peeps forget the tech itself is still in its infancy.
A harsh view of it is it’s at the stage of Pong compared to the modern MMO’s.
It may have some Real Life™ applications, but if there’s ever going to be significant adaptation it’d be in gaming. There’s a solid reason for the VRMMO segment in manga, the interest and potential market is there.. And there’s plenty homebrew “controllers” based on the concept being designed/built/Shedded. Just like home electronics projects in the time of Pong™..
But real adaptation? Only IF the hardware becomes affordable and relatively easy to use. Which currently it isn’t.
I thought developers were much happier when there weren’t any annoying users to have to deal with