Will the Metaverse Be Entertaining? Ask South Korea.
... Everyone onscreen was real, sort of. The singers had human counterparts in the studio, isolated in cubicles, with headsets on their faces and joysticks in both hands. Immersed in a virtual world, they were competing to become part of (hopefully) the next big Korean girl band.
The stakes were high. A few of their competitors, after failing to make the cut, had been dropped into bubbling lava.
This, some say, is the future of entertainment in the metaverse, brought to you by South Korea, the world’s testing ground for all things technological. ...
The Korean company Kakao Entertainment wants to take things further. It’s working with a mobile gaming company, Netmarble, to develop a K-pop band called Mave that exists only in cyberspace, where its four artificial members will interact with real-life fans around the world. ...
The contestants were involved in creating their avatars, said Son Su-jung, a producer for the show. She said part of the point was to give K-pop singers — “idols,” as they are called — a break from the industry’s relentless beauty standards, letting them be judged by their talent, not their looks. (Though the avatars, it should perhaps be said, all have big eyes and heart-shaped faces.) ...
The show also lets them drop their polished public personas, relax and crack jokes. “Idols in the real world are expected to be a product of perfection, but we hope that through this show, they can let go of those pressures,” Ms. Son said. ...
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/29/business/metaverse-k-pop-south-korea.html
