Brendan Greene, aka PlayerUnknown, has released details regarding his next gaming project, codenamed “Artemis,” which intends to be an open-source Earth-sized virtual world supporting hundreds of thousands of users who may develop or play whatever they want.
Here’s the rub, though. Greene also wants users to be able to monetize what they make, essentially turning all user-generated content into NFTs.
Let’s set aside the NFT for a moment and talk about how Greene intends to build a world this large. Melba, the engine that powers Artemis, is being developed in-house at Greene’s development studio, PlayerUnknown Productions. Because the goal with Artemis is to have a massive procedurally generated world, it’s understandable that no current game engine would be up to the task.
Let’s set aside the NFT for a moment and talk about how Greene intends to build a world this large. Melba, the engine that powers Artemis, is being developed in-house at Greene’s development studio, PlayerUnknown Productions. Because the objective of Artemis is to create a vast procedurally generated universe, it’s clear that no contemporary game engine would be equal to the task. Built foremost for scalability, Melba is designed to build a world using AI that would normally require a team of artists to accomplish.
On paper, Artemis’ ambitions seem quite ambitious, and although we enjoy the notion of people being rewarded for their efforts, we can’t help but get a feeling of dread and curiosity when we consider who would oversee such a massive marketplace.
