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For more than a century, the Times Square Ball has slowly lit up and descended every New Year’s Eve in New York City, marking the end of the year with a stunning LED display. There is now an official “Metaverse” experience.
Jamestown LP, the real estate conglomerate that owns the One Times Square building and the ball on top, launched a “virtual experience” of the ball drop in late 2020. It was marketed primarily as a safe way to enjoy the festivities. : The in-person New Year’s Eve party in 2020 has been drastically reduced to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It offered a live stream of the event, as well as a virtual environment to explore before then with some mini-games and unlockable content.
The game has been around ever since, and is being promoted again by Jamestown LP before New Year’s Eve. This time, however, it’s dubbed “the Times Square metaverse,” in keeping with the current trend of calling any virtual environment the “metaverse.”
VNYE, short for Virtual New Year’s Eve, is available for Windows, Android, iPhone, and iPad. It’s still just a series of mini-games embedded with a live stream of the event (when it starts). There’s no VR support, it’s pretty slow, even on my 4th generation iPad Air. The game also requires an email address for some reason.
There’s not much reason to give the game a try, but the VNYE website will broadcast a live stream of the real-life event on New Year’s Eve, if you can’t catch it on TV.
Street: Google play
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