I drank beer and ate lobster and GOLD in the metaverse – but I never want to go back inside

A PARTY with beer, lobster and edible gold may sound like fun but the metaverse will quickly kill the vibe.

Heineken just hosted an event in the metaverse and offered the chance to ‘drink’ the brand’s first virtual beer.

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I was invited into the metaverse to ‘try’ the new beer, which is called virtual Heineken Silver.

After talking to a metaverse bouncer, guests were allowed inside the virtual reality brewery.

It’s complete with horizontal tanks for ‘brewing’ the virtual beer and the party upstairs involved dancing, virtual lobster and edible gold.

Of course, anyone attending the event would have left both hungry and thirsty as the metaverse is still very much like playing the Sims.

Heineken saw the event as more of a “joke” that could symbolise how it hopes beer can bring people together just like the metaverse can.

Bram Westenbrink, global head Heineken Brand, said: “At Heineken, we believe that connecting with people is vital to human existence, like the air we breathe or the water we drink, and we know that the metaverse brings people together in a light-hearted and immersive way that is exciting – but it’s just not the best place to taste a new beer.

“Our new virtual beer, Heineken Silver is an ironic joke.

“It is a self-aware idea that pokes fun at us and many other brands that are jumping into the metaverse with products that are best enjoyed in the real world.

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“For now, you can’t taste pixels and bytes. So, we want to make a joke about that and remind everyone that nothing beats the taste of a refreshing beer, including our new virtual Heineken Silver, in the real world.”

The event may have been an ironic joke for Heineken but Mark Zuckerberg thinks we’ll all be living in the metaverse one day.

Zuckerberg recently told tech podcaster Lex Fridman: “A lot of people think that the metaverse is about a place, but one definition of this is it’s about a time when basically immersive digital worlds become the primary way that we live our lives and spend our time.”

He added: “I think that’s a reasonable construct.”

In Zuckerberg’s metaverse, humans are represented by legless avatars.

Earlier this year, the billionaire used a Facebook Live video to show how his legless avatar could enter the metaverse and start creating a whole new scenario from nothing.

To do this, he spoke to an early concept version of a new AI assistant called Builder Bot.

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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk