As the North Carolina-based video game company laid off more than 800 workers in order to grow its metaverse offerings, Anderson, a professor of journalism and director of the Imagining the Internet Center, shared her insights on the matter with the News & Observer.
Janna Anderson, professor of journalism and director of the Imagining the Internet Center, was featured in a recent article from the Raleigh News & Observer on the future of the metaverse and the recent layoffs at Cary-based Epic Games.
Epic Games, a video games and software developer and publisher, laid off approximately 16% of its workforce in late September citing the cost of building out a metaverse within the company’s most popular game, Fortnite, as the reason for the cuts.
Anderson told The News & Observer that cuts are a common reaction by companies that have overpromised on the metaverse in recent years.
“It is expensive, time-consuming and often quite impossible to accelerate technological development as quickly as the public and investors would like to see it happen,â Anderson told reporter Brian Gordon. âThe companies that had dumped billions into metaverse development and their shareholders realized that by 2023, and they took a step back.â
The full can be read online.
Anderson is a top researcher and consultant on the future of digital life. As of early 2023, her h-index is 47. Other recent publications beyond âAs AI Spreads, Experts Predict the Best and Worst Changes in Digital Life by 2035â include âThe Metaverse in 2040âłÂ and âThe Future of Human Agency.â Along with her work as a professor and director of the Imagining the Internet Center, she serves as a , co-leading Pew and Elonâs 19-year series of reports outlining thousands of expertsâ predictions for the most likely future of digital life in coming decades.
She is the lead author of the âFuture of the Internetâ book series published by Cambria Press and author of the book âImagining the Internet: Personalities, Predictions, Perspectives.â She has appeared as a speaker and expert on the future of information technologies at numerous international conferences, including World Future conferences, South By Southwest Interactive, Webcom, NextGov, MobilityShifts, Institute for the Future symposiums, the UN-facilitated Internet Governance Forum and the Metaverse Roadmap Project.