Orbitat

Orbitat, commonly referred to as Orb, is an online metaverse game developed by Orbitat Inc. and released in 2044. It lets players buy, develop, and trade virtual land corresponding to real-world locations on Earth as well as the Moon.

Players pay a monthly subscription to maintain their in-game assets, the value of which is affected by real-world developments such as housing bubbles and natural disasters. Due to scarcity, many players form collectives known as co-orbs or corbs to share ownership of small parcels of land, apartments, and rooms.

With an average annual revenue of ¥28.7 billion since 2046 and a current active monthly player count of 425 million, Orbitat is considered one of Singapore’s most significant contributions to the tech world.

HistoryPermalink

The concept of Orbitat can be traced back to M2H, an experimental mod for Re:Visit. The game was set in a spacefaring colony ship where characters built replicas of their homes while in cryogenic sleep as a way to keep them connected to Earth, with some players banding together to build neighbourhoods based on real-life locations where they lived. The M2H mod allowed players to buy and sell their homes, or house-swap for mutually agreed-upon periods of time. ^[1]

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M2H was launched during the summer of 2032 by Felicia Kwee, Felix Kwee, and Asa Morales. The mod was considered a breakout success, with over 540,000 unique downloads in the first three months. In March 2033, Re:Visit issued a cease and desist after Morales and the Kwees started crowdfunding to support the growing cost of maintaining the mod.

The first version of Orbitat was based on the original M2H mod, Felicia Kwee’s senior thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and her personal research. In 2035, Kwee returned to Singapore and began working at the Government Technology Agency (GovTech). Shortly after, Kwee transferred to the Virtual Singapore team, where she became a senior experience designer. In 2041, Kwee left civil service and founded Orbitat Inc., with several key Virtual Singapore team members leaving to follow her. Kwee served as CCO, with her brother Felix as CEO and Morales as COO.

After winning the approval and backing of the Singapore government, Orbitat Inc. officially launched Orbitat in January 2044. By the end of its first year, Orbitat boasted 310 million monthly active players, with a current active monthly player count of 425 million. ^[2] In 2045, Orbitat Inc. announced a partnership with the Major League Baseball Extra (MLBE) to host and mirror its league games in Orbitat. In March 2048, Kwee left Orbitat Inc. for undisclosed personal reasons, with the role of CCO remaining unfilled.

On October 3rd 2049, Orbitat Inc. lost over ¥3.6 billion in market value, which was tied to the attack on the DotDesign Museum. ^[3] The unveiling of the museum was intended to officially open the island of Pulau Bahru and trigger the release of corresponding terrestrial land on Orbitat, valued at over ¥5.3 billion in virtual real estate. Orbitat Inc. has distanced itself from Kwee following her “distasteful and disappointing” online actions in response to the attack. ^[4]

The Orbitat asset market stabilised on October 6th 2049 when demand for the virtual Design by Democracy exhibition skyrocketed following the destruction of its physical counterpart in the museum attack. Another contributing factor was the fluctuating popularity of the Orbitat skin of Charlemagne Cabrera following his misreported suicide and subsequent death on October 8th 2049. ^[5] [6]

Cultural impactPermalink

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Morales has described Orbitat’s success as “an inevitable end point” after learning from the failures of similar predecessors such as Earth2 and Meterra. ^[7] Surveys show that over 82% of people with stable internet connections have an Orbitat account, with over 620 million people having invested in the virtual counterpart to their physical home. Orbitat is being used in many secondary education programmes as a way to teach students how to cohabitate and make collective decisions, to the point where some schools have eliminated Model United Nations clubs in favour of corbs. ^[8]

Euphoria Network has launched several reality shows that are partially or completely set inside Orbitat, most notably Masters of the House. The show gained notoriety when the moderators of Fairfax Spite House were sued by the residents of its real-life equivalent after corb fans attempted to throw a rave at the location.

See alsoPermalink

• Orbitat Inc.

ReferencesPermalink