To Chen Mo, the Matrix Shopping Centre update for Oasis was just a small trick, but it still caused a huge uproar around the world.
It even caused concern and attacks from many food and beverage industry giants.
Obviously, the Matrix Shopping Centre was a product that 'defined the lifestyle of players in the virtual world'. It represented another big step towards the 'Brain in a Vat'.
In the most extreme science fiction novels, there would be a fantasy that one day in the future, the resources of the world would be depleted. Most people would only be able to keep their brains in the nutrition cabin, and would only need to consume a small amount of nutrient solution to survive. In such a huge virtual world, people would do all kinds of work and continue to contribute to society, completely unaware that they were in an extremely fake world. They would still think that the delicious food they ate, the handsome men/women they went out with at night, the houses they lived in, and the cars they drove were all real.
Perhaps the delicious food and the cars were just a bunch of code and models, and the other half you spent the rest of your life with was an artificial intelligence created by the system based on your preferences.
Some people might even accidentally wake up and discover the real world, but they would feel that it was a terrifying nightmare, and would do anything to return to the virtual world.
Perhaps communism could be achieved then. After all, the virtual world could be said to be 'extremely rich in materials'. Even though social classes still existed, it could ensure that the people at the bottom of the social ladder did not have to worry about food and clothing, and could even enjoy most of the luxuries.
The 'Brain in a Vat' was a theory that seemed to coexist with hope and horror. People hoped for a beautiful future, but at the same time hoped that it was an absolutely real future.
In the parallel world, people's worries about the 'Brain in a Vat' had never been as serious as it was today, because this future seemed to be becoming a reality step by step, right under everyone's eyes.
Of course, from the current situation, most people thought that the emergence of this technology was a good thing, because the Matrix Gaming Pod would not affect the human body in the real world.
However, it would have a devastating impact on many industries in the real world.
Although Nuannuan's wardrobe was also a product that relied on the virtual world, it at least had a physical body in the real world. After all, it was an online store, and the clothes it produced were real. Players would still have to buy clothes in the game in real life if they bought them in-game.
However, this was not the case in the food industry.
Some multinational fast food brands, beverage brands, and high-end food and beverage brands had serious concerns about the food system in the Matrix game cabin. They believed that it would severely impact the related industries in the real world.
Some people even made a guess about the future: In the future, everyone would order some "nutritious meals" online. The taste of these nutritious meals was definitely not delicious, but of course, it was not bad either. Their advantage was that they were nutritionally balanced and easy to eat. This kind of fast food that had gone through a certain degree of concentration would be like nutritionally balanced compressed biscuits or instant noodles, becoming the staple food of humans in the future.
Humans' pursuit of delicacies and their pursuit of nutrition would be completely separated. In reality, people relied on these nutritious meals to survive, and their requirements for taste were infinitely close to zero. In the virtual world, however, people would enjoy the temptation of delicious food to their heart's content. They would not have to worry about getting fat or having an imbalance in nutrition because it was just a bunch of code.
Obviously, this conjecture was not baseless, because there were already signs of it now.
Although there was no evidence to support this claim, many players who had purchased the Matrix game cabin said that their requirements for good food in real life were gradually decreasing. If one only considered taste, the food in the Matrix game cabin was even better than the food in real life, and the quality-price ratio completely crushed the real thing.
In real life, to eat specific food, they would have to drive there, line up, and spend a lot of money. Money wasn't the main problem, the main problem was the time and energy consumed in the process.
Therefore, many fast food brands, beverage brands, and high-end food and beverage brands expressed their dissatisfaction with the Matrix game cabin. There were also many articles smearing the Matrix Shopping Mall and the Brain in a Vat on the internet.
Some media outlets even published articles claiming that the Matrix game cabin was like alcohol and poison. In fact, it was using a false sense of pleasure that went against biology to destroy everyone's lives, making them feel the threshold of happiness higher and higher until they finally lost interest in the world.
There were many similar articles, and some multinational fast food brands and beverage brands were considering suing Thunderbolt Entertainment, asking them to immediately stop the "infringing behavior in the Matrix game cabin".
For example, the manufacturer of Fat Otaku's coca cola was one of them.
Obviously, the Matrix game cabin didn't just touch their cheese, it could even be said that it took away the milk pail used to make the cheese. What if people really stopped eating fast food and drinking Fat Otaku's coca cola in the future, and instead ate nutritious meals all day, then went to the virtual world to experience the joy of Fat Otaku's coca cola?
That would be a devastating blow to these large food and beverage companies.
Of course, this was only limited to the big brands with patents. Some of the world's cuisines and classics could be made by any chef, so it was perfectly fine for Chen Mo to use them directly.
These big brands didn't have a unified stance either. Some insisted that the Matrix Shopping Mall remove their food/beverages, so that consumers could only enjoy them in real life; others wanted the Matrix Shopping Mall to increase the price of their food/beverages to the same price as in real life, and pay them a high cut.
For example, the manufacturer of Fat Otaku's coca cola was the latter. They wanted the Matrix Shopping Mall to increase the price to three dollars per bottle, and for every bottle sold, they had to give five dollars as a branding fee.
Obviously, these manufacturers were also very smart. Even if everyone really entered the era of the "brain in a vat" in the future, for these manufacturers, they would really be able to earn money while lying down. They wouldn't even need to produce anymore.
However, Thunderbolt Entertainment didn't care about this kind of pressure.
Chen Mo had the support of the Game Committee. In China, the Matrix game cabin was already tied to a large community of interest. Chen Mo didn't even need to worry about these things, as there would naturally be people who would find ways to take advantage of the loopholes to maintain this large market.
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