Carlos M. Meléndez is the COO and Co-Founder of Wovenware, an artificial intelligence and software development company. "These days, the reality is a bummer. Everyone is looking for a way to escape," said Wade Watts, the protagonist of the Ernest Cline novel Ready Player One, which was turned into a movie by Steven Spielberg in 2018. In the novel and film, which takes place in 2045, the world is on the verge of collapse, but a virtual reality universe, OASIS, has given people something to find hope in. While Ready Player One is clearly a science fiction story about a contest taking place in a virtual community, it draws many parallels to the rise of the metaverse.