Let’s imagine that you magically find yourself in the year 2045. Everything you could imagine in your wildest science-fiction vision of the world is now a simple reality. Humans are driving flying cars (finally), making changes to how they look and teleporting to any destination in seconds. This might all sound like a chapter from a bestseller cyberpunk novel or a scene from the movie Ready Player One. But, what if I told you that we are just years or even less away from this utopian scenario? Well, you’ve guessed it from the title. Welcome to the Metaverse.
This article will explain the Metaverse, why it matters, and how tech giants are preparing for the most significant social revolution in recent history. And of course, conclude with my personal opinion.
The Metaverse
The term Metaverse was first mentioned by Neal Stephenson’s in his 1992 sci-fi novel, Snow Crash. He explained the term (revolutionary during his time) as a convergence of physical, augmented, and virtual reality in a shared online space. However, it took decades before the term once again gained some traction. Matthew Ball, a renowned venture capital investor set the tone of the “modern” Metaverse in his essay published in January of 2020. Among his explanation, the Metaverse spans the physical and virtual worlds and contains a fully-fledged economy, where people can create, own, invest, sell, and be rewarded for an extensive range of work that produces value.
Why it matters
Put bluntly, the most exciting thing about the Metaverse is not its scope nor complex infrastructure but its potential to reinvent the way we interact and connect to the people we love. The Metaverse will allow anyone to pop into a persistent virtual world and discover new people and make experiences together, entirely unplanned. Put simply, the ability to live within the web.
The challenges
One of the biggest challenges of the Metaverse is figuring out how to create enough high-quality content to sustain it. It will take a tremendous amount of content to populate such a world, making the advancement in fully AI-created range crucial. It will also be costly to build, considering that EA Sports spent $200M and six years to simulate just a few words within the Star Wars Universe. The Metaverse will likely be composed of tens or even hundreds of such Start Wars-sized virtual galaxies.
Conclusion
It is safe to say that we are heading towards a new digital revolution. Despite no one owning the Metaverse, the big tech companies, especially Facebook, will play an enormous role in establishing this utopian world. Hence, societal issues such as digital governance, identity and ethics will be of higher priority for such a project to be widely accepted. Finally, I believe the Metaverse will lead to a completely new wave of opportunities on the same level as the internet back in the early 90s. Nothing more to say than: see you in the Metaverse.
Sources
https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-ceo-metaverse-interview
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/facebook-wants-us-to-live-in-the-metaverse
Very interesting article! Even though living in a completely virtual reality still seems to be something out of a Hollywood blockbuster, I don’t think that our technical capabilities are that far behind from what’s needed to establish something like this, in fact it might even be possible today. Next to the technical aspects though, I am curious about the effects of “living in a virtual reality” on the human body. Clearly there are various big question marks such as addiction, lack of movement/exercise, de-socialization in real life etc. that need to be addressed.
Very interesting article! The whole idea of another, virtual world sounds slightly terrifying but I believe the popularity of the meta verse is increasing rapidly. Covid-19 has boosted this rise enormously as people were forced to stay home and live their lives from behind their computers. Especially since leading platforms like Facebook are now looking for alternative ways to communicate after the pandemic, using the meta verse could be a solution. Hybrid working has become the new normal and virtual workrooms would allow employees to collaborate in a meaningful way without the requirement of leaving your apartment and meet each other in person. Apart from the working world, also fashion brands like Gucci have started to represent their brand virtually and expanded their collections on online platforms like Roblox. The meta verse allows brands to reach different audiences like Gen Z by exploring online strategies that make use of VR and gaming to engage with customers in a whole new way. For fashion brands becoming entrenched in the meta verse, it means that their customers can play, socialize and shop online which makes the customer experience as unique and memorizable as possible. They can become someone else by stepping into the skin of a digital avatar that represents them in the virtual world. And not only does this new sales channel let customers explore fashion items in a fun and immersive way, it also tackles the problem of overproduction and waste! However, although the meta verse brings a lot of opportunities in several industries, the idea of spending our lives connected to persistent virtual simulations is something that also comes with its downsides. The affects of blockchain, NFTs and decentralization would change existing economics and power-structures and challenge conservative businesses as we know it.
Interesting post and an excellent introduction to a newly popular technology in which I am also extremely interested! I believe that the conversation and study on the metaverse will undoubtedly give us take a moment to consider the future of technology. Individuals using augmented reality glasses may be able to see a plethora of information flow with the move of the eyes around the city. Not only that, but I believe metaverse will provide hyperreality experiences such as nightclubs, sports stadiums, or mountaintops that some individuals with impairments or restrictions may find difficult to access. I’m looking forward to firms like Facebook delving deeper into the metaverse and ushering in a new era of virtual reality with a lot more unique experience than before.
Glad you liked the article Seun!
This is a very interesting post! Personally I have not read much into the Metaverse, however I am very curious to see how this further develops. We are currently in a digital revolution, as you mention, and it is imminent for companies to be up to date to all new technologies and finding ways in which they can incorporate this into their core strategies and technologies. It seems like Metaverse ties into the whole Virtual reality systems that have gained quite a bit of traction over the last few years. It will be interesting to see how this progresses over time and which companies are actually able to successfully embed this into their core strategy ad implementation.
Before this post haven’t really thought of this direction in digital development as of a complete technological concept, more as of a set of different technologies. But this is very interesting that soon there might a whole world that unites all people in the world and brings international communication to a new level. Recently a new movie was released that tackled the related topic – Free Guy – besides the main fantasy and action related plot, it reviews the point of how a piece of game code (non-playing character created to complement the gaming space) could evolve as an independent character/game element because of embedded Artificial Intelligence (AI). So, in this kind of virtual universe people could not only interact with other living people but also with artificial algorithm that develops and lives its own life. Who knows how soon this also becomes real and we could potentially learn something new from machine code.
Hi Michelangelo,
I think you found a great topic to make a post on! I am also very interested in the future of the metaverse. Like you said in your post, companies are already trying to get a foothold in new ways that can connect people. An example you named is Facebook, who is already trying to get people in virtual reality by selling VR headsets. Specifically Facebook also makes users log in to their social media account when using the VR headset, because they are trying to integrate the VR world into their social media ecosystem. There are some concerns I have with how this data will be used by Facebook, so I also think it is important that governments look into online data protection laws and that companies themselves look into ethical bevaviour when there will be even more available data of users.
If you are interested, there are also social games in development that are already trying to make VR worlds for social gatherings. A couple examples would be VRchat and Neos VR. These games are not polished enough for big audiences and the VR technology is not cheap enough yet for the mainstream, but I can see a future where big companies try to make their own versions that are better and more accessible. I hope the future of a real metaverse will arrive soon!
Glad you enjoyed the article, Bas! I will check out the game you mentioned 🙂