What is the Metaverse?

Basically, it’s an online version of reality. Everything you can do in real life, you should be able to do in the metaverse. You will be able to work, play, shop, and socialize with people living countries apart. Think of the virtual world from the movie Ready Player One. According to most experts, the metaverse will:

1. Be persistent - It can’t be paused.

2. Be in sync - Everyone will experience the same version of it in real-time.

3. Have presence - You should feel as if the person across you is really there.

4. Have a functioning economy - Everyone will be able to create, own, invest, and sell.

5. Be a bridge - Spans between physical and virtual worlds, across different platforms.

6. Be interoperable - Operates on a single currency, with digital items usable everywhere.

7. Be user-created - Everyone can create content and experiences

Current Metaverses

Video games such as Fortnight, Rec Room, and Roblox can meet almost all the above requirements. They are all persistent and have functional user-created economies. People go there not just to play the game, but also to hang out with their friends. Users create and sell their own unique content, creating a vibrant economy that ties with the real world.

The Future Metaverse

Futurists believe that the metaverse is capable of much more. They believe the metaverse will eventually substitute reality and revolutionize the way we live. In addition to what we already have, here’s what they envision:

Complete Immersion

Currently, we look into the virtual world through a monitor. However, VR headsets will bring users completely inside the metaverse. There, they can navigate virtual space in the same way they navigate reality.

Stronger Presence

Right now, the interaction of our virtual avatars is limited to text, emojis, and possibly some pre-recorded gestures. Futurists envision face and body tracking that will bring your expressions into the virtual world. These technologies bring the subtleties of real-world face-to-face communications into the metaverse.

Real Ownership of Virtual Property

When something is rare, it will have value. Real estate in the most popular areas will rise in value. Collectibles are higher priced when they are rare. This is the kind of dynamic that NFT could bring to the metaverse.

NFT are basically ownership records that are unique and cannot be altered. This means that virtual assets can have real ownership rights, bringing real economic dynamics into the metaverse. In fact, this is already happening. When rapper Snoop Dogg purchased land in a metaverse called The Sandbox, netizens then paid almost USD $1.2M to live next to him.

One Single Metaverse

Currently, each virtual space operates separately: you can’t take your Fortnight skin into Roblox. Futurists imagine a single metaverse that holds all virtual spaces, all virtual assets, and all people in the same virtual space.

How is the Metaverse Progressing?

As technology advances, we are inching closer to total immersion. There are now consumer-ready products for body tracking, facial tracking, and of course VR. Haptic gloves that mimic the sense of touch are not yet consumer-ready, but commercial versions are on the market.

The real challenge to the metaverse is centralization. Currently, we have multiple metaverses such as The Sandbox, Second Life, Roblox, and Fortnight. Getting them all into a single metaverse will require a significant change in the business landscape.

Race to the Metaverse

Big tech firms are jockeying into position. Facebook has renamed itself Meta and acquired Oculus, a leading VR headset maker. Microsoft has acquired Activision Blizzard, the makers of Fortnite.

As for which company will come out on top, and what the metaverse will look like in the future, only time will tell.