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In Silicon Valley, all the talk is about the metaverse. Technology companies believe that the internet in its current form will become obsolete in the foreseeable future. In its place will come the metaverse – a global virtual space where people can live, work, meet friends, and do all the other everyday activities.
Ideally, this is something like the world of “The Matrix” or, to choose a less depressing example, “The Oasis” from “Ready Player One”. But more down-to-earth options are possible, such as existing ecosystems. Individual companies are making a big bet on metaverses, such as the former Facebook holding, which recently rebranded as Meta.
In this article, I will explain how the metaverse will work, why it is necessary, and how realistic its emergence is in the coming years.
What is a metaverse?
Let’s turn to literary origins. The word “metaverse” was coined by the science fiction writer Neal Stephenson for his cyberpunk novel “Snow Crash” – it referred to a three-dimensional virtual reality that encompassed the entire world. In it, people worked and spent their free time – for example, the main character in real life was just a pizza delivery man, but in the metaverse he was a cool ninja hacker.
This novel popularized the word “avatar” and the phenomenon of global virtual worlds. And although Stevenson’s future is described as a dystopia, the idea of a “second life” in the computer space has since captured scientists, programmers, and writers.
There is currently no common definition for the metaverse. Venture capitalist Matthew Ball, author of an extensive essay on this phenomenon, defines it as “an extensive network of real-time visualized three-dimensional worlds and simulations that maintain continuity of identity, objects, history, payments, and rights and can be experienced synchronously by virtually unlimited numbers of users, each of whom has an individual sense of presence”.
On the Meta website, the definition is a bit simpler: “A set of virtual spaces that you can create and explore with other people who are not in the same physical space as you”.
Tim Sweeney, the head of Epic Games, defines the metaverse as “something like an online gaming platform, where you can have fun with friends in Fortnite one moment, and watch Netflix together the next.” But Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, put it more simply. He says that the metaverse is “the immersive internet.”
Indeed, we can already play Fortnite with friends or watch a movie together. The fundamental difference of the metaverse is that all games, applications, and other virtual “worlds” exist in a single space. You, like in “Ready Player One”, put on a VR headset and go into a huge simulation where you can not only have fun, but also, for example, go shopping, study, or work in an office.
Matthew Ball has identified 7 key principles of the metaverse. It should:
- Be constant. No pauses or reboots – it is an inherent, infinite world.
- Exist synchronously for everyone and in real time.
- Have no limitation on the number of users.
- Have a fully functional internal economy. People can not only spend money in it, but also earn, start their own businesses, invest, and sell.
- Connect real life and virtual life. This is not so much a world separate from the real world as its augmentation, addition.
- Provide users with “unprecedented compatibility” of data. So, if you bought clothes for your avatar in Fortnite, you could use them in any other game or application.
- Be open to any authors and content makers who can create their own “experiences” within the metaverse.
What is the purpose of a metaverse?
Mobile internet has changed people’s attitude towards the network: it has become available at any time and in any place. Metaverse seems like the next logical step in the development of the internet.
Instead of communicating with flat images of colleagues on Zoom, it will be possible to sit with them at the same table in a 3D office, pick up digital documents and show your presentation on a special board. Afterwards, you can go shopping with friends at a virtual fitting room or test drive a full replica of a real car with all the proper physical characteristics.
Some of this can already be done, but in the metaverse space, everything changes seamlessly without switching between different applications. In theory, you could spend a complete, fully-loaded day without ever taking off your VR headset.
As Zuckerberg says, the beauty of the metaverse isn’t that people will start interacting more actively with the internet – many already spend a large portion of their time online. Rather, the interaction itself will become more organic. In other words, people will no longer be looking at small flat screens – virtual space will become volumetric and tangible, just like the people you communicate with online.
The head of Meta provides the following example of possible use of the metaverse. For example, in your augmented reality glasses, you walk into a real coffee shop, sit down, and take your drink. One wave of your hand – and before you are work monitors of any size and in any quantity. If you want, you can even call a colleague who is on the other side of the world, and with the help of his glasses, he will be with you in the same space and will be looking at the same monitors.
Metaverse is also a completely new way of interaction between people and brands. Currently, social networks are relatively closed systems that use sophisticated algorithms to determine which ads to show users and how often.
With the development of the metaverse, brands will need to approach marketing more creatively. It is an open world where people are not limited by the news feed: interaction with the network will be more like playing in a virtual reality that can be freely explored. Tim Sweeney believes that the era of closed systems will soon come to an end and people will realize that “brands have been using them” in the last decade. In the metaverse, companies will need to get closer to users.
In the end, the metaverse will create many new jobs. Even during the pandemic, companies began experimenting with remote work, but with the creation of a global virtual space, the problem will disappear altogether. People will be able to visit the office from anywhere in the world using virtual or augmented reality glasses.
In this sense, the metaverse perfectly meets the demands of a society that is becoming less and less tied to specific locations on the map with each passing year. Zuckerberg even calls the metaverse the closest analogue to a teleporter – people will truly be able to move instantly between spaces. Even if not physically.
What difficulties to expect in preparing for the metaverse
Before the metaverse of fantasy becomes a reality, mega-corporations will have to resolve their disagreements at the very least. This is a single virtual space that can only be created through the joint efforts of large brands and ordinary users.
Accordingly, this system must have unified standards so that different applications, even from competing companies, remain compatible with each other. Ultimately, the metaverse as a virtual space must be made on a single platform; otherwise, no seamlessness is possible.
It is difficult to imagine this now. For example, Apple has created an efficient ecosystem within its devices and applications, but this is a closed world inaccessible to developers outside the corporation. And it is unlikely that the company’s approach will change anytime soon.
A gigantic amount of data required for the constant functioning of the metaverse needs to be stored in a decentralized way, because the metaverse does not have a specific creator. The only place to find enough space for it might be cloud storage, which is currently actively pursued by megacorporations such as Microsoft and Amazon.
Problems may also arise with the common currency. Currently, many video games have their own internal “money,” but they are not compatible with each other and, with rare exceptions, cannot be converted back into dollars, euros, or rubles.
Tim Sweeney believes that in order to “change the internet,” developers will need to standardize gaming economies in the same way that electronic mail was once standardized. In the beginning of the existence of the World Wide Web, each company had its own proprietary systems that only worked within the organization.
NFT, or non-fungible cryptographic tokens, can help standardize online purchases – they serve as a certificate of ownership of a digital object. Theoretically, they could be used to transfer items for your avatar from one game to another.
However, more advanced technologies are needed for the creation of a meta-universe than we currently have. For example, virtual reality helmets are still too heavy and imperfect for extended use without risking harm to one’s health, let alone for work or education.
The same goes for augmented reality devices – ideally, people would wear them like regular glasses and use them in their daily lives, but they must be powerful enough to match full-fledged personal computers. Google Glass or Dream Glass are only precursors to such technologies.
Timeframe for the emergence of the meta-universe
Despite all the obvious difficulties and imperfections of technology, in recent years the fantastic concept is getting closer to reality. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, for example, hopes that within five years his company will transition from social networks to working on the metaverse. And the Roundhill Investments corporation recently founded an exchange-traded fund to support companies working in this direction.
In fact, predecessors of the metaverse began to appear a long time ago. For example, in 2003, Second Life was released – a kind of virtual social network in which users could work, live, and earn real money in a fully digital world. Earlier – in 1995 – a similar project, Cybertown, allowed people to communicate, buy, and sell things in a computer 3D space. More recent examples include virtual schools in Minecraft, where children learned during the pandemic.
In these examples, however, there is no mention of the presence effect, which is very important for the metaverse. Virtual reality devices only became sufficiently accessible and technological for ordinary people to use them in recent years. This is one of the reasons why developers and corporate executives began to think about creating the metaverse.
Already now, says Mark Zuckerberg, people use the Oculus Quest VR headset not only for games. They communicate in virtual rooms, do fitness in applications like FitXR, train in a boxing ring or on a dance floor.
As 20 years ago, the closest analogues to the metaverse can be found in the gaming industry. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is not just concerned about the next step in the development of the Internet and social networks. The most popular game of his company – Fortnite – is a miniature metaverse.
Concerts of popular performers such as Travis Scott are already held in it, where up to a hundred participants can be present in the virtual space. In Fortnite, premieres of new movie trailers are shown simultaneously for all players – as was the case with Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet”. And Ferrari has added their Ferrari 296 GTB to the game, demonstrating how big brands can interact with the future metaverse.
In Fortnite, a character from “Stranger Things” on Netflix may encounter a hero from Disney’s “Star Wars.” Master Chief from Microsoft’s Halo game shares the screen with Kratos, a character from Sony’s God of War. Epic Games brings together competing companies not just in words, but in action, demonstrating the beginning of that unprecedented compatibility. This is no longer just a game, but a full-fledged virtual world that is constantly changing and evolving.
It increasingly resembles a metaverse and Roblox. Today it is not just a game, but a place of leisure where users create their own worlds and those same experiences that Neal Stephenson wrote about. There is a fully functioning internal economy, and switching between different types of entertainment is almost seamless.
Similarly, Epic Games is actively fighting against closed systems. The company is currently suing Apple because it prohibits third-party developers from selling their apps outside of the official store. If Epic Games wins the case – the court has already made a decision against the game studio, but it has filed an appeal – it will be a very interesting precedent. And the idea of a metaverse will become slightly closer to realization.
The unified game engine that should work in the metaverse could easily become the Unreal Engine – also from Epic Games. Firstly, it is accessible and understandable even for those who are not proficient in programming. Secondly, it has long been used outside of the gaming industry: with the help of the Unreal Engine, buildings and mechanisms are designed, and it was used in the filming of the “Mandalorian” series to convincingly show non-existent fantastic worlds.
Furthermore, the latest iteration of the engine is capable of creating large, detailed spaces in real-time. Obviously, the company will continue to move towards accessibility and scalability.
It will take a lot of time before a fully functioning metaverse – the one we saw in “Ready Player One” – can be created. Epic Games’ General Manager Mark Petit believes that humanity is taking only the first “baby steps.” And he describes the process as “eating an elephant one spoonful at a time.”
But still, this is no longer a distant future from science fiction. It is something that we can all experience and see with our own eyes. It is quite likely that for the next generation, the global network in its current form will become as much of a relic of the past as home phones or internet by card for today’s teenagers.
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