What is Metaverse
The Metaverse is a networked/shared 3D Virtual world, which is immersive, intuitive, interactive, and collaborative.
Our physical universe is a collection of places (or worlds) that are connected in space. Like that metaverse can be thought of as a collection of worlds (but which are virtual).
Metaverse is a virtual world, where people can connect, attend meeting, watch various places, play games, watch movies….
It allows users to be present at a place virtually without being present in real. That is, being at your own home, you can virtually join/attend meeting at some other country.
Here, an Avtar is created which can be accessed by us, on behalf of us by sitting anywhere.
The word “metaverse” is a combination of two words “meta-” and “verse”.
The word “meta” is a prefix of Greek-origin meaning “beyond’ while “verse” comes from the word “universe”.
Author Neal Stephenson used the word ‘metaverse’ in his 1992 science fiction novel “Snow Crash,”.
In this novel, he envisioned lifelike avatars who met in real.
Since then, various developments have happened toward a real metaverse, an online virtual world that incorporates augmented reality, virtual reality, 3D holographic avatars, video, and other means of interactions & communication.
You can get a feeling of a metaverse in online game universes such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox.
If you have watched, Ernest Cline’s Movie “Ready Player One”, you can get an inkling of the metaverse. In that movie, OASIS was a virtual reality simulation world.
Metaverse…Decoded
These are various technologies/objects that make up the metaverse can include
- Virtual reality—characterized by persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you’re not playing
- Augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds. Note that these spaces can be accessed by PC, game consoles, phones or VR/AR headsets.
- Video & Hologram
- Hologram
- NFT & blockchain technology
- Ultra-fast speed broadband
- Wearable including headset, gloves, jackets….
- Cloud infrastructure
- Software tools to create other avatars & maintain user-generated content
- Programming language like Lua
Apart from the technical requirements, the metaverse includes various user experiences including, but not limited to, entertainment, gaming, commerce, social interactions, education, and research.
Metaverse also contains a digital economy, where users can create, buy, and sell goods.
And, in the more idealistic visions of the metaverse, it’s interoperable, allowing you to take virtual items like clothes or cars from one virtual world to another.
Right now, most platforms have virtual identities, avatars, and inventories that are tied to just one platform, but a metaverse might allow you to create a persona that you can take everywhere as easily as you can copy your profile picture from one social network to another.
In the future, we can envision that metaverse’s users will be working, playing, and staying connected with friends through this.
Within metaverse, they may be attending concerts, exclusive movie previews, conferences, dance shows, traveling to other countries, going to sea-beach…
Properties of metaverse:
These are the properties of the metaverse
- It should be scalable
- Interoperable: These virtual places will be persistent. So various objects and identities of those objects can move through them
- It should be rendered on a real-time basis
- 3D virtual worlds
- Synchronous
- Persistent: In current online games, you can pause the game or finish the game. But in metaverse, it’s always running.
- Unlimited number of users
- The individual sense of presence
- Continuity of data
Important players behind Metaverse
No one owns the metaverse itself. Like today, nobody owns the internet. But these are important players, who are involved in the metaverse
- Meta: The tech giant formerly known as Facebook has already made significant investments in virtual reality, including the 2014 acquisition of Oculus. It envisions a virtual world where digital avatars connect through games, work, travel, or entertainment using VR headsets.
- Microsoft: The software giant already uses holograms and is developing mixed and extended reality (XR) applications with its Microsoft Mesh platform, which combines the real world with augmented reality and virtual reality.
- Epic Games: They had developed Fortnite (online multiplayer game), hosted virtual concerts by Ariana Grande & Travis Scott.
- Roblox : This platform, houses scores of user-generated games, including role-playing offerings like Bloxburg and Brookhaven, where users can build homes, work, and playout scenarios.
- Another virtual universe beloved by kids, Minecraft is essentially the digital equivalent of Legos, where players can create their own digital character and build whatever they desire.
- Nvidia Omniverse
Nvidia has launched its Omniverse platform. The company has taken an open-sourced approach to invite enterprise clients to try out the omniverse. Developers can build, license, and distribute apps with over 200 pre-built extensions.
Concept of Virtual Real Estate & Usage of NFT
You can buy virtual land in metaverse & get that ownership confirmed by having NFT related to that land.
On similar lines, you can buy other digital items on metaverse and get/buy NFT for that.
Major Metaverse platforms for these are
- Decentraland
- The Sandbox
- LeapN
People have already bought plots in these metaverse platforms by spending more than a million dollars.
This may sound strange. But remember, 40 years back, no one would have thought that buying a proper domain name on the internet (say domain name like Digital, Education, Money, ….) will cost so much.
Today, if you want to buy a domain name containing any popular keyword like ‘Digital’, ‘Learning’, ‘Wealth…you have to spend a lot of real money.
Same way, today people are buying virtual lands on metaverse, in the hope that they will be developed that land (build something on top of that) and they may be able to re-sell that land at higher prices.
How the money is coming
This metaverse offers an almost real-world-like feeling, where one can play games with his/her friends, make social contacts, attends musical shows etc.
By sitting at your home, with metaverse (by wearing headset/glasses/gloves.), you can feel like traveling to another country, sea-beach…. attend events, buy things etc.
With newly & improved wearables (including headset & gloves), one can get a feeling of really watching a show, contacting other people.
So, people may remain logged in this place for hours.
As this is the place, where the majority of people will be hooked into & given personal attention, various companies will use this place to showcase their new products.
Earlier companies used billboards & newspapers/magazines for advertisement. Later some portion of that moved to Radio/TV.
After the internet came, companies started showing their products on various internet platforms. This includes various advertisements shown to you on various social media platforms.
On similar lines, it is expected that with customer’s attention/time moving on Metaverse, companies will also do advertisements on Metaverse.
Apart from advertisement money, people who love online games will spend money to buy points/characters, etc. on metaverse.
Here artists/musicians can perform virtual shows & you need to buy virtual passes to attend those events.
Various fashion companies can create virtual apparel for people’s avatars to wear in metaverse surroundings.
One may want to appear very differently on metaverse and may end up buying various clothes (skins..) on this metaverse.
Conclusion
The metaverse is a hyper-real alternative world for you, which coexists along with the physical world.
In this ‘virtual world’, you can get simulations that are the same as human emotions & gestures.
Its blends the physical world with augmented, and virtual reality. Here individuals can communicate and transact with each other and with digital 3D items.
It contains the entire social and economic structure that exists in both the actual and virtual worlds.
Avatars, content, and goods may all travel around freely. It’s a living experience, which is always running (unlike current online games, where you can pause or finish the game).
