The Idea of a Metaverse—the next iteration of the internet as some would call it—has excited mainstream tech giants and fringe futurists alike. The internet is full to the brim with criticism and anticipation for the concept, with a quick google trends search indicating a clear peak in interest for the topic globally.
While some believe the metaverse to be an upcoming immersive digital universe, others label it a cheap marketing gimmick.
Tech corporations like Facebook, Microsoft and Nvidia say they are in it for the long run. But truth be told, almost every sizable tech company these days is proclaiming their version of the project as ‘the real Metaverse.’ They believe Software, game and app developers will not just be building programs in the near future, but they’ll be architects of a digital reality that we’ll all inhabit.
Most of us may not necessarily share Big Tech’s vision and excitement for living across a landscape of code, but what is worth asking here is: Why does everyone want to build a Metaverse now?
Infact, what even is the Metaverse? Is it just a VR video game? When can users expect to participate in the metaverse if at all? Isn’t the metaverse supposed to be decentralized? Why then are companies like Facebook running with it as if they invented it?
Let's uncover these questions one at a time.
What is the Metaverse?
The Metaverse is like an umbrella term, much like ‘the Internet’ was in the 70’s. It represents a significant leap in our communication and digital technology; but at the same time the tech is so new, we can barely predict its effects and extent yet. Since we are yet to fully understand what the Metaverse will be like, it’s hard to pin down a precise definition of the same, but nonetheless here is what we do know about it:
The Metaverse is theorised to be a digital universe facilitated by immersive technologies like VR and AR. It’ll be a virtual world where users can participate and even live in. The Metaverse aims to be a digital alternative to our current reality, an online platform that allows us to do pretty much everything we do in the physical world.
Various tech and software companies are hard at work building the infrastructure to facilitate work, play and social connections within the Metaverse. If tech companies are to be believed the metaverse is the future of the internet, Mark Zuckerberg famously called it the ‘embodied internet’. The idea there was that unlike the current iteration of the internet, the metaverse isn’t something that we look at or view, but something we are into, something we can feel.
Some rudimentary versions of the metaverse already exist, like the second life project or Roblox. But what tech companies really want is to develop the concept to be more than just a novelty for internet enthusiasts and make it an everyday reality for all of us like Social Media.
Does the Metaverse already Exist?
When you dig deeper into what Big tech wants to build, you might notice that most of it already exists. Virtual worlds and videogames are nothing new; user-driven digital economies have been around for a while; avatars, virtual attractions and theme parks, AR-enabled adventure games, all of these already exist. Surprisingly enough, most of our professional activities have been digitized too.
So what exactly are we building when they talk about the Metaverse?
We must realize that The Metaverse isn’t another program or platform but rather a unified space where immersive experiences can co-relate and co-exist. It is analogous more to the internet than to any individual game or software.
What Tech and VR development companies are trying to build here is a bridge between existing solutions and technologies that unifies what we’ve already built into a single seamless and cohesive ecosystem: The future of the internet, ‘web 3.0’ if you will.
The metaverse project is ambitious, to say the least; it isn’t easy to reinvent the internet! But Big Tech is determined to deliver, so let’s take a moment to understand the major players in this race and what exactly they are trying to build.
Who is Invested in Building The Metaverse and Why?
There are two aspects to building the Metaverse, developing the hardware that supports it and building the software that runs it. Different Tech Giants are approaching these areas separately, each focused on building an independent piece of the Metaverse puzzle.
Facebook and the Gold Rush for the Metaverse
Facebook kickstarted this whole metaverse craze with the announcement that the company would now pivot itself towards being a metaverse company as opposed to a social media giant. They even went as far as completely rebranding themselves as ‘Meta’, a great marketing tactic that massively backfired (more on that below.)
But here is why Meta is in a great position to be one of the pioneers of the Metaverse. The Metaverse requires significant user adoption to become a reality. The scale of the idea is bigger than what any of the global tech giants have ever created, and thus without a steady influx of users that indicate a growing demand for the virtual universe, pouring billions into R&D will be impossible to justify.
Luckily, Meta practically owns all of social media; this means billions of users that Meta can gently nudge to try out the New Metaverse it’s trying to build. With such promising numbers to back its growth, Meta seems to be leading the Metaverse race.
For instance, the biggest player in extended reality headsets (which I prefer calling ‘portals’ to the Metaverse) worldwide is Oculus, owned by, you guessed it, Meta. On top of that, Zuckerberg recently announced their Haptic Gloves that would, and I quote, ‘allow us to touch the digital world.’
Source: Facebook’s reality labs
There is a lot to be said about Meta’s emerging extended reality tech, but suffice it to say that they are doing exceptional work on the hardware end. Although, software is where Meta really shines. The cheesy, cartoon-ish avatars that were labeled promotion CGI during Meta’s initial October announcement actually turned out to be real when the company launched its own virtual world app named ‘Horizon World’ in the US. Again, while there is an entire blog post worth of content to be discussed here, I’ll limit myself to saying that Meta is making significant leaps on the software side of things as well.
Microsoft and the Future of Work
While Meta might take the social media route towards building the Metaverse, Microsoft is busy building what they call the ‘Enterprise Metaverse.’ What stands apart within Microsoft’s metaverse strategy is that they are striving to maintain a balance between the Metaverse’s gaming applications as well as its business applications.
This was made clear by Microsoft’s recent $68.7 Billion acquisition of gaming giant Activision as well as its investment in several work-orientated metaverse products like Mesh for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Dynamic 365 connected spaces.
Microsoft’s CEO Sataya Nadella stated in a Microsoft build conference,
‘With the metaverse, the entire world becomes your app canvas.’
He added, ‘With Azure Digital Twins, you can model any asset or place. With Azure IoT, you can keep the digital twin live and up to date. Synapse tracks the history of digital twins and finds insights to predict future states. And with Azure, you can build autonomous systems that continually learn and improve. Power Platform enables domain experts to expand on and interact with digital twin data using low-code/no-code solutions. And Mesh and HoloLens add real-time collaboration.’
In simpler terms, Microsoft wants to leverage its existing enterprise solution to create digital replicas of physical environments and assets (what they prefer to call ‘digital twins’), allowing a seamless working environment between the two realities. They then intend to bridge the gap between their Metaverse and the users with their AR offerings like Hololense and VR alternatives like Mesh.
All things considered, Microsoft’s approach to building the Metaverse is critically important since the Metaverse needs to be more than just a ‘VR game.’ By integrating work right at the center of the Metaverse they are trying to build, Microsoft is making it more viable for corporations and gamers alike.
Nvidia is building the foundation for the Metaverse
To give you some context, Nvidia is one of the world’s leading hardware manufacturers that build integrated circuits that are central to most computers, consoles, etc. What is relevant here is that Nvidia specializes in building Graphical processing units (GPUs). And with the advent of the Metaverse—which will mostly be built as a 3D rendered virtual world—the demand for capable GPUs is bound to explode. Nvidia is thus set to become the market leader for providing the components that build the required hardware for the Metaverse.
However, there is more to Nvidia than what meets the eye. In a recent blogpost, Venturebeat stated:
As Big Tech places more resources and funding in the Metaverse, the most significant metaverse investment will be in empowering people to create in it.
Declaring that Nvidia’s bottom-up approach to the Metaverse will win.
Source: Venturebeat
Recently, Nvidia announced its Omniverse software—a 3D graphics and rendering toolkit—to be given out for free to individual artists. While the company will still charge $9000 annually for corporations using the software, it wants to encourage solo artists and 3D developers to build their own assets for the Metaverse.
The idea here is that the Metaverse needs to be a creator-driven venture, a place where anyone can build anything they want, and Nvidia is trying to provide them the tools to do so. Giving away Omniverse for free is sure to attract creators to the platform. More people using the software will inevitably position Omniverse as the dominant platform for creating shared assets inside the Metaverse, further cementing Nvidia’s leadership within the space.
Nvidia is heavily investing in community-driven activities like #MadeInOmniverse contests as well as collaborating with several marketplaces where creators can buy, sell and trade their assets.
Source: Winner of Nvidia’s #CreateyourRetroverse Contest, built with Omniverse
The bottom line here is that Nvidia is taking the opposite approach to building the Metaverse as compared to Meta or Microsoft. Rather than building a closed ecosystem and allowing its users to participate in it, Nvidia is empowering them to create the ecosystem themselves.
Roblox presents what a ‘proto-metaverse’ looks like
Roblox is a free-to-play gaming platform that lets its users create and play online games for free. More than half of US kids were already playing Roblox in 2020, and the company is showing no signs of slowing down.
But what makes Roblox a Proto-Metaverse—a precursor to the Metaverse if you like—is the fact that the platform already embodies some of the key traits required for building a Metaverse like:
- A world built by its users: Roblox is less of a unified world and more of a gaming platform, but it still counts since each of Roblox’s 24 million games (or ‘experiences’ as Roblox likes to call them) are made by its users. For a virtual space to qualify as The Metaverse, it must, by definition, be built by its users, and Roblox has made a significant leap in that direction.
- Internal Currency: A Metaverse would be incomplete without an internal economy, central to which will be its own currency. Ready player one’s Oasis had the Oasis credit, and similarly enough, Roblox has Robux. Robus is the currency players can use to buy perks and cosmetics within Roblox. It is also the currency game developers get paid with, which they can later exchange for real money. Roblox has essentially created a miniature economy within its ecosystem allowing its developers to earn a staggering $761.3 million in cumulative developer earnings!
- Persistent Identity across experiences: The final piece of the puzzle is Roblox Avatars. Each user is given an avatar that they can customize at will, which remains the same across all Roblox experiences. Such consistency is key within the Metaverse; it’s called Interoperability. It basically refers to the user’s ability to seamlessly travel between various virtual spaces along with their virtual assets. Without it, the Metaverse is just a VR-based disconnected internet (much like what we have today minus the fancy VR.)
Roblox statistics, Source: Roblox
Combining these elements makes Roblox one of the biggest contenders in the Metaverse Race.
There are way too many companies and developers collectively working on the Metaverse to be mentioned in a single blogspot. I’ve merely mentioned some of the major players in the game to give you a sense of how close (or far!) we are from building a full fledged Metaverse.
Is the Metaverse Even Viable Though?
While tech giants might be busy reinventing the internet, the rest of us ought to ask if it's even possible to build something like the Metaverse. Truth be told, it is ridiculously difficult.
IDC analyst Tom Mainelli summed it up best when he said, 'This stuff is years if not decades away. But at the same time, if we don't start having conversations about this as an industry, then the pieces don't get built.'
Unlike traditional software, the Metaverse won't just be facing technical and engineering challenges, though it has more than its fair share of those as well. Beyond that, there will be massive legal and financial challenges as well, especially considering the track record of some of the major companies involved.
The tech itself is hard to build, and truth be told, beyond any tech giant's ability at this point. Multiple companies from various industries will have to contribute to the cause, sometimes even at the cost of optimizing their own profits, if we are to get anywhere close to building the Metaverse.
This brings us to the final issue of Big Tech's Metaverse: Decentralization. The Metaverse fundamentally needs to be decentralized. And although leaders like Zuckerberg say they intend to respect that, we can be sure that corporations will try to seize as much control over the Metaverse as possible.
On a certain level, regular users are enraged at companies like Meta trying to privatize such a public venture. Think about how absurd it would be if a tech company named itself 'The internet', it would be downright stupid, and yet Facebook trying to brand itself as the metaverse company is essentially doing just that.
Making the Metaverse a reality is less about reinventing the internet and more about reinventing how Tech companies do business. Traditional software companies operate with a strict 'walled-garden' approach; they create closed ecosystems and strictly control and monitor the activities within them. But the Metaverse is too large a project to be built by such a narrow approach.
Building the Metaverse: A Developer’s Perspective
The only way to build an open Metaverse, one that is democratic and decentralized, is to do it ourselves. We can’t expect Tech companies to do the heavy lifting for us and not want to control what they build.
Therefore, before we build the Metaverse, we need to put in place the structures and systems that would empower developers and users alike to contribute to the project. But what would the average Metaverse Developer look like?
We know that the Metaverse won’t be built on existing technologies, new development platforms like the Omniverse and Microsoft’s Metaverse stack as we discussed will become dominant for Metaverse development. Metaverse developers will have to draw in from a bunch of different disciplines: Their designs will focus heavily on user experience much like how app developers focus on UX, but it’ll all have to be in 3D much like modern 3D art. They’ll have to make their programs lightweight and fast, similar to how web developers optimize their websites; But at the same time they’ll need to incorporate heavy gamification, taking lessons from a game developer’s handbook.
All things considered, building the Metaverse will be unlike anything we’ve built before yet it’ll draw heavily from the technologies that have preceded it. Aspiring developers might want to try out existing toolkits, both as a way to get a head start in the race and also to encourage the development of newer platforms.
If we look at the similar ecosystems, the Internet remains to be an open market, where anyone can practically build anything. On the contrary, when we look at the mobile app and OS ecosystem, the market is dominated by a duopoly. In case of the Metaverse, we want to stop bigger players from taking too big a piece of the pie. We want it to be build more like an open source project, where everyone contributes what they can towards building something for the community. Whether that’ll happen or not is yet to be seen.
What Will the User Experience Be Like Within The Metaverse?
And finally, the most relevant yet under-discussed aspect of the whole Metaverse debate: the users themselves.
Do people really want to live in a digital world?
What would our lives look like within a virtual space?
Is the Metaverse solving any real problems, or is it just another way of keeping us 'hooked' to our screens?
We must realize that when we speak of the Metaverse, we are essentially talking about digitizing our entire lives. Moving over to the Metaverse won't just create major privacy and mental health issues, it'll also be the equivalent of handing over a major chunk of our economy right into the hands of those who built the Metaverse. Which is again why the Metaverse must be a collaborative and decentralized project.
But coming back to the users, we can be assured that some version of the Metaverse might eventually become a reality. Depending upon who gets ahead in the metaverse race, we could be living in a digital paradise or corporate totalitarianism a few decades down the line. And thus, as consumers and builders of technology, we need to be watchful over what we create and use.
It might be worth pointing out that the term 'Metaverse' originates from Neil Stephenson's science fiction novel 'Snow-crash', within which it is a means of escaping the dystopian reality the masses find themselves into. One could argue that Social media today plays a similar but less potent role in our lives already. Thus, when building technology that could profoundly impact our lives, we must try to ensure that it is designed on ethical and humanitarian principles. Something we failed to do in the case of social media in my opinion.
So, if we are at a point when we can talk about building such reality-altering technologies, we might as well start discussing the effects and implications they might have on our lives and society as a whole.
Goodfirm’s gist: Is it worth the hype?
The Metaverse is an umbrella term for what is theorized as the next iteration of the internet. Giant Tech companies like Meta and Microsoft are betting big on the Metaverse as they pour billions into R&D and marketing for the same.
Is there more hype than substance here? Yes. In the sense that while we might be years or even decades away from the Metaverse becoming a consumer-facing reality, the term has already turned into an overused silicon valley buzzword.
That is not to say that the Metaverse has no substance whatsoever. There is substantial work being done in this direction, and it is likely that as technologies like blockchain and virtual reality continue to improve, we might build a persistent and life-like digital reality.
To conclude, yes, there is a ton of hype around the topic, but if tech companies and the community are willing to put in the work, the Metaverse might soon become an everyday reality for us. The vision is promising, but it won't be easy. Tech companies will have to reinvent themselves, and consumers will have to play an equal role in creating the Metaverse. It is challenging but not impossible.
Let us know your thoughts on the Metaverse below in the comments. Join us in building the future of the internet
