Metaverse is here, but who is actually building it?
By Darshan
We apologize for the use of the word metaverse a trillion times in this post. I am sure you are already hungover by everyone going gaga over it.
With the flooding of articles and blogs in recent weeks about what the metaverse is, what it holds for the world and society in general, often people are misled into thinking this is a completely new term or technology.
The above graph shows the Google Trends data for the term “metaverse”. Taking one glance at it, you can easily guess this word has been around for more than one and a half decades (or at least that is how far back until Google goes). So, what made people jump into this hysteria about the metaverse in the last few weeks? Simple, it is Facebook’s rebranding to Meta. And if there is anyone who knows how to make the world turn upside down, it is Facebook.
But let’s forget all this, let’s dive deep into what metaverse ‘actually’ is and what it holds for us. Think of a place where you go shopping for a dress, watch a movie, jump around buildings, have fun at a concert or you know just stand there, have a chat with your buddies and admire the scenery — but inside a virtual world. Does this all sound a little bit Fortnite-ish to you. It’s because it is. A world where you can do stuff ranging from the most mundane to unimaginable while sitting on a couch or walking around your house.
All this seems too far fetched is what anyone would have said a decade or heck, even 5 years ago. But with the advent of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFTs and all the ever so popular Battle Royale games (which are already an embodiment of this idea), we are already living in a semi-virtual metaverse. It is only time before we are fully immersed in it.
So before all this is said and done, let’s discuss the business, the money and most importantly, the use cases behind this.
Why now?:
Simple. Covid-19. Pandemic. Work from home. Fun from home. It is not just apps like Slack, Zoom, Teams — which at their core are collaboration and communication apps that boomed during the pandemic and the lockdowns. People actually started liking meeting other people virtually though they’d hate to admit it. This opened up a new layer in communication and behaviour. Virtual reality which was until now a rich man’s game started becoming embedded into everyone via office calls, virtual meets, Fortnite and endless other scenarios. And if you take notice of it, the tech companies aren’t turning their head the other way either.
A moneyverse is brewing:
At present, the industry is valued at around $50 billion USD! This pales in comparison to what the analyst says it will soar to by 2028, around $830 billion USD or by 2030 — a whopping trillion dollars!
Large corporations and tech companies are going all-in on this meta machine with the hope that it would become the next big thing after the internet.
Facebook, probably the biggest digital and social media giant there is just rebranded its whole company and business around the metaverse. Just let that sink in. There is no bigger testament to where the tech industry is heading than this statement alone.
But the player who actually is winning the metaverse race even before Zuckerberg stepped in is Epic Games and its founder Tim Sweeney. They slowly, but smartly brought in the audience through their megahit battle royale game Fortnite. It has now evolved from a fun game to an arena where you can interact, have digital clothing, have SuperBowl style concerts — all within a game and the comfort of your home. An Ariana Grande concert hosted in Fortnite was watched by millions according to Epic Games.
Other big players like Nike who are valued at $265 billion are investing in selling virtual sneakers and apparel and are heavily hiring in this department. The children’s game Roblox is now fully redesigning itself as a metaverse rival or rather a part of metaverse to other companies. There are virtual dressing companies selling virtual clothing for prices higher than the regular attire with the attraction of having a dress which they pose to online!
What does it mean for the industry?
Morgan Stanley has already predicted the top stocks to inverse in the metaverse, which when you come to think about it, is bonkers. An organization as huge as Morgan Stanley advising about metaverse companies means somewhere they believe the potential for this industry is huge. Job roles like Platform Engineers, NFT Strategists, Blockchain Engineers will be the ones in demand in the next few quarters.
There are companies and users lined up for buying “real” estate in the “meta” verse — if you wanted to know that!
Barbados, one of the Caribbean Islands even became the first nation to have its embassy in the metaverse and looking to expand the digital real estate to other countries as well.
The other side of the metacoin:
It’s not all a slam dunk for those wanting to build the metaverse though. Studies on the search trends in the last few weeks show people actually don’t know what the metaverse is or what it wants to accomplish. Some believe it’s just an inferior version of the internet and all the layers which need to gel together to make this digital universe great won’t actually happen or make our lives any easier or better.
There are concerns about the data collection and integrity since users who want a piece of the cake would be exposing more information like credit card details, addresses, IP addresses and much more than ever before.
What are the layers behind or beyond the metaverse?
See, the biggest opportunity that the metaverse throws is this isn’t supposed to be a monopoly. Tech giants are in on this, startups are in on this, entertainment and sportswear brands are in on this. The reputation, reach, type of brand doesn’t matter. You can be a part of the metaverse if you want to be. And each of these miniverses interconnecting each other will what make the bigger and ‘beyond’ metaverse.
Metaverse isn’t a technology. It is sum total of multiple shared spaces present in virtual reality, augmented reality and most importantly, the internet.
The internet because it wants to use it but also wants to go beyond it. That is a conundrum which the metaverse wants to overcome.
Blockchain technology, which in itself is a succession of the existing and previous technologies is a meta technology that plays a vital part in this whole saga. This is paramount to the metaverse as it is decentralized tech that allows the use of NFTs and other tokenized properties to be sold or bought digitally online. In other words, an enabler of digital industrialization of sorts.
Not just this, a lot of other technologies have to come together to make metaverse a reality like an internet, blockchain, gaming engines, latency-free networks (which to your surprise is still a luxury in many countries) and if and only if, all these come together and all the companies put forward their best out there, we would be able to envision metaverse as it is perceived by all these heavily animated concept videos today.
For now, let us hope this new internet universe — the metaverse brings out the best in technology, life and most importantly human interactions.
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We, at Highavenue, are building a mobile-first real-time 3D animation platform for the metaverse and the web3.0 world, where the next generation of creators can create & share high-quality character-based 3D animations of up to 30 seconds, within minutes! To go along, Highavenue is also building a low-cost MOCAP suit accessible to everyone.
Highavenue is an early-stage startup backed by fantastic angel investors poised to create the next social media/consumer disruption with the fusion of these major forces: Creators, 3D Content, Social Media, Blockchain and NFTs.
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