So is the crypto-based digital economy we already see sprouting in blockchain-based play-to-earn games such as Axie Infinity or Sorare.
The idea of playing and socialising in a virtual space is an important part of this vision of the future. In the gaming world, some aspects of the metaverse are already familiar. In this one example, we have a new economic model for creators, a new way of trying on clothes, hyper-personalisation of the gaming experience, a new forum for live entertainment, a breakdown of the wall between physical and virtual belongings - and, of course, the possibility of immortal trainers. You make some money back, and because the whole transaction took place on the blockchain, the brand can take its own cut of the resale value. Sometime after the real shoes wear out, you might want to sell the virtual pair on, because they were a limited edition and now they’re in high demand. Mostly, the hype cycle around the metaverse involves products and infrastructure that don’t quite exist yet.
Since you own them offline and online, your avatar can wear them when you go with your friends to a virtual music festival, or in some future equivalent of Fortnite or Roblox. Maybe you bought both pairs after trying them on in a virtual store using a wearable device and paid in cryptocurrency. In the metaverse, a trainer brand might charge you extra for virtual shoes in NFT form when it sells you physical ones.
But realistically, depictions of the metaverse often fail to capture its social, professional and commercial possibilities in a way that really brings to life why we might want a virtual experience, or pay real money for a digital item. In his video introduction to the metaverse, Zuckerberg pictures card games in space and 3D street art. Not just another word for VR or AR or cryptocurrencies or immersive gaming worlds, the metaverse will include all of the above and a lot more, enabling any virtual experience you could possibly imagine. Named by Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash, the metaverse is generally defined as a shared, decentralised digital space that enables us to live, work and play in interconnected virtual dimensions.
Let’s put it in the first of those two boxes for now. Niklas Bakos is the founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Adverty.įacebook’s early attempt to catch the wave of the metaverse has put this next iteration of the internet on the lips of the wider world - either as a strange, wondrous future mash-up of virtual and hybrid experiences and economic possibilities, or as just another sinister Big Tech plot to rule the world.