"The" Metaverse Isn't Happening (Comment of the Week #2)

Good points from reader "Kyz", reflecting on Core's mission to build a "multiverse" versus Epic's mission to build "the metaverse":

There isn't going to be a metaverse or multiverse in the sense that fiction foretold. That global environment we think of as the metaverse already happened. It's called the Internet. Within it are worlds and nearly endless content.

But one global 3D platform? Not happening. If it was going to happen it would have already. The market doesn't want it any more than it wanted VR on a global scale.

I think this thing with Core is just wordplay. They're close to Epic because they're built on Epic tech, but other than that, they're basically a dumbed down way to create games. If you want better games, you'll use the Unreal Engine itself.

Personally I find Core far too limiting compared to using the Unreal Engine directly and I don't see them overcoming the big problems like delivering the customers and buying power. The more customers, the more games and the more people trying to grab enough foot traffic to make a small bit of money before it becomes so saturated no one is making anything.

At any rate, it's still a good time to be a creator and you go wherever your skill level and determination gravitates you to. But if any entities are the metaverse tools? It's the game engines, few people are writing all this from scratch these days like SL did.

That sounds right. There's multiple popular web browsers and multiple smartphone devices running iOS or Android, so it's hard to see anything like a singular Metaverse dominating. It might not even be a matter of competing game engines (i.e. Unreal vs. Unity), so much as many metaverses for non-competing demographics:

A ROBLOX metaverse for pre-teens and young teens, a Fortnite (and maybe eventually Core) metaverse for teens/early 20s, and a VRChat or Rec Room metaverse for teens/early 20s who prefer VR. If that's right, the next question is: Will there ever be a metaverse sufficiently large enough to deserve the name for adults? Possibly Dual Universe, but in terms of usage, the jury is still out there.

Comments

[Kyz]

Oh. Thanks for the mention. And Dual Universe, I'd never heard of it, looks very interesting, thanks for mentioning that one. Off to explore ...

[Wagner James Au]

Cool! Here's my interview with DC's lead developer:

https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2019/04/jc-baillie-dual-universe-novaquark-mmo-podcast.html