In preparation for my live audience Breakroom interview with Matthew Ball, I'm blogging his must-read, nine part metaverse primer over last Summer and this month. My take on Part 1 (introduction to the framework) is here, my coverage of Part 2 (hardware) is here, with Part 3 (networking) coverage here, Part 4 coverage (computing) here, Part 5 (virtual platforms) here, Part 6 (open standards) here, Part 7 (payments) here, and Part 8 (content) here.
The final section of Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, “Evolving User + Business Behaviors and the Metaverse” (part 9) covers the growing mainstream acceptance of the Metaverse and Metaverse activity, which he directly pins to the pandemic:
For decades, “gamers” have been making “fake” avatars and spending their free time in digital worlds while carrying out miscellaneous tasks and pursuing non-game-like objectives such as designing a room in Second Life (versus killing a terrorist in Counter-Strike). A huge portion of society, if not the majority of it, considered such efforts to be weird or wasteful or anti-social (if they didn’t look down on it outright)... [Since the pandemic,] millions of the above skeptics have now participated in (and enjoyed) virtual worlds and activities such as Animal Crossing, Fortnite, or Roblox as they sought out things to do, attended events once planned for the real world, or tried to spend time with their kids indoors. Not only has this destigmatized virtual life, and “the Metaverse,” but it might even mean an extra generation will participate in it.
I’d quibble somewhat to say that skeptics haven’t necessarily converted into Metaverse users. (Hence the befuddled “What is this Metaverse thing anyway?” tone of most mainstream media coverage.) What’s more, the usage rates of the leading virtual worlds were massive even before the pandemic. (Fortnite for example already had 350 million registered users in early 2020, before COVID swept the planet.) What the pandemic definitely did do is make mainstream skeptics much more open to the idea that there might be more to all this than mere digital time-wasting.
This mainstream embrace is evidenced in all the major brands and media companies increasingly interested in getting into the Metaverse game, as Matthew notes:
More users and engagement naturally leads to higher revenues for developers, and in turn, more investment and better products. But over the past year, we’ve seen two other significant injections into “Metaverse revenues.” The first is the rapid legitimization and investment into purely virtual assets, most notably via cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The second is investment from major non-gaming brands and talent, from Prada, Ford, and Gucci to Neymar Jr. and Travis Scott. This investment also helps virtual platforms further diversify away from their historical focus on “game-like” objectives like win, shoot, kill, defeat, and score and towards more broadly appealing activities such as create, explore, identify, express, collaborate, and socialize.
To capitalize on this growth in revenue, content, and users, companies like Epic are creating experiences that stretch across multiple games, a Metaverse vision painted most vividly by Ready Player One:
Ultimately, we should view Epic’s tests in cross-title assets and achievement unlocks as similar to its precedent setting efforts in cross-platform gaming and IP mashups. The company seems to believe that by reducing the friction to accessing different games (via free-to-play monetization), making it easier to bring your friends and items across these games, and giving players a reason to try/play these games, players will spend more time gaming, with more people, across more titles, and with greater spend.
Again I have to wonder why the Valve/Steam Metaverse shoe has yet to drop, because it’s best placed to create a seamlessly immersive experience across the many games on its platform. But put a pin in that for now.
To close his Primer -- and my comments on it -- Matthew concludes by writing about the very young “iPad Native”/ “virtual world native” generation who made ROBLOX an unexpected phenomenon, and will in turn define the experience of the Metaverse in coming decades:
Hollywood long believed that millennials would grow into the linear Pay-TV bundle or lose interest in YouTube. They never did. And while they now watch Netflix and Disney+, video’s share of leisure time is going down on a generational basis. Today’s generation of children express themselves, often learn, and constantly socialize through virtual worlds they can touch, change, and collaborate in. That’s not going to stop. Rather, the capabilities of these virtual worlds will expand, their ease of use will improve, and their significance will grow.
This is all true, though it leaves much more to be said about communities of Metaverse users.
When I say community, I don’t just mean content consumers, because all Metaverse users are by definition content creators -- even if the content they create is confined to chat and other interactive feedback. And not just creators, because as we see with people like Jar of VRChat, their creativity is impelled just as much by their fanbase, as the profit motive. Indeed, many or most creators create for the sake of the community (and recognition by that community) first, with little or no thought about the money their works might bring.
So if I were to suggest a Part 10 to a Metaverse Primer, it would be that. The alchemy of the Metaverse is the user community, in all its zany creativity -- often overlooked, almost always underpaid -- that the actual fate of the Metaverse depends upon. And woe betide any particular Metaverse company that doesn’t value that community.
Read it all here. So many questions to ask Matt about the Metaverse in the Metaverse next month!
Pictured: Virtual World Simulation Of COVID Infection Significantly Improves Student Awareness Of Social Distancing (SL/OpenSim Experiment).
It's ironic that I'm reading this a year after you wrote it, Hamlet. Well, that's me, always late in catching up with things :)
I really need to read his book now. No more excuses for me!
Posted by: Gwyneth Llewelyn | Sunday, August 07, 2022 at 01:02 PM