In case you missed it, Tim Sweeney laid out his vision for the Metaverse last week after his company Epic unleashed a number of metaverse platform-related announcements -- watch above at around 1 hour in:
Let's take a long term look at what we see here. And the core of it is some very real growth. Starting with Fortnite's 70 million monthly active users, Roblox's 250 million monthly active users, Minecraft's 100 million, and PubG mobile and Apex Legends, and numerous other metaverse-inspired games, is leading to an identifiable audience today of over 600 million active users in these virtual worlds. And it's on a growth trajectory that'll put it at billions of users by the end of this decade.
So we can set aside the crazy hype cycle around NFTs and VR goggles. These technologies may play a role in the future but they are not required. This revolution is happening right now. And the core of it is something every gamer already understands. It's you and your friends, getting together online and going around as a group on voice chat, having a fun time and social entertainment experiences. And some of these experiences are serious games like Battle Royale. Some of them are going to a concert and dancing or chatting with friends and just having a good time. We see this as the next big change in gaming and then Epic's evolution as a company.
Hard agree on the hype around NFTs and VR goggles (looking at you, Meta), while I'd quibble around the "billions" target -- 1 billion is more realistic. Fortnite, for example, has seen some slippage in its monthly active user numbers (though of course remains quite large).
Sweeney also got into his vision for the open metaverse:
And we're building towards the open Metaverse from two different directions. First of all, we're taking the Fortnite audience we have, enhancing development capabilities with the new tools and creator economy to support everybody's work. But we're also helping developers owning standalone products evolve towards building Metaverse experiences themselves. The Unreal Engine is a tool for this, the Epic Game Store is a distribution vehicle for it...
We have the opportunity to take all these different online ecosystems, from gaming consoles and publishers, and connect them together into a single place where anybody can talk to anybody else. We have the opportunity to turn today's game engines into tomorrow's metaverse browser engines.
I'm delving much deeper into this for the book, but the open web/browser analogy has some serious problems. The web experience is more or less the same between different web browsers, because they stream the same underlying content. The user interface of a virtual world, however, is part of that world, and cannot be altered substantially from virtual world to the next. You can click from one web page to another; you cannot click a mountain and then expect to somehow end up in an underwater cave.
Hat tip to reader "Kyz", who has their own thoughts on the topic:
After years of Metaverse hype, Epic is the one that's actually set to pull it off. Second Life, Humble's platform, and some of the newer offerings mentioned here at NWN are still walled gardens, whether that's by client access or by the company trying to "be" the entire ecosystem. These companies, even the ones that aren't launched yet, are woefully behind the technology.
And to be fair, they just don't have the money Epic has to throw at the latest and greatest. Epic on the other hand is on a mission to use cross platform/world standards. And Epic is not alone, they're partnering with many other heavy hitters in the business. Their approach is the first "actual" metaverse attempt that we've had. And as Tim Sweeney mentioned, it's been ongoing and will continue trying to fulfill a true metaverse, open standards place where people can build worlds (as in Second Life), games, presentations, film, etc...
I don't mean to offend anyone or dis any one platform, but Epic is really the difference between so-so and the real deal when it comes to cutting edge technology on multiple platforms, being able to use many technologies to build worlds and assets within a greater metaverse that isn't limited to one company. Epic plays well with everyone as far as integration, others don't.
Looking forward finally to the open metaverse.
Very good points on whether metaverse follows a web/internet analogy. It's kind of ironic, because we almost had that scenario where instead of jumping to a page, you could jump to a different environment. You could create an experience in a Java Applet, and some companies dabbled in it via VRML like the old Blaxxun and Active Worlds.
I vaguely remember a Cybertown where users could create their own spaces, that were broken down into collections of communities. There probably won't be a singular client that works with everything, so it looks like we're going to be stuck with a hybrid blend of independent virtual worlds and containers where you can create your world within a localized universe (if you define the metaverse as a collection of worlds and universes).
Someone, I think maybe it was you said a few years ago to follow the cars, meaning the car companies. They've hopped from the old VRML stuff through SL and now onto Epic. Interesting shift though, in Epic car companies are now not only using it for visualization but also implementing vehicle interfaces using metaverse tech. For instance, Unreal Engine drives the new GM Hummer's display. So maybe that's something we've been waiting for, the metaverse to become a two way street where not only is real in the metaverse but the metaverse is also in the real world.
And upcoming book, didn't notice that even though it's in the margin, sheesh. Looking forward to it.
Posted by: Kyz | Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 11:42 AM
You could indeed have virtual spaces/experiences in a web browser, it's just plain JS nowadays. I remember a Windows 3.1 emulator running inside a virtual PC in a virtual space in your web browser, which was rather awesome by then, I think it was Janus/Vesta. Unity engine even allows WebGL applications.
Although it's true that virtual worlds are released with their own interfaces, that's also true for videos and 360° pictures. E.g. YouTube GUI vs Dailymotion vs others vs your browser default controls for videos... Or a 360° picture displayed with entirely different scripts, with different functions, but the content is the same picture or video.
When you embed pictures and videos, you use standard file formats and today web standards, but you can create your own interfaces on top of that.
There is a load of WebGL applications using 360° images in different ways since many years now and also 3D: Google Maps, also 3D, Matterport ( https://matterport.com/discover/ ). Or imagine this https://rainforest.arkivert.no/ if you could turn it into a true virtual world space. Or if you could enter into a 3D map and then start to interact with the locals and virtual tourists there.
Posted by: Nadeja | Thursday, March 30, 2023 at 06:19 AM