New World Notes

What’s the Metaverse’s Killer App, Actually? My Take on Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, Part 8

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, and Part 7 (payments) here.

Part 8 of Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, “Content, Services, and Asset Businesses in the Metaverse” raises the most questions for me from the entire series. Overarching them all is the fundamental one: 

Does the Metaverse actually have a scalable, sustainable killer app beyond user-generated games and immersive socialization that already happens within Metaverse platforms?

Now I’d personally be happy if games and socialization is all (or mostly all) of what the Metaverse is used for -- these are two great and fundamental aspects of the human experience, especially when they’re democratized! But in their zeal to make the Metaverse the Next Big Thing, the investor community is searching for more ways to make money from them.

For instance, as Matthew mentions, marketing/ancillary sales of major media/fashion brands:

The largest activations in Fortnite to date have been Marvel, followed by Star Wars and the NFL, and the NBA continues to lead in NFTs. These sorts of franchises have endured for decades specifically because they work everywhere and dominate our endless imaginations and fandoms. Brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton are equally likely to thrive; humans constantly seek out opportunities for signaling and self-expression. 

But to take two of these: Fortnite’s Marvel and Star Wars activations in 2019 were huge, but Epic's revenue still somewhat decreased that year. As for real life fashion brands entering the Metaverse, this puts them in direct competition with grassroots virtual fashion brands, and I’m skeptical that the former can (or should) prevail. (Remember when Armani opened an official shop in Second Life, but was beat out by the local competition?)

How about the crossover of real life music stars? As Matthew notes:

Linden Lab Hiring Senior Product Manager to Shaping Future of "Original Metaverse" of Second Life -- But Mobile Experience Only a "Plus"

This is quite possibly a dream job if you have experience in game/Internet product development:

As a Senior Product Manager, you’ll utilize in-depth product knowledge to successfully drive key projects on Second Life. You’ll work alongside a supportive team of people across engineering, design, QA and other cross-functional teams to build products and new experiences and play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the original metaverse. 

But apparently, if you scroll all the way toward the end of the job description, that future is not mobile-centric:

Raph Koster On How His Upcoming Metaverse Is Unlike Steam

In case you didn't check the blog of Raph Koster's Playable Worlds late last week, he is, as anticipated, building a Metaverse:

We have built a metaverse platform. Oh, it’s not done. We’re probably going to be working on this for years. But I say “built” because, well, we have the basics of this stuff working. We have a working massively multiplayer server... 

And you’ll be able to hop between worlds without needing to switch clients. It permits a single, shardless, ever-expanding, ever-changing online universe.

I've heard that "hop between worlds" promise many times before, but I've been skeptical that this in itself makes a Metaverse experientially different than, say, Steam. After all, the game worlds in Steam are separate, but you can run them within the same Steam launcher (which also comes with a social network, payment system, etc.) Exit out of Skyrim back to the Steam launcher, see that your Steam friends are playing Among Us, jump in to play with them via the Steam launcher, etc. Isn't all that which we already do in Steam, basically hopping between worlds?

Raph Koster tells me that what Playable Worlds is building is quite different:

"In Steam every [game] world is an install. It's a separate app. Steam is just a a launcher. Not in our case. It's one app for all of the worlds."

Raph says it's different from my example of hopping from Skyrim to About Us on Steam: 

Watch: Dual Universe's Voxel-Based Creation System Leads to Towering Voxel-Based Artworks

It's been awhile since we touched on Dual Universe, which launched last year in open beta and which some argue to be the closest thing to a true Metaverse we have today. That's still up for a debate, but in one sign of creative emergence that makes the Metaverse worth playing and thinking about, the platform's voxel-based creation tools are leading to the creation of truly towering sculptures.

If you're not into demons, there's also a towering angel statue in Dual Universe, which emerged from "the Seraph Design Studio organization, whose ship design concepts center around angels... [they] spent an estimated 40+ hours building the 60m angel to decorate the roof of their showroom." 

But just how big has this universe become, in terms of users?

Sure Looks Like Raph Koster is Making a Metaverse (Too)

In the future, everyone will make a Metaverse for 15 minutes. Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene is making one (or the starting layer of it, at least), and now it sure seems like longtime MMO designer Raph Koster is making one too -- as he hints in a blog post last week on Playable Worlds, his new startup:

[D]espite what many may think, “metaverse” is not just a buzzword. It is different from an online world. But metaverses presume multiverses, and multiverses are built from online worlds. They are all in the same family.

What does this have to do with Playable Worlds? Well, the answer is pretty simple, given what I’ve said, and you’ve probably connected the dots already…even so, I think I’ll answer it next week.

I messaged Raph to ask when his post about making a Metaverse is coming out, and he only mentioned that his company posts usually run on Tuesday and Thursday. So let's check there tomorrow.

As for his own definition of the metaverse (versus a multiverses or an online world), that's worth reading now:

The Real Problem With Virtual Economies is the Virtual Currency (Comment of the Week)

Really great comment from reader "Kyz", a 3D content creator who made an excellent living from the Second Life economy. Commenting on my take on Matthew Ball's analysis of payment options for Metaverse platforms (he basically lands on suggesting that blockchain-based payments may be the best or least worst alternative), Kyz says this:

I don't think the problem is traditional currency and payment systems, rather it's that all these companies develop models where virtual product is worth such small amounts that devaluation of labor is the actual problem. Magnified by some companies that are also using currency itself as product.

For instance, I did pretty well in SL riding on the coattails of the breedables craze. Enough for a couple of full time incomes. The pain point of making money was SL. Between limits, virtual currency converted to real money and the extra steps required.

I did the same at various points for selling content for game engines, just being able to find the trends and fill niches. These markets were much less painful because there was no virtual currency to deal with.

As an example of what Kyz's talking about, take a look at the Unity Asset Store, where creators sell virtual assets to developers across all budget ranges... for real cash.

The problem becomes even more clear, Kyz goes on, when one compares it to selling actual products:

I Seriously Doubt Apple Will Put Out Its XR Headset Next Year. Here's Why

Citing The Information, Mac Rumors has a report that gives me some serious red flags:

The first AR/VR headset that Apple has in development will need to be wirelessly tethered to an iPhone or another Apple device to unlock full functionality... It will be similar to the WiFi-only version of the Apple Watch, which requires an ‌iPhone‌ connection to work. The headset is meant to wirelessly communicate with another Apple device, which will handle most of the powerful computing...

TSMC is manufacturing the chips that will be used in the headset, and mass production is said to be at least a year away. The first AR/VR headset could be released as soon as 2022, but the launch could also be pushed back if work on the device is not completed in time.'

Emphasis mine, because I'd be vastly surprised if Apple put out its headset next year. Or even the next next year. Here's why:

Our Payment Systems Are So Bad, Making the Metaverse Might Mean Moving to Blockchain Systems (Which Have Problems of Their Own)

'I'm blogging Matthew Ball’s must-read, nine part metaverse primer over the Summer; 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, and Part 6 (open standards) here.

Part 7 of Matthew Ball’s Metaverse framework, on the challenge of payments facing the Metaverse, is the most daunting so far, veering into some thick if necessary weeds to hack through. If I had to summarize the whole thing in a single sentence, it would go something like this:

The payment options we have to deal with are so inefficient, unfair, and monopolistic, we may never get a Metaverse worth the name unless we switch to a blockchain-based system -- even though that has problems of its own.

To break Ball’s case down into more detail (with some analysis of my own):

• Current/traditional payment systems incur transaction costs and time delays.
• Virtual world-based payment systems, built on these payment methods, are even more costly and slow.
• At the same time, distribution platforms (consoles, Apple, etc.) lock in consumers and developers while hitting the latter with high fees, while also locking out payment competitors. (This is, by the way, starting to change.)

With mobile so dominant, and so necessary to achieving mass market growth, current Metaverse platforms end up paying most of their money to Apple and Google Play. For instance, while ROBLOX’s revenue sharing deal is reportedly harsh for their creators (especially as most of them are kids), the company itself takes a huge hit from Apple:

Philip Rosedale on Clubhouse Bringing High Fidelity's Metaverse-Driven Spatial Audio to the Massive Audio Chat App

Hear ye, hear ye 🔊 spAAaAaAatial audio on Clubhouse!

It's like surround sound, but w/ your own headphones. A more vibrant, human experience! Plus makes it much easier to tell who's talking.

thanks to @juberti for this one 👏 rolling out now on iOS, Android coming soon! pic.twitter.com/Zit6F9ijRK

— Clubhouse (@Clubhouse) August 29, 2021

Here's some Metaverse news that requires your headphones for the full effect (click the video above):

Clubhouse, the seriously popular audio chat app  -- it counts at least 10 million weekly active users -- just integrated Philip Rosedale's High Fidelity spatial audio:

High Fidelity’s HRTF technology, which stands for “Head Related Transfer Function,” maps speech to different virtual locations by subtly adding a time delay between stereo channels and replicating the way that high and low frequencies would sound entering the ear depending on a sound’s origin. The result, long used in social VR, gives virtual social experiences a sense of physical presence that good records have been pulling off for ages. Think listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in stereo with good headphones but instead of sound effects and instruments playing around your head, you’re hearing the people you’re hanging out with arrayed in virtual space.

"If people are going to talk in groups online, they are going to need to use spatial audio to understand each other," Philip Rosedale tells me, shortly after the announcement dropped. "We've put in 8 years (so far) working on doing spatial audio right, and are super happy to have people in the Clubhouse community now able to take advantage of this experience!"

This is the latest, fascinating plot twist in Philip's Metaverse ambitions, originally borne with the founding of Second Life, then re-emerging in his latest start-up, High Fidelity, which was originally founded as a Metaverse company. (Before, that is, pivoting in 2019 to focus on this spatial audio feature).

But where Second Life and the original High Fidelity struggled for mass adoption, it's finally been achieved, if only through spatial audio:

The Metaverse Can't Develop Like the Internet Since It Doesn't Have Open Standards -- But Metaverse Communities Can Help Change That. My Take On Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer, Part 6

I'm blogging Matthew Ball’s must-read, nine part metaverse primer over the Summer; my take on Part 1 is here,  my coverage of Part 2 is here, with Part 3 coverage here, Part 4 coverage here, and Part 5 here.

As with previous parts of the Primer, Part 6, "Interchange Tools + Standards and the Metaverse" delves into just how difficult making a Metaverse worth the name will be. Because while many say the Metaverse is the Internet's next generation, the actual Internet was launched by academics and government researchers who valued open standards. But the major companies/platforms which are likely to launch the Metaverse are very much closed, for the most part:

All of the video games console operating systems, which are required to use console hardware, have chosen not to support open or third-party rendering API collections, such as OpenGL or WebGL. Instead, Microsoft Xbox exclusively uses Microsoft’s DirectX, while Sony uses its GNMX for PlayStation. Mobile devices typically support multiple standards, but they often restrict (or outright block) access to many drivers, which helps drive developers to their proprietary offering. PC and Mac are more open, but they’re optimized for Microsoft’s DirectX and Apple’s Metal APIs. As a result, a developer’s software needs to be written specifically for each platform’s ‘standards’. Fortnite needs to use Microsoft’s DirectX for Xbox, and Sony’s GNMX for PlayStation, Nvidia’s NVM for Nintendo Switch, and Apple’s Metal for iOS. Only Google’s Android has built its solution around OpenGL, but one could argue its dominance with Chrome and Chromium controls these standards for the web.

GPUs also have their own flavor of these protocols, too. Nvidia’s drivers are effectively a ‘platform’ that developers utilize to access a PC user’s hardware, working in concert with Microsoft’s DirectX, for rendering.

But if companies like these want to keep their standards closed, their customers, unified, can demand otherwise. As Matthew writes, the runaway success of Fortnite caused gamers to clamor for the chance to play together with their friends on other devices -- and their clamor grew so great (as did their threats to take their eyeballs elsewhere), even proprietary AF Sony finally complied: