Statistics from a global management consultancy firm, McKinsey and Company, showed that Internet search for the term, ‘metaverse’ increased by a whopping 7,200 per cent in 2021. According to the firm, approximately 60 per cent of consumers who understand the concept are excited about the transition of everyday activities like shopping, dating, and even working out to the metaverse. So, if you have ever done a Google search for the term, you are not alone.
A few years ago, a young member of the National Youth Service Corps was said to have taken a picture of an old drummer during one of his performances and sold it in the metaverse as NFTs(non-fungible tokens) for thousands of dollars. A few months later, another set of persons, who met on the metaverse, reportedly got married there and had their reception in the space. Some persons have been reported to have bought and sold land and built houses in the metaverse. A Nigerian fashion house, ZuniLabel, has its designs in the metaverse, where they are showcased in virtual realities as masterpieces; they are sourced and bought in dollars by art collectors.
It is not just individuals who are meta-curious. In 2021, metaverse-related companies reportedly raised more than $10bn, more than twice what they did in 2020. According to several reports, in 2022, more than $120bn has flowed into the metaverse.
The latest McKinsey research shows that the metaverse has the potential to generate up to $55trn in value by 2030. But, it still does not change the fact that a lot of people, especially Nigerians, are not convinced why they need to invest in a virtual scheme like this.
What’s the metaverse?
The metaverse means different things to different people. Some believe it’s a digital playground for friends. Others think it has the potential to be a commercial space for companies and customers.
According to Tech Target, a technology-centred online resource, the metaverse is the inevitable evolution of the Internet.
Imagine a virtual world where billions of people live, work, shop, learn and interact with each other all from the comfort of their couches in the physical world. In this world, the computer screens we use today to connect to a worldwide web of information, become portals to a 3D virtual realm that’s palpable. It is like real life. Digital facsimiles of ourselves or avatars, move freely from one experience to another.
In June 2022, McKinsey released a report titled, ‘Value Creation in the Metaverse’, which it said was based on surveys of more than 3,400 consumers and executives, as well as interviews with 13 senior leaders and metaverse experts.
Based on this analysis, Tech Target believes the metaverse is best characterised as an evolution of today’s Internet – into something we are deeply immersed in, rather than something we primarily look at.
“It represents a convergence of digital technology to combine and extend the reach and use of cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, spatial computing, and more.
“And the ‘enterprise metaverse’ may coalesce in a way that unlocks even more opportunity, beyond simply serving as a virtual place where people interact,” part of the report read.
Important concepts in the metaverse such as interoperability, digital twins, spatial computing, and Web 3.0 are all still in their developmental phases.
From various reviews, Sunday PUNCH gathered that the metaverse has three features – a sense of immersion, real-time interactivity, and user agency.
Ultimately, the full vision of the metaverse will include platforms and devices that work seamlessly with each other; the possibility for thousands of people interacting simultaneously beyond just gaming activities.
A tech expert versed in this field, Akinpelu Ojo, said the metaverse is not just escaping reality. Instead, it is about ‘embracing and augmenting it with virtual content and experiences that can make things more fulfilling and make people feel more connected to their loved ones, more productive at work and happier’.
“The metaverse is really all about community,” he added.
Metaverse potential
According to Ojo, the metaverse increasingly seems inevitable.
He said, “The pandemic fueled an increase in the acceptance of virtual interactions, and the metaverse is geared to connect physical and virtual worlds via commerce. The emerging metaverse in fashion and retail is where brands are already launching stores, games, and digital events.
“The future metaverse will likely be much broader. I believe absolutely that the advent of graphics-based computing and 3D environments is going to change many of the technologies, standards, conventions, and monetisation models. And that impact could be lasting.
“It’s going to have profound generational change. Most importantly, it’s going to reach many of the categories we’ve long hoped would be altered by mobile phones and the Internet,” he added.
An author and technologist, Matthew Ball, said the world would see more brands, investments and users in 3D and real-time rendering.
“These are all trends that have been going on for multiple decades, and there’s no reason to believe that time spent online, the number of smartphones in use, and the criticality of digital platforms to our economy are going to reverse,” Ball noted in an article in McKinsey.
For Ugochi Eze, a web designer who works with a tier-one tech firm in the United Kingdom, the metaverse is just a fictional universe or a virtual or alternate reality.
For her, the term “metaverse” became a household word when Facebook rebranded its corporate identity to Meta in October 2021 and announced plans to invest at least $10bn in the concept that year.
In addition to Meta, tech giants including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia and Qualcomm are also investing billions of dollars in the idea.
E-commerce is expected to be the dominant engine, with gaming, entertainment, education and marketing in the metaverse also becoming important sectors.
Today, companies use the term to refer to different types of enhanced online environments. These range from online video games like Fortnite to fledgling virtual workplaces like Microsoft’s Mesh or Meta’s Horizon workrooms to virtual dressing rooms and virtual operating rooms.
Rather than a single shared virtual space, the current version of the metaverse is shaping up as a multiverse – a multitude of metaverses with limited interoperability as companies jockey for position.
Eze, however, noted that the combination of uncritical enthusiasm for the metaverse and deep uncertainty about how it will pan out has sparked some backlash.
Industry watchers have questioned if the metaverse will ultimately be much different from the digital experiences we have today — or if the masses will be willing to spend hours a day in a headset navigating digital space.
Other futurists, however, argue that while it is too early for the metaverse and fundamental technical barriers still exist, it will happen. And, it will arrive with a big bang.
From history, the metaverse is not a new concept. The term was coined in 1992 by author Neal Stephenson in his sci-fi novel, Snow Crash, and work on the technologies that underpin a virtual reality-based Internet.
As a vision of what many in the computer industry believe is the next iteration of the Internet – a single, shared, immersive, persistent, 3D virtual space where humans experience life in ways they cannot in the physical world – it has existed for years before its recent boom.
Some of the technologies that provide access to this virtual world, such as virtual reality headsets and augmented reality glasses, are evolving quickly; other critical components of the metaverse, such as adequate bandwidth or interoperability standards are probably years off or might never materialise.
How it works
Because the metaverse is largely unbuilt, there is little agreement on how it will work.
Broadly speaking, however, the metaverse is a digital ecosystem built on various kinds of 3D technology, real-time collaboration software and blockchain-based decentralised finance tools.
Factors such as the degree of interoperability among virtual worlds, data portability, governance and user interfaces will depend on how the metaverse pans out.
A senior manager at Bain & Company, Lauren Lubetsky, while speaking in a session on the metaverse at the 2022 MIT Platform Strategy Summit, outlined three possible scenarios.
The first is that the metaverse remains a domain of niche applications, used by consumers for entertainment and gaming but stopping well short of an all-encompassing virtual reality.
Secondly, the metaverse is controlled by large competing ecosystems — for example, Apple and Android meta worlds — with limited interoperability.
Thirdly, the metaverse is a dynamic, open and interoperable space, much like the Internet but in 3D.
Two technologies considered important to the development and growth of the metaverse are virtual reality and augmented reality.
Virtual reality is a simulated 3D environment that enables users to interact with virtual surroundings in a way that approximates reality as perceived through the senses.
This approximation of reality is now typically accessed through a VR headset that takes over a user’s field of vision. Haptics, including gloves, vests and even full-body tracking suits, enable more lifelike interaction with the virtual environment.
Augmented reality is less immersive than virtual reality. It adds digital overlays on top of the real world via a lens of some type. Users can still interact with their real-world environment. The game, Pokémon Go, is an early example of AR. Google Glass and heads-up displays in car windshields are well-known consumer AR products.
Whether VR and AR experiences turn out to be the primary interfaces of the metaverse remains to be seen, said Gartner senior principal analyst, Tuong H. Nguyen.
He added that what we have now are precursors or pre-metaverse solutions.
At present, many of the metaverse-like experiences offered by gaming platforms such as Roblox, Decentraland and Minecraft can be accessed through browsers or mobile devices and a fast Internet connection.
Artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, extended reality, brain-computer interfaces, 3D modelling and reconstruction, spatial and edge computing and blockchain are seven technologies that industry watchers across the globe have agreed will be important to metaverse development over the next decade.
The online gaming industry has decades-long experience in creating immersive virtual worlds. And to the extent, a proto-metaverse has a mainstream use, the massive audiences that flock — albeit not synchronously — to the likes of Roblox, Epic Games and Decentraland suggest that playing games, building virtual worlds and investing in real estate might be it.
Enterprises are experimenting with metaverse applications in the workplace that builds on the virtual applications companies deployed during the pandemic to support remote work. An early application of metaverse technologies involves workplace training.
Some hospitals are already using VR and AR to train for common medical procedures, said Tech Target writer, Esther Ajao.
The uncertainties
However, the metaverse is still a set of possibilities. There are many unknowns: how exactly the metaverse will become manifest — who will control it, what it will encompass and how much of an impact it will have on our lives — is still up for debate.
At one end of the spectrum are those who believe the metaverse will enhance lives, enabling experiences we could not have in the physical world. Metaverse sceptics view it as merely an extension of the digital experiences we have today but not transformative — and potentially something worse: a magnifier of the current social media ills, including disinformation campaigns, addictive behaviour and tendencies toward violence.
In a 2022 survey performed in conjunction with Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Centre, Pew Research Centre asked 624 technology innovators, business leaders and activists about the impact of the metaverse by 2040.
The response was split. According to the report, 54 per cent of the experts said they expected the metaverse to be a fully immersive, well-functioning aspect of daily life for at least a half-billion people globally, and 46 per cent said it would not.
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