Not long ago, the metaverse used to be seen as a futuristic concept taken from a sci-fi movie. It was often imagined as the unification of real and virtual worlds through highly technological devices that provide the user with an immersive experience in digital grounds. In fact, the 2018’s movie Ready Player One is the average public main reference about the metaverse.
Source: Amazon
While this fictional idea is not entirely wrong, metaverses (yes, plural!) are much more nuanced than any movie has shown yet. Let’s dive deep into the complexity of how to metaverse explanation, what they are, how they work, and what users can expect from them in the future.
There are at least three distinct perspectives that one could look into to define the idea of the Metaverse. It can be explained as a product or service, a place, and even a moment.
A broader understanding would be that Metaverses are 3D virtual worlds that focus on social interactions and gaming. Both fictional and non-fictional literacy speculate that the concept of metaverse can become a single universal virtual world, where users will manage a virtual life represented by avatars, properties, and other real-world-like nuances.
Rather than describing a new or enhanced type of technology, the metaverse concept is about a new way to interact with and through technology. Instead of communicating via digital means and media, we can use metaverses’ digital spaces to meet “in person” with our avatars.
While the hypothetical future hasn’t come, companies are developing multiple metaverses that can be accessed through computers and mobile devices, besides Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality gadgets. Popular brands are already securing their presence in these new digital environments by purchasing virtual land and advertisement space. Some are even creating NFT products that metaverses’ users can buy and use online.
Source: Vogue
The metaverse concept entered the spotlight throughout 2020 and 2021, when the density of online users and hours spent online increased due to the pandemic. As of October 2021, the former Facebook company announced its rebranding and renaming to Meta, adding up to the metaverse craze.
However, the metaverse’s history dates to 1992, when this word first appeared in the Snow Crash science-fiction novel. Since then, several virtual worlds have emerged, especially in the gaming industry through MMO games, such as Second Life, Minecraft, Roblox, IMVU, Habbo, and even the children-targeted Disney game Club Penguin.
Some specialists call those games “protometaverses” because they still operate individually and not like a unified new version of the Internet, as companies like Meta aspires to be one day. Besides being primarily games, those virtual worlds presented sophisticated social media features. The users could interact with others, create and customize their avatars, build their own homes, and even go to parties.
After the metaverse explosion in popularity over the past few years, several blockchain-based projects are now focusing on building several different metaverses to enlarge this market. Some of the most promising metaverse-related initiatives will be launching soon on the GamesPad platform:
While the metaverse as the next version of the Internet is still in the collective imagination, it is already possible to interact with the earlier versions of decentralized metaverses, mainly through gaming platforms.
Here is what we can already do in a metaverse:
Lets look closely about this activities:
The sense of virtual identity that metaverses can provide comes essentially from creating an original avatar that may or may not look like your real self.
The current metaverse dynamic requires designing a new avatar for every virtual world. Still, apps like Ready Player Me are already paving the way to a reality where users will be able to share one character identity throughout several virtual worlds.
Source: Ready Player Me
One of the most exciting features of metaverses is the social interaction that can take place in many different hangout spaces.
Some platforms such as The Sandbox and Decentraland offer open-world environments where users can meet other people freely. Spatial and MetaHub, on the other hand, provide a more private experience with custom-built rooms for meetings, conferences, and events.
Nevertheless, metaverses’ social interaction goes beyond meetings and “in-person” chatting. Parties, concerts, events, and music festivals are taking place in the virtual worlds. Travis Scott’s Astronomical Concert hosted on Fortnite’s platform is a recent and famous example.
Source: Fortnite
Metaverses go beyond avatars and socialization. Users can invest in NFT items, fungible tokens, and even buy a portion of virtual land.
To invest in NFTs, users need to purchase speculative in-game NFT items or brand-related NFTs that can be used by avatars, for example, such as Nike and Adidas NFT collections. Basically, the strategy is to buy rare and collectible items and resell them at an increased price. A similar dynamic can be used with in-game fungible tokens. It is possible to buy and earn the tokens while playing and trade them when their value is higher.
Yet, the most intriguing investment feature on metaverses is virtual land ownership. Much like real estate in the physical world, metaverses have limited land distributed in good and bad areas of the virtual worlds. That means that the sooner you invest in virtual land, the cheaper you’ll pay for it and the higher are the chances that your property will be better located.
Virtual lands are sold as NFTs in different metaverses. You can rent your land for businesses to assemble offices and stores, for marketing agencies to advertise brands, and even for individuals to build private properties. The opportunities are endless, depending solely on the metaverse of choice.
Technology is evolving faster than ever, and so is the concept of the metaverse. While metaverses used to be focused on gaming and entertainment some years ago, now they also integrate the business and financial industries, often presenting their own in-game economics with tokens that bear real-world value.
Without a doubt, the main expectation towards the metaverse is that it becomes a massive and interconnected network of virtual worlds as the new frontier of the Internet. Companies are investing billions to make this happen, and some believe that by 2030 most online users will be already interacting in a unified version of the metaverse.
With refined and more accessible versions of VR, AR tools, and even Brain-Computer interfaces, the metaverse can potentially have infinite possibilities. Users would be able to enhance their realities by shifting between the real and virtual worlds, as an action in digital reality would be valid in real life and vice versa.
The future holds great things for the concept of a greater metaverse, and GamesPad is making sure to be one of the pioneer companies investing in it. GamesPad is a decentralized launchpad that focuses on promoting new projects related to gaming, NFTs, and the metaverse. We select the most promising and innovative ideas through a detailed curation process to be financed by our community of investors.
With GamesPad, crypto projects can develop their communities, boost their reach, and receive long-term support after their token launch. For investors, we guarantee a secure and compliant platform for multichain investments, with highly profitable opportunities.
Would you like to start investing in the most promising crypto gaming, NFT and metaverse projects? Learn how to invest with GamesPad, the fairest and most community-oriented decentralized GameFi multichain launchpad!
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