This essay is Part II of the series “On the Metaverse”. If you haven’t yet read Part I, you can check it out here.
Technological transformations like the consumer internet often arrive in stages. After a series of private networks like ARPANET were created, Tim Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web in 1989. Internet hype skyrocketed in the late 1990’s before temporarily bottoming out in the Dot Com Crash of 2000. Web 2.0 arrived in 2004, shifting the internet from a means of communication to a platform of multimedia content.
Around 2005, social networks like Myspace and LinkedIn gained traction and at the same time, user generated content on platforms like YouTube grew so quickly that it was estimated YouTube alone consumed more bandwidth in 2007 than the entire internet in 2000 [1]. The iPhone, introduced in 2007, upended how we interact with the internet and enabled the first platforms native to mobile. Instagram was founded in 2010; Snapchat in 2011; TikTok in 2016. And alongside the growth of social and entertainment, technologies like cloud and artificial intelligence further drove (and continue to drive) the art of the possible.
The metaverse will also arrive in stages as the landscape of players, discussed in Part I, solidifies. But what’s next?
Some have cited the multiverse as an intermediate stage: a collection of walled off and independent virtual worlds [5]. In some ways, the multiverse already exists via popular but independent games like Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft. Either way, the next frontier for gaming is the creation of non-competitive social experiences, much like Epic Games’ Party Royale.
On the flip side, social-first companies like Facebook and Google will push further into gamification, exemplified by Facebook’s Horizon. This strategy addresses a core flaw in social networks: despite their popularity, these platforms never truly evolved into the preferred method for “hanging out”. Sure, they steal entire days of our lives. But peculiarly (and sadly), much of that time is spent passively observing, scrolling into oblivion rather than engaging and interacting with friends in real time. Social companies like Facebook want you to “hang out” on their platform ecosystem, which explains their recent app launches of Threads (for close friends) [3] and Tuned (for couples) [4].
Lastly, media-first companies also see disruption on the horizon. Though we consider social media, gaming, and video as distinct entertainment options, all draw from the same limited supply of time and attention. Disney devoted the entirety of its 2017 Board retreat to technology disruption, galvanizing the expedited launch of Disney+ and ESPN+. Moreover, Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings sees Fortnite and other multiplayer games as Netflix’s chief competitor:
“We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO.”
Reed Hastings // Netflix 2018 Annual Report
COVID-19 will accelerate the creation of the metaverse
The ongoing pandemic has wrought mass uncertainty for our future. The one surety? Consumers are moving to a digital-first world at a much faster pace. Before COVID-19, we were slowly increasing time spent online each year, yet current trends are revealing a step function increase. Since the pandemic started, gaming hours in the US have increased 75% [3] and Twitch streaming hours are up 83% to 5B hours in Q2 2020 [4]. This rapid change lays bare a need for better tools, for both work and play.
Take video calling as an example. While Zoom has gained significant market share, one day of video calls will highlight still-existent problems. High bandwidth infrastructure is not pervasive, leading to video lag. There is no concept of environment persistence: a host has to set up an instance, send invites to attendees, and launch the meeting. Body language and visual cues are difficult to read. And for large meetings, it’s difficult to break into smaller groups in a natural way, like conversations at a party. After several Zoom calls, it’s evident they haven’t matched the quality of in-person gatherings. Our shift to the medium has exposed a number of flaws while increasing the prize for solving them.
Like video calling, COVID-19 has escalated the urgency of innovation in many stagnant industries. The necessity of work collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Google Suite has exposed gaps in seamless team communication, where files are slow to load and platforms are still buggy. The lack of sports has highlighted the need for better digital entertainment and provided a new audience on Twitch. The lack of available office space is even generating hype around better outdoor office solutions [5].
As gaps arise for new tools of work and leisure alike, necessity will dictate invention. Where there is demand, supply will rise to meet the occasion. And as we build intermediate solutions for current digital challenges, we will slowly build the metaverse.
Culture and Centrality
Aside from technological challenges, differences in industry culture may cause rifts in the merging of social and gaming for the metaverse. Silicon Valley’s agile software ethos has been well documented. Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup evangelized the concept of a minimum viable product, shipped to users as soon as possible with spartan functionality. Development teams then collect feedback and iteratively create more advanced versions while constantly communicating with users.
However, game development evolved with a different culture. Games present unique challenges compared with software or animated movies due to their inherent complexity. In his 2017 book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier documents six such challenges in game development, summarized below [7]:
- Interactivity: Unlike movies, games do not unfold in a linear, predefined direction. Rather, rendered characters and objects must react in real time to the player’s actions, often within the bounds of varying physics and rulesets
- Technological Pace: Technology evolves so quickly that by a game’s release, the studio is often using outdated, prior-generation tools, including both user-facing (processors, graphics cards, consoles) and development-facing (game engines, visual design)
- Incompatible Toolkits: Developers are only as good as their software. Not only do game engines contain their own inherent bugs; they also often don’t mesh well with one another, leading to a large number of defects for complex projects
- Scheduling Uncertainty: It’s tough to assess a game’s development progress until its graphics, controls, environment, gameplay, and story are combined. Uncertainty compounds when separate departments produce each component, often leading to release delays similar to Hollywood
- Fun Factor: Games blend technology with art, meaning features are less important than playability. But playability can’t be accurately estimated early in development, so games often must be reworked until execution meets the creative vision
While studios test games during development, it’s rare for a studio to ship a purposefully half baked game to its fans, as is common with agile software development. As organizations native to gaming, social, and software alike compete and collaborate to build the metaverse, cultures will clash: ship-fast versus quality-first.
Second, a note on centrality. The most likely (and certainly most preferable) metaverse end state is a decentralized model, similar to the current internet. The internet contains layers upon layers of software, applications, networking, and security created by many for-profit and non-profit organizations. While platforms like Facebook and YouTube wield considerable power, no single company controls the internet or owns a majority of services. Ideally, the metaverse will be similar. It’s tempting to imagine current leaders as sole owners based on their track record. Who could beat Facebook, Google, and Microsoft to the next internet? But frequently, the large resource pools of incumbents can breed complacency. Material success in one industry leads organizations to overlook the next horizon. The metaverse will grow through old and new organizations alike.
Lastly, the metaverse as a platform is not bound to binary completion. A bridge under construction is useless; cars gain nothing by travelling halfway across the bridge and turning around. A bridge derives 100% of its value from the final plank, connecting the two sides. The metaverse, much like the internet, relies on localized completion. Intermediate and incomplete versions will still be useful. In fact, these versions will be massive upgrades from today’s technology, spurring further investment and interest much like the “incomplete” internet of the 1990’s.
Onward and Upward
As the endgame of the internet, the metaverse will usher in a golden age of communication and entertainment. We continue to shift more of our physical lives into the digital world, increasingly identifying with the personalities we build online. Instagram likes and Tiktok views are the new social currency – for better or worse – and the COVID landscape will only accelerate this shift.
Without spoiling Wade’s journey in Ready Player One, his OASIS metaverse is both a wondrous fantasy and a dystopian failure. It’s where he makes his deepest friendships and most hated enemies. And he discovers a world laden with unrest and claims to power, much like ours today. If we can glean one lesson from building the internet, it’s that technology is not fundamentally just or evil: it merely amplifies the qualities of those who wield it. Like every technology before it, the metaverse will reveal existing societal flaws and new challenges alike. Ultimately, it’s up to us to decide its fate.
John Stone 