What is happening now is really important, revolutionary, grandiose, and has long-term consequences. Before our eyes, the future construction of a real metauniverse is being designed, and not pseudo-metauniverses (pseudo in this case without a negative connotation), the PR of which we actively see and with aspiration we expect X from them. And one of the important and difficult things of all this action is standardization.
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The largest technology companies decided to join forces and agree on standards for future interoperability (aka interoperability). The jokes are over. And not just anyone, ahh ... in general, see for yourself, comments, in my opinion, are unnecessary.
Why standardize?
So, we will talk about the standardization of the metaverse. What for? So that objects and avatars are created according to some unified rules, so that it is possible to transfer objects from one platform to another. Achieve compatibility stylistically and technically. For example, a hatchet bought in one game can be transferred to another game, or you can roam the expanses of different metaverses as one avatar.
Once upon a time, Enjin wanted to portray something similar on the blockchain. But how to say the ancient cryptogaming saying: “You can look at three things endlessly: fire, water, and how Enjin is trying to organize a revolution in gaming.”
But for a complete immersion in the essence, we need a small introduction, and in the second part of the article we will analyze the agenda of the forum.
A lot has been said about the metaverses. Most of the theses in the educational content about the metaverses are reduced to the fact that this is cool, this is the future, and this is some kind of evolution of the 2D Internet into some kind of 3D space. But few people explain what, then, is the difference between MMORPG and the metaverse. A novice metaverse explorer or critic may have the feeling that he has seen this metaverse of yours somewhere for a long time.
Moreover, if you try to explain this concept to a person from a classic game dev using existing cases, then most likely you will have an argument. He will answer that this has existed for a long time, and secondly, he will not understand why blockchain and NFT are there at all?
World of Warcraft, Second Life, Fortnite, Roblox, all this has existed for years, and something for decades. And thanks to marketers, they began to call any MMORPG generally metaverses, but in reality this is not true. In general, I am not against marketing, because it is the engine of trade, in any case, you need to start with something, even if it’s “on your knees”. And true innovation and accomplishment require entropy. This is normal and even useful in some ways.
But! You and I should still have at least an approximate understanding of the concept, right? What is currently being promoted under the term “metaverses” can be called something like proto-metaverses or MMOs with a SocialFi bias. But certainly not a real global metaverse. It's too early. Therefore, they drove to find out a little deeper about what comes from each iron.
There is such a smart man, the author of the book “The Metaverse. And How It Will Revolutionize Everything,” and he’s also an investor named Matthew Ball.
He is one of the visionaries of the metaverses, has been writing works about this for a long time and studying this topic. His ideas and thoughts deserve attention and inspire many of the leaders of companies involved in the race of the metaverse. Tim Sweeney (CEO at Epic Games), Kenitsiro Yoshida (CEO at Sony), John Riccitello (CEO at Unity Technologies and ex-CEO at Electronic Arts), Reed Hastings (co-founder and co-CEO at Netflix), Phil Spencer ( CEO at Microsoft Gaming), they all speak well of his articles and ideas.
On the other hand, he simply formalized 7 important principles of the metauniverses, which were described in pieces by science fiction writers and which were already in the air, but his compilation and interpretation turned out to be very close to what could become real. We still don’t understand how exactly everything will work, it’s worth remembering what they said about the Internet in the 80s and what happened now has big differences, but in general, many principles have remained unchanged.
Therefore, let's talk about the principles, add my comments, extrapolating this to the history of blockchain and NFT. I'll show you how close it can be to web3.
Characteristics of the Metaverse
- Consistency. The Metaverse is infinite and always functions. It cannot be turned off or stopped or past events changed. Here we recall blockchain and decentralization.
- Synchronization and real-time mode. even though pre-planned and autonomous events will occur as in "real life", the Metaverse will be a living experience that exists consistently for everyone and in real time.
- Unlimited. There are no restrictions on the number of users. Not at all. Anyone can join it and the events within it, providing the user with an individual sense of presence.
- Full economy functionality. People and businesses work in the metaverse and get paid for it. They also own property, can sell/buy it and create it. And again, we can draw an analogy with NFT technology and using assets through our wallet and storing the token on the blockchain, and not on the platform's servers. If Roblox or Epic Games or whoever is planning to create a real metaverse, then they should give ownership to the citizens of the metaverse.
- Comprehensive. The metaverse and the real world should not exist separately, they should be intertwined with each other. At the moment, phygital items that brands give away via NFT are just merchandise that lives its own life after release. If we sell a physical item, then this does not affect the NFT in any way. Events in real life and in the metaverse must affect both realities.
- Interoperability. Content should be able to be transferred from one platform/game to another. Again, we come to the concept of NFT, when the platform receives access to the asset through the client of the user who accesses the blockchain in which NFT is stored on his wallet in order to check the availability of the same NFT for displaying content. Relatively speaking, your acquisition should be an acquisition. This is not a donation. We need to end the concept of donating to game companies in exchange for the right to use the assets they own. This is illogical. This is not true. It is not comfortable. Users, if they buy something, they have ownership rights to it and can use it outside the platform. So that the purchased skin in CS:GO can be put on weapons in Fortnite. A car bought in GTA can be used for work in Minecraft or The Sandbox. Matthew Ball gives a great analogy that at the moment the digital world is acting as if it were a mall, where each store used its own currency, required its own identity cards, had its own units of measure for such things, as well as different dress codes and etc.
- UGC (User Content). Users should be able to create content for the metaverse. We are used to the Internet, where we can upload our videos and texts. But in the metaverse, we will be able to upload 3D assets as well.
Not all MMORPGs have these characteristics. At the moment, closest to the metaverses in the traditional sense: Fortnite, Roblox, Second Life, Meta, Minecraft and a number of others. Mainly because they already have a huge user base and have huge funds, staff and experience to create something like this. I did not mention Decentraland, Otherside, The Sandbox only because they do not have such resources yet, and most importantly, users. They seem to be there, but incomparably smaller.
But web2 companies need to adopt some web3 concepts, as without them, they will not be able to fully embody the true metaverse. If DCL, TSB, Otherside want to compete for a place in the sun, and not be absorbed or content with little, they need to grow very quickly, be flexible, have liquidity in order to survive the crypto winter and provide unique features. There are features. The same decentralization and DAO to be able to create political associations. But while DCL, TSB, Otherside are far from being able to create a metaverse with the characteristics described above, which is capable of aggregating a trillion-dollar economy, the GDP of which is capable of exceeding that of the US, China or the EU, not to mention the flip moment when the metaverse is larger than the world economy, which quite likely in the future. Citigroup has said that the metaverse industry will reach $2030 trillion by 13, but we will refrain from this, but we believe that there is still a possibility of a Big Flip in the 21st century and this is logical, because. the cost of producing digital goods is lower, in the digital world you can create more goods and wear more. In general, there will be fewer restrictions, subject to the development of technology.
What is the metaverse not?
Sometimes you need an anti-reference to better represent something and understand the task.
- «Game«. There are many elements of the Metaverse in Fortnite.
- mixes IP (intellectual property).
- has a consistent identity that spans multiple closed platforms.
- it is the gateway to a multitude of experiences, some of which are purely social.
- rewards creators for creating content, etc.
- While the Metaverse may have some game goals, include games, and include gamification, it is not a game in and of itself, and is not goal oriented..
- «Virtual world». Games and virtual worlds, even with AI, have already existed for a long time, as well as those in which "real" people live in real time. This is not a "meta" (Greek for "beyond") universe, but just a synthetic and fictional game world created for one purpose (game).
- «Virtual space». Second Life is often considered a "proto-metaverse" because it:
- no game objectives or skill systems
- there are virtual hangouts that persist
- offers nearly synchronous content updates
- have real people represented by digital avatars. However, this is not enough for the Metaverse.
- «Digital and virtual economy». It's an old story too... Individual games like World of Warcraft have long had a functioning economy where real people trade virtual goods for real money or complete virtual tasks in exchange for real money. In addition, platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk as well as technologies like Bitcoin are based on hiring individuals/businesses/computing power to perform virtual and digital tasks. We are already doing massive deals for pure digital goods for pure digital activities through pure digital marketplaces.
- «Virtual theme park or Disneyland". Not only will the "rides" be endless, they won't be centrally "designed" or programmed like Disneyland, nor will they all be dedicated to fun or entertainment.
- «New app store only in 3D". No one needs another way to open applications, and at the same time "in virtual reality".
- «Another platform for creating user-generated content". The Metaverse is not just another YouTube or Facebook-like platform where countless people can “create,” “share,” and “monetize” content, and where the most popular content represents only the smallest fraction of total consumption. The Metaverse will become a place where true empires will be invested and built, and where these wealthy businesses will be able to fully own the customer, control the API/data, economic unit, etc. It is also likely that, as with the Internet, , a dozen or so platforms take up a significant portion of user time, experience, content, etc.
Restrictions
New technologies, protocols, new innovative companies, creators and discoveries are simply necessary to create the Metaverse. This is especially stressful considering that Apple has not yet introduced its mythical VR / AR glasses / helmet, and it’s already the middle of 2022.
- Infrastructure and equipment. A fully realized global Metaverse will require improved computing power and lower latency infrastructure. Even greater Internet availability will be required, and 5G is clearly indispensable here. Advances in virtual reality and augmented reality will be required. Hardware and software are also key to optimizing the immersive experience.
- Regulatory and legal issues. In general, everything is complicated here, because the key feature of the cryptocurrency, and later NFT, is the almost complete absence of any regulatory framework for monitoring or regulating their use, and as a result, protecting users.
- Interoperability and openness. We have already talked about this, but it is worth emphasizing that this is one of the most important elements of the Metaverse. The ability to host products, information and services across platforms and between the digital and physical worlds. To do this, the Metaverse needs to be open, interoperable and not dominate over one object.
Currently, most of the Metaverses (or Proto-Metaverses) are controlled by large companies and there is no interoperability between them. Ideally, companies will recognize the value and need for open source systems and will collaborate on common standardsso that people can travel between virtual worlds without changing identities or losing money or digital assets.
Has the moment come?
Starts in July this year Metaverse Standards Forum.
Founding member companies of the forum:
0xSenses, Academy Software Foundation, Adobe, Alibaba, Autodesk, Avataar, Blackshark.ai, CalConnect, Cesium, Daly Realism, Disguise, the Enosema Foundation, Epic Games, the Express Language Foundation, Huawei, IKEA, John Peddie Research, Khronos, Lamina1 , Maxon, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAR Cloud, the Open Geospatial Consortium, Otoy, Perey Research and Consulting, Qualcomm Technologies, Ribose, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Spatial Web Foundation, Unity, VerseMaker, Wayfair, the Web3D Consortium, the World Wide Web Consortium, and the XR Association.
And Apple and Niantic, apparently, were not invited ... But even without them, there are enough big names.
What's a forum?
The Metaverse Stardards Forum is a place where leading standards organizations and companies collaborate to advance interoperability standards for the open metaverse. Yes, that's what we were talking about. The same pain in the market.
Many industry leaders have stated that the Metaverse's potential will be best realized if it is built on open standards. Really listened?
And another of the goals of the forum is to provide a kind of decentralization format so that no single company dominates the development of the metaverse, as happened with the Internet.
The Metaverse Standards Forum, will be open for registration free of charge for any organization and provides:
- a platform for cooperation between standardization organizations;
- promoting the development of interoperability standards for an open and inclusive metaverse;
- Accelerate development and deployment with pragmatic, action-driven designs.
It sounds tempting, but on the other hand it is absolutely logical, because this has been talked about for a long time. Now we are closer than ever to launching the construction of grandiose projects.
What will they talk about?
According to the official presentations from the forum, the activities of the forum will be determined by the needs and interests of its members and may cover various areas of technology, including:
- Interactive 3D assets and photorealistic rendering;
- Human Interface, AR, VR and XR;
- UGC;
- Avatars, identity management and privacy;
- Financial operations;
- Internet of things and digital twins;
- Geospatial systems.
It looks like some unrealistic effort will have to be made to build a real metaverse. But apparently, this first forum is intended to seriously rally the largest companies in order to coordinate their actions.
Different technologies will need to work together in new ways
Synthetic visual reality, practical XR optics, real-time environmental scanning, end-user 3D content creation tools, accurate physical modeling, efficient remote social interaction, server scaling to millions of concurrent users, streaming of rich geospatial datasets, real-world global geo-reference with persistence, universal digital twins, online personas and social connections, realistic avatars, public consumer assets, security, privacy, interoperable runtimes, online economy and currencies, IoT sensor networks, low-latency wireless ubiquity.
Need more
Goldcompatibility!
Hardware and software, web and native, real and virtual worlds, servers and clients, 3D assets/avatars in various environments, etc.
And all this they will need to digest somehow, experiment with everything, get a lot of fails and, accordingly, a hatred from the public. Only then, perhaps, something will work out.
What pleases is that these adult uncles are tuned to Opersors, which cannot but rejoice. Open standards will facilitate the spread of technology.
An open and inclusive metaverse will need the right standards at the right time - from many standards organizations! Starting right from the main infrastructure. (from left to right).
More details about the forum program can be found in their presentation.
An example of a test project for creating an interoperable asset. And as an example, they demonstrate how the process of creating a car can be built, and what is needed for this.
Despite the fact that we have no idea what the metaverse will be in reality, just as we did not understand what the Internet would be like 30-40 years ago. Maybe cats will take over the metaverse. So far, a muddy silhouette is visible and we are trying to read something in these outlines, but one thing is for sure - this will greatly change our consumer habits and life. Why, all our lives, and I hope for the best. And let's hope that the principles of web3 will play an important role in the future, and this future is coming right now.
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