What’s the Metaverse? (Part 4 of 7)
0xIntro
We don’t need to repeat why crypto and web3 are going to be at the forefront of the next generation’s companies. We believe in it, and text our frens “gm” and “wagmi” every morning. We’ll cut the bullsh*t and get straight to the point.
It’s hard for the average person to understand what this noise is all about, so we took the initiative to write up a series of posts that dive into what’s actually inside the rabbit hole.
If you don’t know us already, Ripple Ventures is an early-stage venture fund looking to back extraordinary founders building market-shifting software tools. We’re focused on anything enterprise, creator, and developer-focused in web2 and web3.
This is the fourth of a seven-part series covering:
- What is Web 1, 2, 3?
- The Benefits and Drawbacks of Web 2
- Why Does Web 3 Matter?
- What’s the Metaverse?
- State of the Crypto Market
- Web 3 Leading Indicators
- Web 3 Dictionary Resource
Up Next…
Next week, we’ll be launching our next post covering What the Crypto Market Looks Like.
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Get in touch!
If you’re a founder building in this space and want to connect, please reach out to us using this link!
What is Metaverse?
The metaverse is a virtual environment where people spend time and interact with others.
What are some examples of this you might ask?
- When Dwight from The Office built his Second Life character when Andy and Angela were together to make his “perfect life”
- When Travis Scott hosted a concert in Fortnite where over 12M people showed up to watch, digitally, in their avatar form in the ~metaverse~
- For those who played Runescape, that could be considered a metaverse
- Ready Player One, when everyone puts on a VR headset to go into a 3D digital reality
The metaverse does not need to be in AR/VR in our opinion. As long as users have their own unique characters, are in a digital environment, and can interact with others, we consider that the metaverse. While the most immersive metaverses can be argued to be through AR and VR (augmented reality and virtual reality), it’s not the only means of accessing this form of digital space. What AR/VR allows users to experience is an extended version of the internet that you can see and quasi-physically interact with virtual objects that are not present in real life.
Is every metaverse related to Web 3?
No, not every metaverse is related to Web 3. As we gave some examples above, Dwight’s Second Life character was most likely not trading around game asset NFTs, nor were we cashing out $RSCP for selling rune scimitars in Runescape.
The metaverse and Web 3 can individually and mutually exist, but they do not need to mutually exist.
However, both are topics that are talked about frequently in recent news due to the high amounts of activity in both spaces. Neither space has to “win”, and both Web 3 and the metaverse can be built and grown simultaneously. The metaverse experience can be improved with elements of Web 3 through blockchain and decentralized networks.
What we’re most excited about in the metaverse + Web 3 combo:
The big opportunity in our eyes is when existing large communities of people in the metaverse start to adopt Web 3 elements. For example when Ubisoft, EA Sports, and Zynga have been working on adding in NFT items within the game with paid and play-to-earn models, the bridge between the Web 2 and Web 3 worlds start to collide.
The problem with most metaverse + Web 3 companies today is that they need to not only create an amazing game, but they need to acquire players at scale to sustain their game and ultimately token economy. The high barriers to entry to play some games limit mass adoption. For example, some of the most popular games like Axie Infinity require users to buy 3 Axies for roughly $750 USD just to get started. Existing gaming studios have a brand, a following, and most importantly a game that’s already loved and played. They just need to figure out how to incorporate Web 3 properly into their worlds. Unfortunately, it’s still been a little rocky for user experience which has caused some backlash on the concept so far.
But that’s why we’re so excited about the opportunity. There are so many things to solve for, from bringing “normies” into the ecosystem smoothly through the game itself instead of needing to open up a Coinbase account, buy USDC/ETH, and then buy tokens to start playing a game. Our belief is that you should let the metaverse and the game be the star of the show, and have it be powered by Web 3. There was a cool PrayingForExits story talking about the “mullet”. Web 2 frontend experience, but Web 3 backend. We think that there will be some version of this in the decentralized metaverse.
What are some other real-world examples of the metaverse?
Governments
- Seoul — Announced plans and a $3.3m investment to make public services and cultural events available on the metaverse. The city will start developing its own metaverse platform starting at the end of 2022, and completion is scheduled for 2026. Examples of metaverse services and events include a virtual mayor’s office, virtual office space for businesses and incubators, etc.
Companies
- Facebook — Rebranded their name to “Meta” to reflect their changing focus and direction towards the metaverse. They’ve also been on a VR/AR company acquisition spree to build out their hardware and software capabilities in the metaverse.
- Microsoft — Building out virtual office spaces with collaborative tools like whiteboards, PowerPoint, and excel. Virtual avatars and HoloLens mimic in-person facial features.
- Nike — Filed a patent for “cryptokicks” a virtual sneaker locker for NFTs. Imagine for every pair of shoes you buy, you get a digital version of them for your metaverse avatar.
- Dropbox — Preparing to be the data storage solution for the metaverse. Instead of just storing PDFs and PPTX files you can store the files in different metaverse environments or the documents of metaverse whiteboard sessions.
- Autodesk, Unity Games, Epic Games — Building immersive gaming metaverse environments
- Gather — Metaverse gathering platform raises funding
- Niantic — Gaming company that wants people to connect in the metaverse
- Nvidia — Plans to use the metaverse for 3 main use cases
- Avatar Creation — Create interactive avatars using natural language processing, computer vision, and recommendation algorithms to create ready-made reproductions of avatars that mimic daily conversations
- Synthetic Data Creation — Created “Replicator”, a metaverse based engine that generates synthetic data to help circumvent data privacy of large AI models
- 5G Data Simulations — Teaming up with Ericsson to create metaverse versions of cities using radio signal data to simulate how well 5G coverage occurs in certain geographic areas before building. This can help uncover obstacles like vegetation or thick walls blocking signals.
Thanks for reading!
If you have any suggestions on edits or more content we should cover, please reach out to us at matt@rippleventures.com and dom@rippleventures.com
