Why the Metaverse Might Not Be Successful

The new hyped reality—the Metaverse is proposed to be the future of the internet, promising to solve everything Web 2.0 fell short of. It’s fast becoming a buzzword in the tech world, as more giant corporations invest  butload of Benjamins in it.

According to a Citi report, the market value for the Metaverse could be between $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030 with its total number of users rising to 5 billion. With that in mind, it’s no shocker that companies, especially tech-savvy ones are seeing the intrinsic value in the Metaverse.

Holl up, before explaining why this dream might be under threat, let's understand what it all about.

What is Metaverse?

A  sci-fi thriller, Tron was released in 1982, it was about a computer engineer who got abducted in a digital world and was forced to become a freedom fighter for the oppressed programs of the grid, where his only chance of escape was with the help of a heroic security program.

This was the first time the world heard about a digital reality. Neal Stephenson in his sci-fi book Snow Crash gave a deeper dive into this reality and coined the word Metaverse. The word meta is known as beyond and Verse which is short for the universe, the Metaverse is a 3D virtual world focused on the social connection which is possible with different individual avatars. Blockchain technology is the cornerstone in the actualization of this new reality.

Is Metaverse more than a Game and who is building this Game?

Oh well,  Gaming is a part of the metaverse but it does not make a huge chunk of it. This new reality offers more than what meets the eye with a wide range of possibilities in and outside the gaming industry. Though it may appear like a video game, Metaverse is more centered on social exposure: where users are brought to a virtual world.

"The metaverse is coming. Metaverse is not only a place to game. Future worlds will be photorealistic, obey the laws of physics, and be inhabited by human avatars and AI beings. We will create a future in these metaverses before actually downloading the blueprints to be fab’ed in the physical world.”—Jensen Huang, Nvidia.

One can figure it going to be more than a game—it is a big Economic realm that might give people an alternative to virtual presence.

Interoperability of the Metaverse

What the heck is this “interoperability” every Metaverse enthusiast is worried about—Metaverse Interoperability is the ability for different virtual worlds and platforms to interact with each other. This means how you bridge your Ethereum metaverse life to Solana or Meta, as well as share data and content with other users.

As Metaverse popularity keeps surging, one of the golden geese of this mind-blowing project is how interoperability will be achieved. Is this crucial? Oh yes, it is, interoperability is pivotal as this will enable users to enjoy the unified experience across various metaverse projects.

You can’t have another virtual universe and feel trapped, without this, you won’t have total freedom, and participating in multiple socio-cultural activities will be restricted.

Highlighting the Benefits of Interoperability

They are ample benefits of Metaverse Interoperability, first, it gives the opportunity to users to interact with a larger number of people, which is bound to usher in new opportunities and also experiences. This will give users total freedom as they can freely associate/dis-associate between virtual worlds without going back to square 0. This will be a big plus for businesses, as this will boost their presence in multiple virtual worlds and get a bigger audience.

True ownership of assets—the interoperability will increase the permanency and portability of assets in the metaverse,  as being able to move assets from one platform to another will enable these assets to be independent. More Defi applications and worlds are bound to exist, therefore these assets won’t be contingent on the fate of the platform that a particular scene or experience may be currently residing in, making these assets deployable.

This will enable participants of the verse to control their digital identity and assets, taking them to whatever worlds they please.

SandBox: Home of Interoperability

Sandbox has made it metaverse open for all, with the VoxEdit tool without the need to grapple with codes, you can create, rig, and animate your Voxel-based NFTs. In in-addition, Sandbox allows you to share it with the community on the Sandbox’s marketplace.

Sandbox has shown immense interest in bringing interoperability to its community, and has now made it possible for you to bring your avatar to the metaverse. With the broad variety of Profile Picture (PFP)  projects flooding the NFT cosmos, it was just a matter of time before people start yearning to see these in the metaverse. Guess what? the free Avatar -customization tools on Sandbox allow you to do just that—bring your beloved avatar to the metaverse.

The Interoperability Madness and Antidote

Making the Metaverse interpolable will be a big plus in making this new reality more progressive, as this will lead to having an interconnected verse that will cultivate economic, cultural, and social engagements.

Case 1

User in Metaverse Z wants his avatar to ride a bike he bought in Metaverse G. Furthermore if Metaverse Z supports assets from Metaverse G, this translate to more utility in assets sold in Metaverse Z, without any benefit for it verse—this is the economic fiasco problem.

It’s a social and business hurdle that can easily be solved by creating an ecosystem and establishing the right economic incentives where groups and creators gain mutual benefits in participating in an interoperable cosmos.

Case 2

Metaverse A and Metaverse B were both built on the same engine, however, Metaverse A has a retro anime style and Metaverse B has a more realistic look where gravitational laws exist. Bringing these two designs together is going to be a pretty hard job don’t you think? This is an engineering problem

Pre-made libraries and Software Developer Kits (SDKs) will make it easier for Metaverse developers to manage interoperability within larger cross-platform ecosystems

Univers is creating a backbone for metaverse developers can utilize to integrate their products into a larger network of interconnected services and decentralized apps.

Closing Thought

Metaverse can be everything it has been tipped to be only if it can successfully solve interoperability problems. In addition, it will make the cosmos more valuable which will attract more users, interoperability is the key to having the Metaverse of our dreams.