What is Metaverse? Learn about the next-generation gaming-changing concept

On July 26, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the tech giant is planning to move from a "Social Media Company" to a "Metaverse Company." Admittedly, with nearly three billion people using Facebook every month, Zuckerberg's hint of a change in direction is remarkable. It seems that immediately, the phrase "Metaverse" continuously becomes the top topic of exchange and search among users. So what is the “Metaverse” and what does it mean in practice?

We invite you to learn through the article below.

What is Metaverse?

When the pandemic hit at the beginning of 2020, all physical spaces were limited and always in a state of distancing, so people were always looking for an unrestricted space where they could freely meet and unleash creativity together in a common space. That place is called virtual space or virtual space.

In simple terms, Metaverse is a virtual space, a digital world, where anything we can imagine can exist. We can use it to broaden our senses of sight, sound and touch, incorporate digital items into the real world, or immerse ourselves in a 3D environment whenever we want.

Origins of Metaverse

The definition of Metaverse appeared in the early days of the Internet, it is mentioned in the novel "Snow Crash" published in 1992 by writer Neil Stephenson, it was later featured in the Ernest Klein movie "Ready Player One". The content is about a virtual life in the digital world that exists parallel to the real world outside.

If understood literally, Meta means "Beyond or beyond", and Verse stands for the word Universe, so we can simply understand that Metaverse is a concept outside the real universe. . Metaverse can be seen as an open world, participants can build and live in that world.

Metaverse is considered a technological breakthrough of the future, but these outstanding technological ideas are very abstract and difficult to define precisely before they are applied. widely. Typically, the 4.0 technology revolution such as IOT (Internet of Things), cloud computing or sharing economy ... are gradually being widely applied in our lives but not everyone understands them well. .

Core Features of Metaverse

From the definition of Metaverse, some of its core features can be understood as:

• Sustainability

Metaverse is a sustainable system that continuously delivers services and content to an ever-growing and rich ecosystem.

• Reality

The purpose of Metaverse is to build a virtual shared space outside of the real world. So it must come with VR, AR even brain-computer interface technology, possess 3-D image sharing features that provide real-time recognition and interaction.

• Extensibility

Just like the Internet, Metaverse allows users to connect or disconnect at any time. At the same time it is also an open space that allows creativity to become unlimited.

• Economic System

This is the complete core of the Metaverse. In it, participants can move their assets between the real world and the Metaverse easily, as well as can rely on having groundbreaking innovative innovations in it to accumulate and increase assets. for myself.

Evolution of Metaverse

Metaverse is not a concept that appeared out of nowhere, it is a good imagination based on the development and evolution of science and technology. In order to have a more specific and accurate classification of the industrial ecosystem and the law of future development, it is essential to understand the development history of the Metaverse.

In the development of Metaverse, we can mention the following three core components:

• Internet: Infrastructure for virtual connection

Internet is a prerequisite for the birth of Metaverse. It provides networking capabilities to form the infrastructure for the virtual connections of the metaverse. This can be considered as the next evolution of the Internet.

• VR hardware system, AR

VR stands for virtual reality, refers to simulation technology to create and experience virtual worlds. AR stands for augmented reality, which is a technology that integrates virtual information with the real world to achieve a surreal sensory experience.

Although the early development of VR/AR technology can be traced back to the 1950s and 1960s, it was not until 2012 that it was introduced to the public with the Oculus head-mounted VR device. and the Google Glass AR device.

• Blockchain: An open and transparent economic system

With the current context, the Metaverse industry is having the participation of many big technology companies including hardware, software, blockchain, gaming. … However, these platforms lack the ability to interact with each other. For example, you cannot exchange valuable items in Fortnite for a similar item in Minecraft.

Metaverse will be completed with the support of Blockchain technology for the following reasons:

• Blockchain interoperability: assets on other blockchains each other can be easily moved back and forth through the Cross-chain bridge.
• Scalability: Existing blockchains like Avalanche, Solana, Polkadot all possess great scalability.
• The personalization of blockchain is expressed through NFTs – unique and irreplaceable tokens.
• Security and transparency: Blockchain technology is a place to help secure users' digital assets from hacker attacks.

On the other hand, with the development of DeFi as an intermediary bridge promoting economic activities of Blockchain technology. It has met all the needs of a decentralized financial system.

You can imagine when there is a need to exchange and trade goods on Metaverse, there are already decentralized exchanges DEX or marketplaces. When you need to borrow or lend capital, Lending & Borrowing Protocol can be easily implemented.

Metaverse and the Gaming Industry

Ernest Cline's Ready Player One novel and Steven Spielberg's CGI thriller of the same name give an outline of how video games will lead to the creation of the metaverse .

Protagonist Wade lives in a backward future, when population crisis, climate change and a host of other problems have left the world severely devastated. Metaverse is his only way out. This metaverse video game allows the protagonist to enjoy his life, make great friends, and forget about his difficulties in reality for a while.

When it comes to video games, most people immediately think of entertainment, but in reality its potential is much greater. Video games and digital worlds have the ability to simulate real-world environments and even push the boundaries of reality to contribute to improving lives in various ways.

Game publishers today have been looking to make this jump. Fortnite publisher Epic Games is one of those companies that are working extremely hard to transform their video game universe into the metaverse.

Basically, Fortnite is a type of battle royale game. In recent years, they've expanded to host an in-game concert with some of the world's most famous musicians, like Travis Scott and Ariana Grande. Most recently on August 26, Epic Games teamed up with Times Magazine, to give Martin Luther King Jr the speech of a lifetime in Fortnite.

Roblox is also a big gaming company aspiring to create the metaverse. Their game has been around for over a decade where it allows users to build their digital worlds and interact with friends online. Roblox recently decided to IPO, and largely due to its intent to pursue the metaverse, the company has reached a valuation of over $39 billion.

From that, it can be seen that, if someone is going to pursue the metaverse, they will need to start with the gaming field first.

Metaverse and Blockchain Gaming

First of all, The Sandbox, which emerged as a game on the Ethereum network in 2012, caused an extremely positive impact on the crypto community. Although it is not the only game on the blockchain, the truth is that Sandbox has characteristics that make it unique in its style.

You can monetize your creativity in “virtual” lands called LANDs and also allow the exchange of LANDs with their own tokens called SAND pulses around the economy created in the ecosystem.

The second blockchain gaming platform can be mentioned is Decentraland, another great platform in the Ethereum space.

Like The Sandbox, users in Decentraland can monetize creative items through the MANA token, which serves as a medium of exchange in this Metaverse. Decentraland is the first project in the Blockchain gaming ecosystem and as such it possesses a huge number of users and items much larger than its current competitors. In addition to these two games, there are now more and more Metaverse and Blockchain games appearing as these two areas are gradually becoming more popular and important than ever.

Will the Metaverse become inevitable in the future?

Although the current Metaverse in the field of art, games, … has begun to appear, it is still only in the beginning stages. Its future is quite promising to grow and explode, just like how artificial intelligence AI has done in the history of technology of mankind.

However, in my personal opinion, this development does not exist a switch point to "turn on" Metaverse in a specific time, which means that there is no "before Metaverse" or "after Metaverse". Instead, it will appear gradually, accompanied by changes in user culture and the ability to upgrade technology in the future.

We can completely believe that Metaverse will be the technology changer of the future, just like how the Internet changed the world 60 years ago.

Sep 09, 2022