Is it a new friend? Remember to click the blue word "zinc scale" first to pay attention to me Oh ~
A daily in-depth survey of science and technology finance
Step into the story behind the business
Work together to make the metaverse truly bring a better life in the future
Written by Yang Yuliang
Edit/Hyun-Kei
*Deng Lili: Director of animation and game center of Peking University Cultural Industry Research Institute, researcher of Digital Economy Research Center of Advanced Research Institute of Information Technology of Peking University, director of Cultural Digital Asset Research Office
Twenty-nine years ago, science fiction writer Neal Stephenson wrote in his novel Snow Crash, "Right now, Ah Hong is heading down 'The Street.' That's Broadway in the Metaverse, the Champs Elysées in the Metaverse... The only difference between this street and the real world is that it doesn't really exist. It's just a computer drawing protocol... The street, along with these things, none of them are truly given a material form. ”
This is probably the first time humans have talked about the "metacosm."
The metacosm rises
In 2009, James Cameron's Avatar had already initially touched the concept of the metaverse when it told the story of the participation of man-machine in the alien demolition; in 2018, Spielberg brought Ernst Klein's "Ready Player One" to the big screen. The opening work of this metaverse blurs the boundary between reality and virtual in the game; in 2020, Amazon's self-made drama "Upload New Life" interprets the core of Descartes's "I think, therefore I am" with a metaversmic shell, presenting the application scenario of future technology; in 2021, Shaun Levy's "Out of Control Player" once again focuses on how NPCs break through the preset virtual revolution...
"In reality, the exploration of the metaverse may also start with the game." Deng Lili, director of the Animation and Game Center of the Cultural Industry Research Institute of Peking University, researcher of the Digital Economy Research Center of the Advanced Research Institute of Information Technology of Peking University, and director of the Cultural Digital Asset Research Office, gave the example of Roblox.
Back in 2004, David Baszucki and Erik Cassel founded Roblox to "create your own world for free." They simply provide the tools and platforms for online gaming and game creation, leaving it all to brain-opening players. The latter can chat with friends, interact with, and create imaginatively through games. In Roblox, everyone has a digital identity, and the platform Robux currency can even be exchanged for real money. Roblox is equipped with VR and other equipment, 3D immersive experience is particularly special, not only to enhance user stickiness, but also to consolidate the meta-universe moat.
On November 8, 2021, Roblox released its financial results for the third quarter of 2021. Roblox's revenue for the quarter increased 102% from the third quarter of 2020 to $509.3 million. The average daily active user (DAU) was 47.3 million, up 31% year-over-year. This is enough to confirm the strength of the $30 billion market capitalization company. As a collaborator of Roblox, Tencent will release and operate a localized version of the Roblox platform in China under the "Luobulesi" brand, which is believed to be experienced by domestic players soon.
Concept Rashomon
In addition to Roblox, Tencent has started from games, and companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Epic Games, Ali, Baidu and other companies are also laying out metaversms. Zuckerberg vowed to upgrade Facebook from social media to metaverse overlord Meta in the next 5 years. "Over the next decade, the company's metaversal users will reach 1 billion, becoming a digital business that carries hundreds of billions of dollars and provides jobs for millions of creators and developers."
On December 9, Meta announced that the company's VR world "Horizon Worlds" is officially open to people over the age of 18 in the United States and Canada. The product is a social platform created by Meta to help people create and interact in the metaverse. Using Oculus' VR headset, players can create a legless avatar and interact with other avatars in the virtual world. Its sub-product, Horizon Home, will create a metaversary personal space; "Horizon Workrooms" will support mobile work and collaboration. In addition, Meta has sold more than 10 million VR headsets.
Even so, after the "Horizon Worlds" open news, Meta's stock price did not rise, but fell $0.74, or 0.22%, with a market value of $917.48 billion. This seems to mean that the conceptual myth of the metacosm is still plaguing the industry and the public.
The Verge magazine reported that Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook had changed its name to Metaverse
But Microsoft still stands up for metaversalities. Last month, Microsoft announced a partnership with Meta to make the latter's Workplace compatible with its own Teams, and Microsoft will also add metaversic elements such as 3D avatars to Teams. In 2022, Microsoft will launch its own VR headset and gloves to facilitate "your webcam to animate the avatars currently used in 2D settings."
Bill Gates recently said, "In the next two or three years, I predict that most virtual meetings will move from two-dimensional images to metacosmities, a 3D space with avatars." You will eventually use your avatar to meet people in a virtual space that can replicate the feeling of being in a real room with them. He believes that the epidemic supports remote work, and this change will intensify in the coming years. This will pull more people into the metacosm, and humanity will usher in a more digital future.
How far it is
How far is the future of the metaverse as Bill Gates?
Although there is no uniform definition of the metaverse, Roblox proposes eight elements that are worth pondering: independent identity, social friends, high immersion, low latency, diversity, anytime, anywhere, economic system, and civilization. Correspondingly, high-tech means such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cloud computing, digital twins, and blockchain are building a digital virtual world.
Regarding this digital virtual world, Teresa Teng believes that "the metacosm is an upgraded version of the mobile Internet, and its ultimate form is unpredictable, but its scientific path is measurable." She adds, "More than 20 years ago, we couldn't imagine that the mobile internet would be so disruptive as today's life. Similarly, today, we cannot imagine how life will change in the metaverse era. ”
"The metacosm is not something that has suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the near future. On the contrary, it has been brewing for a long time, but the concept has just been put on the stage of the times. She believes that the current metaverse is still in the early stages of being connected to the Internet. However, it is undeniable that the metacosm is an inevitable trend in the development of social digital economy.
Stills from the 2018 movie Ready Player One
Features & Investments
Deng Lili believes that the ideal metaverse is a virtual space that can refract the real world and exist independently, and is an interoperable, shared and open network environment that can accommodate tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of virtual users online at the same time. As virtual users, humans can carry out cultural, social, entertainment, creative and other activities in the metaverse, and even work. Metaverse will provide rich consumer content, a fair creative platform, a reliable economic system and an immersive interactive experience.
"Functionally, the metaverse should have such capabilities." She added, "At present, the average Chinese netizen spends about 5 hours and 52 minutes a day online. In the future, in the process of the gradual maturity of the metaverse, everyone will spend more time in this virtual space. ”
Teresa Teng said that this time, the world is in the same running line, facing the future and answering questions together. Perhaps the time consumers spend in the metaverse can be used as one of the "reading papers" to measure the landing of the metaverse. She suggested that we can grasp the investment opportunities of the meta-universe from the two main lines of supporting technology and application scenarios.
At present, there are six technologies that support the metacosm (BIGANT), including: blockchain technology (Blockchain), interactivity technology (Interactivity), video game technology (Game), artificial intelligence technology (Artificial Intelligence), network and computing technology (Network) and Internet of Things technology (Internet of Things).
Teresa Teng said that the technological path of the metacosm is measurable. Technology offers more possibilities while supporting the development of the industry.
First, network technology. 5G provides a high-quality experience for data transmission, event broadcasting, mobile e-sports, cloud gaming, etc.; 6G will provide solutions for reducing latency and increasing reliability. However, from the perspective of the metaverse's demand for network technology, the current technical reserve is still in the early stage of development.
Second, hardware. Consumer hardware such as mobile phones, VR/AR, gimbal treadmills, and haptic gloves, as well as non-consumer hardware such as industrial cameras, projection and tracking systems, scanning sensors, GPU chips, and servers, still have huge room for improvement.
BIGANT technology panorama
Third, hash rate. Computing power will power metaversary behavior, including physical computing, rendering, data coordination and synchronization, artificial intelligence, projection, motion capture, and translation. The metaverse may have the largest demand for continuous computing in human history. The hash rate will also determine the upper limit of the size of the metaverse.
Game forerunner
In terms of the application scenarios of the metaverse, Teresa Teng proposed that the technical and economic model of the game may be the closest to the metaverse form, because it is relatively perfect in terms of investment, operation, user, ecology and other aspects, and the ability to drive consumption is very strong, and has formed a good format.
"The game is the forerunner of the metaverse application scenario, the game reflects the prototype of the metaverse, is the human conception of the virtual world, the early stage of the development of the current metaverse."
As the "first stock in the metaverse", Roblox has explored a UGC model dominated by user creation and with an economic system as the core, which has been recognized by the market. 2021Q2 Roblox revenue reached $454 million, up 127% year-over-year. She said that for the metaverse, game development and operation companies are no strangers. Domestic manufacturers have the opportunity to maintain long-term competitiveness in the meta-universe game social competition track.
"Although Facebook changed its name to Meta and claimed to be the boss of the meta-universe in 5 years, domestic manufacturers may not be willing to live behind." Teng Lili took Tencent as an example, "In the early days, such as skin, QQ show, etc., now integrated with innovative technologies, it is possible to achieve overtaking in the meta-universe track." "After joining hands with Roblox, Tencent's layout in the metaverse is clearer.
In January 2017, the Chinese version of the website "League of Legends Universe" based on the background story, related legends and artistic creations of "League of Legends" was officially launched, and the "League of Legends Universe" has a huge world structure of 155 hero characters, 13 power regions and 3 parallel universes, in which each character and power region are interconnected and intertwined, providing a rich and colorful background story that can be developed for film and television. In the future, we can cooperate with Marvel in animation, cooperate with online writer Skeleton Genie, develop theme music, and B station topics, and gradually open up to form an ecology.
"Metaverse will provide an open creative space where users can not only experience enjoyment, but also fully release creativity and become true pioneers." Teresa Teng said.
Future Cold Thinking
Media reports on the "metacosm" have aroused great concern, but Deng Lili believes that we should remain calm, "In the metacosm of the underlying technical logic, economic model application, ethical civilization construction, interconnection ecology and other aspects, we still have a long way to go." ”
She mentioned that both technology and scenarios need to be upgraded. "As an upgraded version of the mobile Internet, the metaverse has rules to follow and predict in terms of technological evolution. However, in terms of application scenarios, it is difficult to create and it is difficult to exhaust. Therefore, the technology and the scenario are still on the way. ”
Under the outlet of the meta-universe, games, VR/AR, NFTs and other related fields are also rising. But at the same time, many people question that this concept of "new bottles of old wine" hype may become the next bubble. Liu Cixin once said of the metaverse, "The future of mankind is either to go to interstellar civilization or to indulge in the virtual world of VR for many years. It would be a disaster if humanity achieved a highly realistic VR world before moving towards a space civilization. ”
Stills from the 2020 HBO Max self-made drama Alien Cataclysm
Obviously, the development of the metacosm is pluralistic and comprehensive. Deng Lili believes that on the basis of grasping the two main veins of technology and scenarios, we should also focus on policy support, capital guidance, talent training, enterprise collaboration, industrial ecology, and international cooperation.
"The metacosm is not simply a technical grafting, redoing something. It is possible to create a new world of virtual and real. Deng Lili said, "Obviously, the integration of virtual and real is an inevitable trend in social development, or it will become people's way of life." ”
For the future of the metacosm, Teresa Teng is optimistic and pragmatic, "As the metacosm is getting closer and closer to us, we will definitely face the problems related to civilization and ethics." Of course, this is inseparable from the correct guidance of regulators. ”
Before the end of the interview, Teresa Teng said that this "brave new world" is not only a "civilized" metaverse, but also a "healthy" metacosm, a "sustainable" metacosm. Today's human beings need to be calm, rational, and work together to make the metaverse truly bring a better life in the future.
END
Reader interaction
If you want to get first-hand information / hardcore report / author exchange, welcome readers to add WeChat znkedu01, reply to "readers" with one click to add groups!
Dot the little flowers and let them know that you are "watching" me