The metacosm of digital trends: one flower, one world, one leaf and one bodhi

I. Introduction

In 2021, the meta-universe stride meteor can be described as the opening of the first year. In 2022, it continues to attract attention from all walks of life. How to understand the metacosm? What are the important factors driving its development? What are the key technologies involved? How is value reflected in the business world? What are the policies and regulations that need attention?

The EY Metaversity Research Group recently launched the #Metaverse series of articles with you to "Explore the Metacosm" and explore the various opportunities and challenges of the "Metacosm and the Business World". Stay tuned.

In January 2022, a technology leader in the cloud computing field announced that it would buy a game developer for $68.7 billion, one of the reasons for the acquisition was that the transaction would provide the foundation for the "meta-universe". A social giant has renamed its social networking company and gone all out to enter the meta-universe. Tech giants are working on developing their own related meta-universe technologies and devices. The listing of Roblox in March 2021 has made the concept of metaverse detonate the market, and the market value of nearly $40 billion has opened up the imagination space of metacosmecture.

2. Former Universe (Metaverse) Background

cal. In his book Objective Knowledge, published in 1972, Karl Popper systematically proposed the division theory of "three worlds", taking the physical world, the psychological world, and the artificial world as the subjects of juxtaposition, and the three worlds are unified and coherent. Among them, the artificial world is the result of artificially created knowledge and thought, which is the product of subjectivity, but it is objectively existing and will have its own life. The connotation and extension of the concept of the metaverse belong to the category of the artificial world. The metaverse and the physical world not only have a relationship of virtual-real symbiosis and IoT data integration, but also need to be used as a bridge through the human psychological world to interact with each other.

The term metaverse describes a fully realized digital world, a term that dates back to Neil Stephenson and his dystopian cyberpunk novel Avalanche. Published in 1992, the novel describes a virtual reality data space called "The matrix." The metaverse in Avalanche is a 3D virtual reality space accessed through personal terminals and virtual reality goggles that have a lot in common with the Oculus Quest and other VR devices.

In the user's view, this 3D space is an urban environment created along a 100-meter-wide street. As with anywhere else in reality, this street will also be affected by its development. Developers can build their own side streets on the basis of the main street. They can build buildings, parks, signs, and things that don't exist in reality, such as special neighborhoods that ignore the rules of three-dimensional space-time, or free combat zones where gamers can fight each other.

The metaverse fuses two ideas that have existed for years: virtual reality and digital second life. For decades, technologists have dreamed of advancing and realizing the virtual life of human beings and wanting it to play a role as important as physical reality, where people interact with friends and colleagues in virtual spaces, consume in the digital virtual world, buy clothing and goods for our digital identities, get an education, get jobs, start businesses, and open up new lives. In what Zuckerberg calls a metaverse, virtual reality acts as a computing platform where people can live a second life online. In virtual reality, you wear headphones and immerse yourself in a three-dimensional environment. You can carry a motion sensing controller to interact with virtual objects and use a microphone to communicate with others.

From the current development of the metaverse, to some extent, there is already a metaverse in digital games, but it is not mature enough, for example, the social elements of the metacosm are reflected in video games, and in "Second Life" released in 2003, users can customize realistic avatars, meet other players, create virtual items, own virtual property, and exchange goods and services. Virtual experiences like Second Life can be described as metaverse archetypes. The main gap is that these digital spaces exist in isolation, each of which is a digital island whose inhabitants and virtual assets will never leave it.

The metaverse that needs to be created in the future is not just a more immersive virtual experience, but the next version of the internet. Tech giants and many other companies are racing to define this next generation of the internet. The metacosm represents the fourth wave of computers after mainframe computing, personal computing, and mobile computing. If it is to be a materialized internet, it must have certain characteristics that distinguish it from isolated virtual reality experiences such as Second Life.

Based on an understanding of the relevant features of the metaverse, the metaverse digital world can be summarized as a large-scale, interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds that can have a continuous experience of personal identity, business data continuity, and unlimited user synchronization. The metacosm is a new fusion of the physical and digital worlds, embodying the next stage of physical and digital interaction. This new system of places will change users' cultural and behavioral expectations, and business success in the metacosm will depend on how they understand their users and how they exist in this new world.

Third, the current development of the metacosm

The game industry is leading the early iterations and developments of the metaverse. A metaversic ecology is taking shape in the game industry: metaverse creators will create assets; performers will create real-time content; connecters connect the physical world with the digital world; participants learn, explore, and improve from it; builders contribute design and organizational experience; and communities participate through the digital operations of the metaverse. Roblox Studio combines gaming, authoring and social networking tools to create their own content. Axie Infinity is one of the leaders, allowing people to participate in the development of games. Through this model the number of users of the platform grew by 85% in 2021. In the new metaverse ecology, the creative combination of learning, life and work is organically combined into interesting activities, forming the working mode of the participants in the metacosmic ecology.

In addition to the game field, the metaverse is also developing rapidly in other areas. Examples include minting valuable digital items such as videos, music, event tickets, and generative art with NFT non-fungible tokens. NFT certifies a person's ownership of that digital item, which means that the title certificate cannot be copied. The fact that NFTs have virtually become an asset with potential added potential and integrate human needs into digital products is an unprecedented feat that creates scarcity.

Collectors made a splash by auctioning art through NFTs. In August 2021, Benyamin Ahmed, 12, from London, sold the NFT for a series of pixelated artworks he created depicting whales, making £290,000. Argentine designer Andrés Reisinger recently sold a piece of digital furniture for virtual 3D space through an online auction for 10 NFTs each, the most expensive price of $70,000.

Earlier this year, a purely digital version of a Gucci handbag sold for more than its real version. Another example is a non-gaming-active multiplayer experience in the metaverse, where a platform lets people watch movies or shows together when they are apart, or brings people together around the experience by creating a group activity application programming interface (API).

From the perspective of technological development, since the meta-universe concept stock Roblox was listed in the United States on March 11, 2021, meta-universe quickly entered the vision of major technology giants, and continued to increase the meta-universe track, around VR/AR hardware facilities, 3D game engines, content production platforms and other multi-field related to meta-universe to expand the capability map.

Fourth, the trend of the development of the metacosm

On November 17, 2021, People's Daily commented that "Everything Can Be 'Meta-Universe'?" 》。 The article mentions that the meta-universe is a mirror flower moon or a touch of the future, whether it is capital speculation or a new track, whether it is a new bottle of old wine or a new breakthrough in science and technology, before concluding, you may wish to "let the bullet fly for a while". It takes time to promote the gradual maturity of new concepts and their industries, and the road to a fascinating scientific and technological future requires down-to-earth and a good foundation for development. Whether it's virtual reality, augmented reality, or mixed reality, the central word is "reality."

Judging from the early historical experience of the Internet, the collaborative vision of the initial development of many Internet technology fields, driven by interests, is quickly frustrated, and the vision of a single large meta-universe supported by different companies may face the same dilemma. At present, there is no standard for the metacosm, and many companies are actively promoting the development of public standards for the future metacosm. At present, the global technology giants, game companies and even some smaller companies are developing projects, hoping to seize the first-mover advantage in order to lay the foundation for the development of meta-universe standards, which will face many technical, industry synergy and governance challenges.

For example, for example, Marc Petit, vice president and general manager of Unreal Engine at EPIC Games, recently said in an interview that the metaverse will need "shared virtual worlds with persistence." This means that for an ideal customer experience, users should be able to move their digital items from one universe to another. Future NFT shoes purchased by users from other platforms will be available on platforms across different metaversms, as well as in other virtual worlds such as Fortnite and Minecraft.

A social giant plans to invest billions of dollars in meta-universe projects, where interoperability between platforms is the goal of achieving a key R&D area. A multi-platform single metacosm can enable users to have an avatar on one platform and automatically be able to use that avatar on another platform in real time.

For example, the sharing of devices, virtual reality headsets need to be shared on multiple platforms, to achieve a wide multiplayer world or cloud-based graphics compatibility of different company platforms. This requires, first, a common technical standard and service standard as a foundation, and secondly, a commitment to using metaversities in collaboration with multi-company platforms in industry governance to allow other companies to enter.

One of the possible ways in which the metaversm can unfold in tandem is from a series of competing platforms, each claiming to be a metacosm. This is similar to the competitive and operating environment in the early communications industry, with many operators and technology providers, and the operation is also decentralized.

With the gradual advancement and development of the metaverse, various technologies and service standards will emerge, and eventually large players will use compatible technologies and evolve into models that can be interoperable in different platforms. The question is how long will it take for the world to move from various primitive metaversms to a single large metaverse?

Zuckerberg believes that this will be achieved by the end of the century, but it may also be much earlier than that, because the basic technical elements are already in place. The cloud infrastructure, the most critical for the future development of the Internet, allows large numbers of people to gather in a virtual environment for real-time interaction and life, such as more than 12.3 million players watching a virtual reality concert starring Travis Scott at Fortnite.

As metaverse immersive experiences unfold on a larger scale and in scope, technologies that support metaverses may need to evolve further to support the vision of metaversal industry experts, but in terms of current capabilities, they can already meet the current technological needs of the metaverse.

IV. Concluding Remarks

The metaverse has emerged, showing the prospect that it can transcend its gaming roots. It is advancing and evolving the digital artificial world and creating a digital culture in the metaverse, providing a new place for people and businesses to interact, create, consume and do business. We have noted the recent shocks in the U.S. stock technology sector, which to some extent reflects the market's more cautious thinking about meta-universe technology and ecology. Although the development of the metacosm is facing challenges such as infrastructure to be further built, common interoperability standards to be established, costs to be reduced, and security to be enhanced, it is also a disruptive technological opportunity, and its rapid development trend makes us feel that the metacosm is on the verge of the next frontier, and shows its own possibilities of creating new value and almost unlimited.