summary
1. The metaverse is an infinite game that can evolve on its own, but this "game" is not another "game".
2, unlimited games for the purpose of continuation, education, entrepreneurship, life are unlimited games.
3. The process of moving towards the metaverse is actually a digital migration of human beings.
4. Unlike traditional games, the sense of accomplishment in the metaverse can be extended to the real world.
5, when artificial intelligence can generate content autonomously, it means that the real metaverse is coming.
When Shen Teng said "I invert the dog in the metaverse" on the spring evening, my family asked me: "What is the metacosm?" ”
The good guy had already written several metaversms, and thought it was a matter of hand pinching. But when I was ready to start performing, I suddenly stopped talking.
It seems difficult to say clearly in a few words.
Until recently I finished reading a book, Metaverse: The Road to Infinite Games by Chang Hao.
He has worked on two books, one on Bitcoin and the other on blockchain. Compared to these two concepts, the metacosm is more complex and difficult to understand.
Xiao Feng, chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain Company, once talked about the metaverse with the title of "Metaverse: An Infinite Game", and Chang Hao's book was inspired by this.
The concept of "infinite games" originated from a 1987 book published by James Cass, a professor of religious history at New York University, called Finite and Infinite Games.
In James Cass's view, the entire human civilization, including business, politics, law, economics, war, etc., is actually a game. And it is divided into two kinds of games, one is a finite game and the other is an infinite game.
Limited games aim to win, and unlimited games aim at continuation. Limited games play within boundaries, and infinite games play borders.
Finite games have a definite start and end, with a specific winner, and an infinite game has neither a definite start and end nor a winner.
Chang Hao believes that the most typical limited game is the Olympic Games, and the most typical infinite game is life.
He said: "If we still define the metaverse as a finite game, it is actually a traditional type of game, but some of the business models in the past reality are moved to the virtual world to be re-made." ”
This "Game" is not another "Game"
Reading this, you may still be a little confused, is it not true that the meta-universe is actually just a game?
Just as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella boils down this concept to what most people have always thought, thinking that the metaverse is just a game.
Of course not, this "game" is not another "game".
Chang Hao said: "From the product point of view, games are indeed the most suitable area for the meta-universe to land at present. But the concept of games has changed, because the metaverse era means that we have to enter a world where virtual reality is reflected. There, reality and play are inseparable. ”
Life is also a game, which is more or less what it means.
In her book Game Changes the World, Jane McGonigger mentions that in the future games will extend to every corner of our lives and become part of real life. People's enthusiasm for games can translate into a world-changing dynamic.
Luo Zhenyu also said that the word "game" is undergoing a historic transformation, and the game will not only be a game, it may be the whole of our future life.
In his view, the real world will gamify, not us becoming people in the game. Between life and play, we do not give up life into the game, but life itself becomes a very fun game.
Taking education as an example, Obama said after taking office that the game must be turned into a way for the next generation of Americans to learn.
Later, some people did a lot of experiments, such as some schools in New York implemented a project called "quest to learn", which used games to organize teaching and learning activities, and achieved certain teaching results.
For cognitive enhancement, we generally have two options, either training or education. According to James Cass in The Game of Finite and Infinite, training teaches us how to eliminate and control the unexpected, and education teaches us to accept and embrace the unexpected.
True education is about making us aware of the truth of the world — that the unexpected is the norm, that the unexpected contains many possibilities and diversity, and that is the only outcome we can expect and can expect.
Training is to give us a fixed pattern, is to shrink our pattern. Education, on the other hand, is constantly expanding our landscape, constantly expanding vulgar, shallow, and suffocating stories into a series of accidents, exploring and breaking boundaries while raising awareness.
In other words, education is actually an infinite game.
Also, entrepreneurship is an infinite game. Wang Xing, the founder of meituan, agrees with this view, and Zhang Ruimin also admires James Cass' book, and even said more than once that what Haier wants to play is an infinite game.
In this way, you may be able to understand why it is said that "the metacosm is a basket, and anything can be put into it." Because in our lives, many things can be seen as infinite games. As long as you have this quality, you can connect with the metaverse.
True and false metaversms
Of course, it is precisely because of this characteristic of the metaverse, coupled with the entry of Internet giants such as Meta and Tencent, that many companies have begun to change the heat of the meta-universe. So whether it is a metaverse or not, how should we judge?
Taking the automobile industry as an example, since last year, many car companies have begun to get involved in the metacosm. For example, Hyundai Motor Group released an experiential game on the Roblox platform called Hyundai Mobility Adventure, hoping to showcase the future mobility lifestyle in the metaverse.
For another example, ZHIji Automobile, a subsidiary of SAIC Motor, has created a thing called "Rough Stone Valley" in the App, where users can expand rough, accumulate points, upgrade equipment, and evolve vehicles. In the real world, "rough" can be used to redeem various hardware or OTA services.
Zhiji Auto even said that the third stage of the Original Stone Valley will create a meta-cosmic space where real cars and virtual cars are stirred together. The real vehicle will have a digital twin, the data of the real car will help the virtual car to develop, and the ability of the virtual car can also be upgraded back to the real car.
In October 2021, the BMW Group launched the virtual world "JOYTOPIA", a platform jointly developed by the BMW Group and The Journal. There are three virtual worlds in "JOYTOPIA", including circular economy, e-mobility and sustainability, where users can participate in events such as concerts.
Can these examples be counted as the prototype of the metacosm?
Chang believes that these examples have some characteristics of the metaverse, such as immersion, virtual reality, borderless operations, and so on. In particular, the rough valley of Zhiji Automobile has even adopted an open economic system based on blockchain. But these are some of the earlier explorations, attempts at sensory experience from a metaphysical perspective.
In his view, there are many points where the automobile industry can be combined with the metacosm.
For example, simulating the environment of autonomous driving through digital twin technology helps companies obtain data, so that there is no need to run on real roads and obtain data by creating traffic accidents.
There are also car crash tests, which used to be collided with real cars. In the future, companies can simulate collisions in a virtual environment. He believes that with the development of technology, collision experiments carried out in virtual environments can fully meet our requirements for safety technical indicators.
Chang Hao indicates that the two basic characteristics of infinite games, one is self-evolution and the other is decentralization. The former needs to rely on AI artificial intelligence technology to help achieve, and the worldview, rules, and content in the metaverse must be able to evolve themselves. At present, even Roblox, the first force in the metaverse, cannot achieve self-evolution.
Regarding decentralization, for example, our current game accounts need to be registered, and different games need to register different accounts. At the same time, assets from one game cannot be brought to another. But in the metaverse, you can log in to any game with one identity, and all the assets in the game can be passed freely.
In addition, infinity is also important, which requires relying on blockchain technology to inject. Specifically, it can be reflected in many aspects, such as the game cannot be stopped, the rules of the game cannot be tampered with, and the data belongs to the user itself. Only when these conditions are met at the same time can it be regarded as a metacosm.
The Great Migration of Mankind?
The German sociologist Max Weber said that human beings are animals hanging from the web of meaning they weave.
If there is only the physical part, then we are really just animals. Only by pursuing the meaning that you have woven (imagined) and hanging your life on it will you become human. The former is an objective fact, the latter is a subjective fact.
In addition to these two facts, there is also a "mutual subject reality", which means that objectivity does not exist, but because there are many people who believe, it becomes a fact.
For example, a banknote itself is a piece of paper, but when everyone believes that it has value, it can really be exchanged.
Meaning is actually a web woven by human imagination, and in the real world, each of us lives in this net every minute and every second. Sometimes, this net is your cage, and sometimes, you need this net to empower you, such as career, love, family, and so on.
When you understand this quote from Max Weber, you will understand why we need the metacosm.
The fact that the Internet industry has entered a bottleneck period of growth is not the main reason. Importantly, the current Internet and game markets are no longer able to meet the spiritual needs of human beings in terms of weaving meaning.
Obviously, the metaverse can satisfy this. So, the second Great Migration in human history began. Such a digital migration from the real world to the virtual world is so wide that it can affect every aspect of our lives.
What can the metaverse bring us?
Luo Zhenyu said that the virtual world becomes the real world, in fact, it is not so difficult, as long as a few conditions are enough. First, there are enough people; second, ordinary people can find a sense of happiness in this world; third, a sense of accomplishment and pride; and fourth, socializing.
Coincidentally, these four conditions are all good at by the game world.
Garland, the producer of the sci-fi sandbox social game World of Lords, once proposed six characteristics of the metaverse: worldview, community, virtual reality, flow, civilization, and self-evolution.
Flow means that when we indulge in what we are doing, we forget about the time outside.
In the book, Chang points out that in the context of the metaverse, flow means that people are selflessly immersed in the experience of the digital world. However, unlike the sense of emptiness generated by returning to reality from games, when people return to reality from the metaverse, they will continue the sense of fulfillment and achievement they get in the virtual world.
The sense of emptiness is easy to understand, maybe you are a god in the game, but when you close the game, that sense of achievement cannot be sustained. And after returning to reality, there may also be some sense of gap.
In the metaverse, the virtual world and the real world are connected, and the achievements in the virtual world can be carried over to the real world. Compared with these traditional games today, this is the most direct and obvious difference that the metaverse can bring us.
For example, in the movie "Ready Player One", the protagonist finds the Easter egg set up by the founder of Oasis before his death that can inherit his billionaire wealth, thus changing the fate in real life.
Of course, some will question that the protagonist was able to succeed in both the virtual and real worlds because the founder of Oasis, James Halliday, set an easter egg. Assuming that without this Easter egg, Wade would not have become the number one player, and he would still be at the bottom of society in the real world.
Chang Hao believes that this question can be answered from another angle, first of all, to understand the difference between immersion and addiction. Now the games we play are easy to indulge, but the infinite game of the metaverse emphasizes non-addiction, "because if something is addictive and addictive, it is actually unsustainable." ”
In this article, he likens finite games to the dopamine type, and infinite games to endorphins.
"These are two chemicals that can act on our brains, but they feel completely different. The dopamine type is a kind of timely gratification, it has a predetermined goal, when you reach this goal, you will get satisfaction immediately, but it will disappear very quickly and is not sustainable. ”
"The endorphin type, on the other hand, is more of a learning process, a delayed gratification. Through a long period of study, you have reached a certain level and will feel particularly satisfied, and this satisfaction can be sustained, continuous and infinite. Therefore, the sense of accomplishment in the virtual world can be extended to the real world. Chang Hao said.
He also said: "The sense of emptiness actually comes from the separation of the virtual world from the real world, while the infinite game emphasizes the reflection of the virtual reality. There is no such thing as a real and a virtual identity in the metaverse, and it's possible that your work is done in the virtual world. ”
When the virtual world and the real world are no longer decoupled, there will be no so-called sense of emptiness. Because you can still create value in the virtual world, which is completely different from the past games that are only for entertainment.
How far is the metaverse?
Chang Mentions in the book that the metaverse evolutionary process is divided into three stages: digital twin, digital native, and digital immortality.
The first stage, the digital twin.
This would have been a technical term for engineering, but in the metaverse, the connotation is broader. It might have been just simulating the real world on a computer, such as a car crash.
At this stage, the metaverse will move many assets in reality, including business models and life scenarios, into the virtual world. However, this virtual world will not surpass the real world we live in now, but only imitate the real world, so it is only the first stage.
The second stage, digital native.
It is to create a business scenario or asset type that does not exist in reality, such as NFTs are the most direct and simplest examples, and the earliest metaverse assets. It is a new species that does not exist in reality.
"NFT is not a work of art, a collection that can be touched, so some people call it a digital collection," Chang said. But it does not represent copyright in itself, but only a virtual asset. ”
In addition, in the world of blockchain, there are also many digitally native business models.
"DeFi, also known as decentralized finance, is completely different from real finance. There are many new terms, such as stablecoins, reserve pool lending, AMM (automated market maker), etc., the product form is not in reality, this is digital native. He added.
The third stage, digital immortality.
Chang Hao bluntly said that this stage will be particularly long, and it is based on many assumptions.
"It's hard to predict what the ideal metaverse would look like, but there are already similar depictions in science fiction. For example, in "The Last Question", Asimov envisions an ultimate intelligence, which is no longer called artificial intelligence, but a combination of artificial intelligence and human consciousness. ”
In addition, Chang Hao pointed out that if you look at it from the perspective of content, the process of content generation has four stages.
In the first stage, professional people create content; in the second stage, ordinary users participate in the creation, that is, the UGC mode in the current Internet; in the third stage, AI-assisted creation, such as many network songs now, their arrangements are AI-generated or assisted generation; in the fourth stage, AI completely generates content autonomously.
He said that the fourth stage is the most essential stage for the metacosm. Only at this stage can we be counted as truly entering the metaverse era.
Chang Hao took himself as an example, he liked to watch Go, but he did not play Go before, because the time cost of learning Go was very high. Learning Go knowledge depends on the experience accumulated in the past games, as well as some corresponding tutorials, to read a lot of books, to learn Go terminology, to remember a lot of stereotypes in mind.
But with AlphaGo, he learned to play Go. Although he had not read a single book on Go, he did not understand the terminology and stereotypes, not even the numbers. But by playing against artificial intelligence, his Go level has improved a lot.
"Although AlphaGo's learning process in the early stage is based on a large number of chess scores, it can rely on self-play to learn in the later stages, and there is no need to continue to instill chess scores." The process of learning is a black box process, which can produce knowledge that is higher than our human cognition," he said, "Now, my teacher has become AI, I believe that in many fields in the future, it may not be the teacher who teaches you knowledge, but artificial intelligence." ”
That's why the metaverse is so closely related to our lives.
Write at the end:
Previously, we believed that the metaverse was the next generation of the Internet, the extremely immersive massively multiplayer online game, the platform that allowed people to connect more closely with people, virtual and reality, the decentralized utopia of sharing, co-governance and co-creation, and the ideal business scenario.
Of course, there are also some people who are prejudiced against the metacosm and do not recognize it as the future of humanity.
Chang Hao admits that in the eyes of the vast majority of people, the world we live in now is a real thing, and the metacosm is a vain thing, so it is dismissive.
He believes that the digital migration of human beings may be a universal law, not transferred by the individual will of a person. It can change our understanding of the real world, or sublimate our understanding of the real world.