Welcome to the interoperable metaverse
The term ‘metaverse’ has become synonymous with the idea of one virtual ‘space’. But that’s not the real picture.
The reality is a little different. But it’s also more exciting. Many will succeed in bringing their visions online and welcoming people into their worlds. Some, like Axie Infinity, Alien Worlds and Decentraland, have, in a limited fashion, already succeeded. These companies have built very different fledging ‘worlds’ that begin to show what their ideas might look like. Many others are getting closer to realising their visions and bringing themselves online for the first time in 2022 and 2023.
Whilst not all of these ventures will survive the transition from idea to (meta)reality, it is this multitude of metaverses that presents the most exciting view of the future. Not just because of the depth and breadth of these individual, isolated metaverses, but because of the opportunities for linking them together.
The future is this: A user will be able to set up a base/home in one company/studios ‘world’, rent space in another, play games in yet another — and, crucially, if they choose to, to bring their avatar and its transportable belongings with them.
Imagine a world where a user may travel between metaverses. A journey that can take them across 2D, 2.5D and 3D, and retain their own unique character/avatar and the items they bought and/or created across all three. This journey of imagination is one that physics currently says one can never take in ‘real life’ — or from our own home universe (we can, of course, get a little more philosophical about this, perhaps viewing these different metaverses as no less ‘real’ than our own. After all, as far back as the 1600’s, the philosopher Descartes wrote, “Dreams are like reality, how we know we are not dreaming?”).
Interoperability is a fundamental factor in the success of this vision. It goes a lot further than simply allowing NFTs to be available in multiple metaverses. It goes so far as to give us the ability to use a single wallet to store currency and perform transactions across metaverses. So in that way, it also speaks to enabling the metaverse to be more accessible, more populist, and more likely to be available to a wider section of the population. Just this week, Forbes.com reported;
“… data from a recent Prosper Insights & Analytics Survey. Nearly 44 percent of adults surveyed said that they know what the Metaverse is. Furthermore, 15 percent of respondents expressed their desire to experience it.”
Clearly, the wider the proportion of the world that can experience the metaverse, the better, and getting those people to continue to use it — making it as easy to experience as possible, is essential. This is the hard part, as there are many technical challenges to overcome. Futurist.com noted in an April 2022 article that;
“Interoperability is of a particular importance, because without it, we will not be able to interact with or transfer assets, including our avatar, between different virtual spaces … We expect to have the same mobility and transferability in the virtual world as we have in our physical experience.”
This interoperability is, admittedly, years away. But it has to happen to take the idea and reality of the metaverse to the next level. Companies are already building these ‘bridges’. Right now, any such companies building these methods of connections are possibly too early, but they certainly appear to have a first-mover advantage.
What is certain is, as much as many are talking about utility now, interoperability will become as important — if not more so. The only question is, how soon does it come, and to what lengths does it go to.
About Victoria VR — https://www.victoriavr.com
Victoria VR is a revolutionary Blockchain-based Virtual Reality Metaverse. Powered by Unreal Engine and featuring realistic, highly detailed graphics, it combines a massively-multiplayer-online role-playing game (MMORPG) with a unique Social Experience Playground.
Like never before, players will be immersed in a virtual reality world where they get to live their digital life. Whether you want to Play games, Develop your digital real estate (VR Land), Own a business, Work up or Get some entertainment, your imagination is the only limitation.
