Open Metaverse Commerce: Interoperability and The Need To Avoid Value Capture

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BosonProtocol

3 min readSep 28, 2021

The challenge of making disparate metaverses interoperable, so that your avatar and assets can persist across platforms operated by different DAOs or enterprises has been well documented.

In The Value Chain of the Open Metaverse, Packy McCormick likens this fragmentation to “walking around a city and changing outfits and ID every time you enter a new building.”

This is where we are now, but developments in Fortnite remind us that it will not always be this way. While Fortnite is not a decentralized system, they have achieved something no digital platform has managed before: an environment where branded characters can interact entirely outside the managed context of the brand’s own platform.

As Piers Kicks says, the game “might be the only place in which Star-Lord can meet Batman who can meet a Stormtrooper who can meet John Wick, and the brands have no say in the nature of their interactions.”

There are obviously limits to this. As Toby Tremayne previously pointed out, one “can’t bring a tank into Animal Crossing.”

There are technological limitations to such interoperability, but it is in the interest of all participants to work towards some kind of persistent connection between their virtual worlds so that our digital self does not have to change identity, change clothes and change possessions every time they segue from one to the other.

Ultimately, an open commerce economy provides added value for everyone, in terms of enhanced financial incentives as well as creative freedom. The alternative should concern anyone who has ever watched Ready Player One.

We talked about this previously, and it’s worth repeating. As FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon) eye the emerging metaverse, so grows the danger of the creation of a Ready Player One style digital prison, where humans are farmed for the value they create. More and more people are joining the movement for an open metaverse economy.

The open commerce ecosystem welcomes big brands and smaller creators alike

The idea of open commerce built on decentralized platforms is of huge benefit to independent creators — but it is also a winning formula for world-leading brands.

If a brand decides to issue digital assets on a private platform, they will ultimately find that while fans are prepared to pay large sums in the short run, the longevity and persistence of these assets may be an issue in the long term.

No one can guarantee what would remain of a database belonging to a specific game or entertainment platform in 20 years. On the other hand, the intended permanence and shared state of a public blockchain means that, like a vintage Gucci handbag, a vintage Gucci NFT stands to increase value over the decades.

Realization by consumers that centralized assets are transient is likely to drive the industry on to blockchain-based platforms, especially once the resolution and user experience improve.

Packy McCormick backs this up arguing that corporates “will bring their customers into web3 in more consumer-friendly and familiar ways, such as letting them buy NFTs with a credit card or using social tokens to reward loyalty and encourage certain behaviors like attending live events.”

About Boson

At Boson Protocol, we are creating a decentralized commerce ecosystem that everyone can use and anyone can trust.

Boson Protocol is a decentralized infrastructure for enabling autonomous commercial exchanges of anyThing, specifically off-chain items. Boson is a peer-to-peer system which replicates the benefits of a market intermediary, without the disadvantages of centralized systems.

Keen to learn more?

Enjoy the dCommerce Stack outlining the services we’ll need to build a dCommerce ecosystem.

Want to get involved?

Learn more about Portal here
Apply for a Boson Ecosystem Grant today
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