Metaverse Vs Virtual Reality

By Tanay Dwivedi

As we are already in 2022, recently there’s been a rise in the term “Metaverse”. Among some of the reasons for the rise of this term, one reason is the latest change of the name of “Facebook” to “Meta”.

So what is this Metaverse? To tell you the truth, the term is not at all new, it’s been among the talks between us for more than 30 years i.e since the mid-1980 when Jaron Lanier, founder of VPL Research developed the gear which included goggles and gloves that were needed to experience the world of “virtual reality”.

Now coming to the definition of a Metaverse, A Metaverse is a network of 3-Dimensional virtual environments/worlds that are focused on social connection, fun, or learning, hence the Metaverse can be defined as a virtually simulated digitalized environment that uses the Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Blockchain, along with the idea form social networks, to create an arena for rich user interactivity, imitating the real world.

Recently, there’s also been a misconception between the terms “Metaverse” and “Virtual Reality”.

What is Virtual Reality? So, Virtual Reality, generally abbreviated as ”VR”, is a term that is used to refer to the technology that allows the user interactions with the Virtual/Digital worlds. With the help of Virtual Reality, various software developers and hardware creators build experiences for the interactors in the digital world which envelopes us in a virtual world.

Since there is so much similarity between Metaverse and Virtual Reality, I have come up with a few differences between them which will teach you the dissimilarity between them.

1. On the basis of the Definition — The Metaverse is an extended, collaborative and persistent virtual world, that provides us the access to the 3-Dimensional virtual span, solutions, and domain created by users, whereas the Virtual Reality(VR) is the technology for building a 3-Dimensional virtual/digital world/environment for a particular targetting functionality or scope.
2. On the basis of Ownership — Metaverse allows the users to own a certain amount of virtual assets or world or experiences in their Virtual world. Everything the user creates in his own metaverse is owned by the user of that virtual world. On the other hand, when we are using a VR system, we are basically experiencing the digitalized world, which comes under the ownership of the brand or the company to which the VR system belongs. The assets and contents all belong to the brand.
3. On the basis of Limitations — There are certain limitations in the VR system that the users can only create virtual objects or worlds that are well within the limit of the VR system’s capacity whereas in the case of Metaverse there are no such limitations. The Metaverse doesn’t only draw its strength from the idealogy of virtual reality but it also drives its functionalities from various technologies like Augmented Reality(AR), Blockchain, Cryptography, and Connectivity. The Metaverse is a massive space for innovations and ideas that allows the integration of new and latest technologies to regularly enhance its capabilities.
4. On the basis of Experience — In the case of VR systems, one can physically see and feel the gadgets that let us experience the virtual environment and on the top of that, the experiences in the virtual reality are limited only to a specific number of users, like the ones playing it. Whereas in the case of Metaverse it provides us with a virtual universe much similar to the real world by combining the technologies of Augmented Reality(AR) and Virtual Reality(VR). As a result, we will be able to experience the virtual worlds just like we are in the real world, but only as a digital/virtual Avatar.

Now, according to the above-stated differences, we can easily specify that Metaverse is much more than what we think of it as a Virtual Reality System. VR is one of the foundation technologies used for developing the Metaverse. It allows the users to freely access, modify, or deprecate their personal Metaverse. Hence, Metaverse is a massive and gradually developing virtualized universe with endless possibilities, which will once be a virtual representation of the internet.