The Metaverse — A New World For Digital Creatives
There is a parallel universe to reality that provides creatives of all types a new space. These are virtual worlds that are building a community within ecosystems that run over the Internet. You can think of it as the convergence of mixed reality (VR Virtual Reality and AR Augmented Reality), video games, online gaming, digital art and graphics imaging that is bringing a new space for developers and creatives. Software developers are building this world using blockchains and decentralized applications on the cloud over the Internet. All it needs are the creatives to provide content and users to participate in the Metaverse.
The term Metaverse which literally means “beyond the universe”, is a term used to define a new world that bridges more interaction and creates value as well. Users can earn money and purchase items as digital assets. It can also be used to describe a new version of the Internet that allows virtual worlds that interact with one another using avatars that are linked to a digital identity. There is also that aspect of gaming, where users can have a virtual copy of themselves that exists in this virtual world as a character that can be used when playing games, interacting in chat rooms and even participating in virtual events (e.g. concerts, conferences, meetings, etc.).
This new world is an ideal place for digital creatives of all types, whether you are a photographer, musician, content creator or artist. It helps build new communities with a shared common interest much like message board groups in the early days of the Internet. Blockchain-based decentralized applications provide value to users to exchange digital assets in the form of NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens). This allows creatives to tokenize their work and sell/bid it in an open marketplace that spans across the Metaverse.
Virtual Worlds
A primary component of the Metaverse are virtual worlds that run on top of blockchains. There are different type of blockchain projects that support them, and users can choose which one they want to participate in. A virtual world is another reality that exists only over the Internet, and there are no limits in building them as long as the human mind is creative. These worlds are software that run in a persistent state on a network of computers that are a digital representation of real world objects.
To enter the Metaverse, a user must have an app and a digital wallet. You enter this world either as an avatar (a digital representation of a person) or user account that can have a digital identity attached. This identity can be verified on a blockchain and used when signing up for services offered in a virtual world. This avatar or account is also what is used to collect earnings from participating in the Metaverse. You practically become a digital native in your own right.
Having a verified digital identity can be very beneficial to virtual worlds. Unlike social media where users can create troll accounts to cause problems on the network, in the Metaverse a verified digital identity can be traced to a user’s digital wallet. There can be consequences that can deduct funds from a user’s digital wallet to discourage bad behavior. While the policy depends on what is dictated by the virtual world, minimizing trolling and participation from bad actors provides a safer environment for all users.
To understand the concept, think about playing a game like Farmville. It is in itself a virtual world that represents something in real life. You participate in activities to gain points or collect rewards. In the Metaverse you can also do the same thing, but this time it has real value. They can be in the form of tokens like cryptocurrency that can be traded for money. Imagine performing a task in a virtual world and getting paid like a real job. The task could be to edit a series of images for a blog owned by another user. For completing the task, you can earn tokens in this world.
You can also become the owner of virtual property. In worlds like Decentraland and UplandMe, you can purchase property just like what you can do in the real world. What is great is that in this virtual world you can own a piece of Los Angeles, like the Hollywood Sign (provided it has not yet been purchased). You will then establish your claims to these digital assets on a blockchain to verify that you are the owner of that virtual property. These are issued as NFT and can be traded for other property or sold at a virtual auction or marketplace. These ecosystems also issue their own tokens that is used as a medium of exchange or trade.
There are so many possibilities of what you can do in a virtual world. It is mostly like playing a video game, but more interactive and social. Here is one scenario:
- You can have a luxury home perched in the Hollywood Hills
- Your house has an infinity pool, basketball court and driving range
- You have a custom Tesla Model S Doge Edition
- You showcase the highlight reel you own of your favorite NBA player in a virtual living room
- Inside your home you can hang digital art you purchased
- You can display all your collectibles in a special gallery
Just like living in the real world, virtual worlds will need some form of amusement and entertainment. This is where creatives come into the picture by providing content that holds real world value and property rights.
Gaming Rewards And Collectibles
Once you are a part of a virtual world, you can start accumulating digital assets in your wallet. One popular application for this is in video games. Rewards and bonuses are often collected, but redeeming them for monetary rewards are going to change. NFT can transform this by adding more value to having gaming rewards. If you earned a very rare reward from playing your favorite video game, in the Metaverse you can store that as an NFT.
For gamers, the more rewards they accumulate the better. This is because the rarity of the item gives its owner more value. A gamer may one day decide to auction off their NFT in exchange for money. They can also exchange that for tokens to spend in the Metaverse. Certain games provide perks like super powers and special bonuses that can be paid for by these tokens. Developers can also earn when users play their games in a virtual world. Enjin is one example of a gaming platform in the metaverse where you can earn tokens (this link is an example).
This is also a use case for collectibles. Many people like to collect and trade comic books and sports cards. In the Metaverse collectibles can be any type of item that is in a digital format or a digital representation of a physical object. Just like with comic books and baseball cards, the more rare or unique an item is the more valuable they are. One of the original platforms for NFT was CryptoKitties issued on the Ethereum blockchain. There are now various types. Popular NFT for collectors include Hashmasks, CryptoPunks and Meebits. Creatives can create their own collectibles and earn from tokenizing them.
Digital Art And Music
The Metaverse is open to a diverse marketplace for digital art. These are represented as NFT and allow creatives to make money from their work. It might seem unconventional to traditional creatives, but it is in the digital realm so that should be familiar. You can consider NFT as a critical part of digital art because of the value it holds. This provides a verified way for digital artists and even traditional artists to establish the rights to their work. This is what enables what is called digital copyright or digital ownership.
Now you have platforms like Rarible, OpenSea, Mintbase and Niftygateway where you can mint an NFT of your digital work. Minting an NFT on these platforms can be as easy as uploading a JPEG or video file and making it available for buyers. For creatives, this is a new marketplace where they can sell their original work. Users can use these platforms to buy and collect digital art and use them in their virtual world.
Musicians who produce mostly digital music can also make use of NFT platforms. If the problem has been about copyright usage and collecting royalties, an NFT might be a solution. It must have some legal backing though which is another aspect of implementing a copyright. This can help support beginning musicians who want to produce music professionally and license their work for others to use legally. ROCKI has launched their music NFT platform on the popular digital exchange Binance SmartChain (BSC).
A Whole New World
The Metaverse will result in an intersection of art, culture and technology. It is an interactive fantasy world in the digital realm, where things of value can be exchanged and content can be purchased. However way it is viewed, it can have an impact on the way people interact and exchange tokenized digital assets. There is support coming to the metaverse via funding from Metapurse.Fund and VC firm Multicoin Capital.
Metapurse is a crypto fund that was founded by influencers Metakovan and Twobadour. Metakovan is perhaps more well known as the buyer of Beeple’s NFT art that cost $69 Million. These two influencers are supportive of the general cryptospace with emphasis on NFT and the Metaverse.
According to a report, Multicoin Capital is:
“ … “convinced” that virtual world projects, known by some as the Metaverse, will be a “massive” opportunity.”
Some view NFT as a bubble and the Metaverse as just another fad. It doesn’t seem that way because network effects often bring out the best in any type of industry. With NFT we are seeing more ecosystems and activity that has been driving the growth of the DeFi (Decentralized Finance) space on the Ethereum blockchain. The Metaverse is also adding more users who can now purchase and exchange digital assets. These users benefit through monetization of their tokenized content as NFT.
The growth for NFT is not based on mere speculation, but more on demand. It is just like how valuable paintings, antiques, coins, stamps, trading cards like Magic The Gathering, sports cards and comic books are. These are items that have a market because there are people willing to pay to own them. NFT create value for digital versions of items that can be made available to interested buyers. The value is based on the price a buyer is willing to pay for because they want to own the item. These items are often rare, but can also have certain sentimental value or personal meaning (e.g. NBA highlight reels). On the Metaverse it can be any digital content that has value to buyers.
Another thing to note here is that the Metaverse is decentralized. It is not owned by a single organization or company. It consists of many virtual worlds that run their own ecosystems on different computers world wide. Decentralization means that if one virtual world disappears, there are still many out there available. There is no central authority that controls these virtual worlds. It is a more open and trustless network, where anyone who is willing can participate. This is going to be part of a new version of the Internet called Web 3.0.
New ways that the Metaverse can evolve is through the interaction among the virtual worlds. In this case, you can reside in one virtual world and be able to visit another. It is just like being a digital tourist when you visit other virtual worlds. They can then integrate with playing a video game, social media activities, attending a virtual art auction or teaching someone in learning how to create animations. Through the use of web browser plugins a user can interact with another user inside the virtual world.
The support gives encouragement to digital creatives to participate in this growing community. There will surely also be demand for creatives to help build virtual worlds as graphic designers, art directors, image editors and illustrators. It is gradually evolving and more things are being added. Soon more people can create and sell their work using NFT in a peer-to-peer manner through a verified decentralized system. All that a creative needs to participate is their Internet connection and device (e.g. laptop, computer, smartphone, etc.). The Metaverse will make participants feel at home as digital natives that are a part of a community that benefits from creativity.
