IntoTheVerse — “The Potential of Metaverse Gaming: How Web3 is Creating a new era of Virtual Worlds.”
Welcome to another IntoTheVerse Journal!
A metaverse that is focused on creating utility, impact and provides players with total control.
“With the metaverse we are transitioning from viewing a 2D world looking at the internet, to living inside the internet in a 3D world.” (Dave Waters)
What is a Metaverse?
A metaverse is a virtual reality space where users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users in real time. It is a collective space that often mirrors the physical world in a virtual setting.
Users use avatars as digital representations of themselves to explore and navigate their way around the digital world.
We are Social and Hootsuite carried out a study that found that the average person aged between 16–64 spends at least six hours and 58 minutes online per day. The study illustrates that while a metaverse is a developing concept, it holds the potential to revolutionize how people interact, work, and learn together.
At IntoTheVerse, we are building our own metaverse, so we wanted to study the potential of the metaverse in gaming and how Web3 is initiating a new era of virtual diversity.
How has gaming shaped the metaverse’s potential?
Captivating gameplay
Web1 and Web2 pushed the boundaries of what was possible in gaming. Technical advancements have enabled creators to develop more vivid gameplay through innovative artwork, compelling storylines, and increasingly complex game mechanics.
Web3 has the capacity to push these boundaries even further through the vision of the metaverse, where the combination of gaming, social interaction, and other forms of digital entertainment, such as virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR), can propel users to new worlds seamlessly.
Social experiences
Multiplayer online games have illustrated the power of virtual environments. Gaming has diversified because people all over the world are keen to connect, collaborate, and interact with others in an online virtual setting.
The metaverse has the potential to propel this social interaction to a whole new level of connectivity because it envisions a shared virtual space where users can interact, socialize, and collaborate with each other, in a way that parallels with real-life meet-ups.
Virtual Economies
Web2 gaming has pioneered the concept of in-game virtual economies. Web3 has pushed the frontiers of in-game trading with the evolution of blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
This concept can be expanded even further in the metaverse because it offers creators, developers, and players a digital economy that can be transferred into the real world.
How has Web3 shaped the metaverse’s potential?
Web3 has played a pivotal role in shaping the metaverse by providing innovative technology and the necessary belief system, and community collaboration for its development. Some of the ways Web3 has shaped the metaverse are:
Decentralization
Blockchain’s decentralized principles align with the open, transparent nature of the metaverse, where power and control are distributed among the users rather than centralized entities. By verifying transactions, and encouraging universal consent in the blockchain, developers are creating a new level of trust with users, which supports the creation of virtual economies, and ownership of digital assets.
Interoperability
Web3 makes interoperability between different platforms viable. It enables applications to communicate with each other seamlessly. This is a huge shift forward for the potential of the metaverse because it allows users to move between different virtual worlds, games, and experiences without barriers. It also enables users to transfer assets, identities, and progress across different metaverse platforms, which goes a long way to creating one unified virtual world.
Smart Contracts
Web3 utilizes smart contracts, which are self-executing agreements that put the conditions directly into the lines of code. Smart contracts allow developers to create programmable digital assets, diversify gameplay with more complex game mechanics, increase a user’s economic opportunities, and create a customizable virtual experience within the metaverse.
Community Collaboration
Web3 encourages community members to participate and contribute to the development and governance of projects. These protocols can also be transferred to the metaverse through decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and token-based governance models, enabling users to have a say in any decision-making processes and helping shape the evolution of the metaverse.
Ownership of assets
Web3 prioritizes users by giving them ownership and control over their data, identities, and digital assets. This sense of empowerment can also be utilized in the metaverse by ensuring users have true ownership of their virtual identities, avatars, and in-game items.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can also be transferred to increase a user’s ability to trade and monetize digital assets within the metaverse. By optimizing trading in decentralized marketplaces, users can transfer in-game assets so it has real-world value, which will create vibrant new socio-economic opportunities across the world.
What are the challenges that hinder the potential of the metaverse?
While the potential of the metaverse is unquantifiable, it is also important to consider the challenges that can hinder its development. These challenges include:
Technical Infrastructure and Scalability
Building a metaverse requires robust technical infrastructure that is capable of supporting massive numbers of concurrent users, seamless interactions, and high-quality immersive experiences. Limitations in bandwidth, server capacity, and computational limitations can all hinder technical innovation and long-term scalability.
Privacy and Security
Privacy and security concerns will always be an ongoing issue in the metaverse. As it evolves it will be imperative to protect personal data, prevent unauthorized access, and ensure there is consistent digital security to preserve a user’s trust and eliminate malicious activities.
Accessibility and Inclusivity
As with the development of all new platforms and technologies, developing accessibility and inclusivity is vital to its longevity. Consideration needs to be taken to address issues with UI experiences, digital literacy, physical accessibility, and diversity representation. Developers also need to ensure any hardware required is affordable and reliable to the mainstream market.
Ethical Considerations
The development of the metaverse also raises ethical considerations, such as the importance of balancing freedom of expression alongside community standards and minimizing negative mental health impacts by fostering a safe and healthy virtual environment.
The metaverse has the potential to create new economic opportunities, but it also poses risks of exacerbating economic disparities, so protocols will need to be considered to ensure equality. Responsible governance is also a necessity to prevent abuse or monopolization of the metaverse and to create a harmonious haven for users.
What does the future look like for the evolution of the metaverse in Web3?
The future of the metaverse in Web3 is limitless and we can expect to see interconnected virtual realities where users seamlessly move between different virtual worlds, decentralized governance through DAOs, and user ownership of digital assets enabled by blockchain and NFTs. Other possibilities are persistent identities and reputation systems spanning multiple platforms, integration of AI and machine learning for immersive experiences and moderation, cross-platform economies leveraging digital assets across various metaverse experiences, and potential integration of augmented reality (AR) for mixed reality interactions.
In conclusion, Web3 is championing a new era of virtual worlds and metaverse gaming which promotes more defined ownership for users, greater collaboration and social interaction, and groundbreaking creativity and innovation. As Web3 continues to evolve, the metaverse will be a game changer because it has the potential to reshape how we connect and harmonize with each other and fundamentally how we learn, work, and view our world in the future.
Stay tuned for more tech articles from IntoTheVerse.
IntoTheVerse is building a mobile-first, composable, NFT-Utility & Impact driven gaming Metaverse.
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Aimee Gilmore is a Creative Writer at IntoTheVerse. Come say hi to her on Twitter or Discord.
