Back to the Metaverse Past: Is the Metaverse New?
“To comprehend what the future will bring for the metaverse where humans experience life in ways beyond the physical world, we must explore the past that brought us to where we are today and to the current metaverse which is going through some rapid advancements” — A wise Technologist
There is no official definition that exists for Metaverse. Different industry verticals, forums, keynotes has come-up with various definitions to contextualize Metaverse like
“The metaverse is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal and immersive virtual world that is facilitated using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets.”
“The metaverse refers to a virtual world where people can live, work and play via an avatar.”
I believe it will be a successor to our mobile form-factor and from my point of view we can define a true or ideal Metaverse as
“Metaverse is a successor state to the mobile devices form-factor and in it’s true or ideal form a Metaverse will allow full convergence of our physical and digital lives”
Because in our current digital lifestyles, which we have been living on phones and computer from last one decade is slowly catching up to our physical lives in some way. Thus, we are already in the initial stages of convergence process and in the up-coming years we will see the true or ideal Metaverse will bring the full convergence.
The Metaverse will be not only enabled by known technologies that already exists for quite some time in our past like AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality), which most of the people tends to think as the only entry points. A true Metaverse will be a whole new next level of various technologies combining like 6G, Wi-Fi 7, IoT Powered with 5G Technology, high performance Edge Computing, Spatial Computing, full body Haptic technology, Web3 construct such as Decentralization, Blockchain technologies, Token-based economics and many others.
The future Metaverse can serve as a place for commerce and with a fully functioning virtual economy in the virtual world. In that case Web3 integration with Metaverse will open new possibilities through token-based economics. This also depends on how well Decentralized Internet ideology will be adapted by global companies.
The role of Crypto in the Metaverse will be mostly govern by its legal and regulatory aspects. Crypto as we all know is not widely accepted as a legal tender by many countries. However, many countries are working towards and have launched their own digital currencies which may get used within the Metaverse to fulfil payments related scenarios.
Back to the Metaverse Past
Is the Metaverse New?
A very important point to know is whether the Metaverse is new or it’s already existed in a rudimentary state. From my experience, I will say that the Metaverse as a concept is close to two decades old and it has been in the evolution phase since then. Let’s have a closer look how it is.
I have been an avid gamer since my childhood and games like Contra, Shadow Warrior (DOS version), Duck Hunt, Road Rash, DOOM were among my favorites. If you were an old video gamer then during the year 2003/04/05 you’d have definitely heard of (if not explored) Second Life.
So, Second Life is an online multimedia platform that was launched in the year 2003 which allow its users to create digital avatar and through these digital avatar you as a user can explore and live in a virtual world. It was like a second life of your physical-self and real-world, and users entering in this digital virtual world used to call themselves as a residents. These residents can meet other resident (through their digital avatar) and they can participate in group activities.
I’d like to mention another very good application that was developed by Sony, as we all know Sony is a market leader in the gaming industry through it’s gaming console PlayStation.
In the year 2008, PlayStation has launched PlayStation Home app (PS3 console) which I will say is a Second Life version for gaming community to present a socially interactive environment. Access to the Home app was free for PlayStation Network subscribers.
All the PlayStation console gamers used to connect through Home app with their avatar, these avatar can also wear digital clothes (digital try-ons). Players through their avatars can explore different locations, interact with other players avatar through text messages, and can perform actions like gestures, dance etc. This virtual world provides players to decorates their apartments, play games within the virtual world with other players, explore shops and events.
Now imagine what all was possible and available to us through Second Life and PlayStation Home app. I will say it was really awesome and very much ahead of it’s time as for some reasons PlayStation Home app was discontinued in the year 2015.
We have got a fair understanding how Metaverse as a concept was not new for the gaming industry and its users. There are games where players spent a good numbers of hours daily and sometimes it leads to hundreds of hours to master a game play with a players digital avatar, fighting and interacting with other players (through their avatar) in a virtual world. Through these games and gaming platforms players collects virtual currency and points to unlock gaming levels, enhance their skills, outfits, and goodies to customize their avatars.
There were video games like GTA (Grand Theft Auto) that fall under the category of open world games, which provide the player a lot of flexibility while they play a free-roaming role-playing video game. In GTA, the player chooses the missions they wish to do, and these decisions affect how they interact with other characters. At any time during the game, players are allowed to explore the digital version of a real life city in form of basic simulation that includes city building, roads, different mode of transportations, city people who walks on the street, drive cars and follow traffic rules.
So we can say that to a decent extent there was already a Metaverse in the gaming world and the primary driver for Metaverse past was the gaming industry and gaming community.
AR and VR Industry
If you look at the AR and VR industry, then from the past few decades we are having significant developments in these areas. The primary driver to these industry from creativity / imagination / inspiration aspects standpoint was mainly the gaming industry.
Early prototypes of video games were developed in labs in the 1960s, but it was Atari’s release of Pong in 1972 that helped to kickstart the industry.
Augmented Reality technology was invented in 1968, with Ivan Sutherland’s development of the first head-mounted display system. Boeing Computer Services Research employee Thomas Caudell coined the term Augmented Reality in 1990.
Virtual reality technology was invented in 1957 by Morton Heilig. His multimedia device called the Sensorama is considered one of the earliest VR systems. The term Virtual Reality (VR) was initially introduced by Jaron Lanier, founder of VPL Research in 1989.
It will be good to know about AR and VR at least from their respective definition context to build some basic understanding.
Augmented Reality
“Augmented Reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content.”
Pokémon GO mobile game has demonstrated how to to create a powerful location-based Augmented Reality (AR) game. In AR we put digital 3D images or 3D models onto the real world and these 3D image or 3D models can be further enhanced with digital details.
Virtual Reality
“Virtual Reality (VR) is a simulated experience that can be similar to or completely different from the real world.”
AltspaceVR Social Platform (initial release — 2015) allowed users to interact with items, cast content from the Internet into virtual screens, and occupy a shared virtual area with spatial voice interactions. Moreover, it enables additional hardware for body tracking and eye tracking. In VR we put a user into the virtual / digital created / simulated world and further provides interaction elements for the users to perform actions within the virtual / digital world.
The majority of virtual reality (VR) games are centred on player immersion and are often played with a headset or head-mounted display unit with stereoscopic displays and one or more controllers.
Virtual Reality devices has been introduced to providing more immersive experiences to the end users like Sony has launched PlayStation VR headset for their gamers to play with immersive experience some of their popular titles on PlayStation VR. The Oculus Rift was the first widely known Virtual Reality HMD that became available for consumer purchase in 2016.
Lets have a look at list of VR devices, AR development kits and Gaming Engines that has been contributing for quite some time in the Metaverse Past.
VR Devices
HTC Vive, Facebook / Meta Oculus Rift, *Samsung Gear VR, *Google DayDream, Microsoft HoloLens, PlayStation VR
AR Development Kits
*Wikitude, ARKit by Apple, ARCore by Google , Vuforia AR platform
Cross-platform Game Engine
Unity 3D, Unreal Engine, Godot
Google DayDream was discontinued and same with Samsung Gear VR.
Wikitude was launched in 2008 later acquired by Qualcomm
Thats pretty much about Back to the Metaverse Past. Next, we will be going Back to the Metaverse Future: Till then stay in the Metaverse ;-)
Images Credit: Doc, Marty McFly, Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Niantic, AltspaceVR, Linden Lab, PlayStation
