In 1992, Neil Stephenson, a famous American science fiction master, put forward the concept of "metaverse" in his science fiction novel Snow Crash. Now, the metaverse is becoming a reality from the fantastic ideas in literature. In October 2021, Facebook changed its name to "metaverse platform company", hereinafter referred to as Meta, which became the fuse to detonate the development of metaverse industry. Recently, Microsoft invested about US $70 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard, adding another prominence to the metaverse.
The metaverse is a world composed of countless interconnected virtual communities where people can meet, work and play using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone applications or other devices.
As Facebook coincides with Microsoft's latest strategic decision, the metaverse world has undergone disruptive changes. In a recent report, Forbes has listed three major development trends of metaverse in 2022: competing for high-quality talents, investing in multiple fields and breaking through the innovative experience boundary.
Competing for High-quality Talents
Meta is actively recruiting talents in this field, including those from apple and Microsoft. Most of the 100 people who left Microsoft's Hololens augmented reality headset team last year have been brought under Meta's command.
Despite the slow growth in sales, Microsoft's Hololens headset is a leader in AR, which makes its employees particularly popular in the metaverse talent market. Meta also announced that it would hire 10,000 engineers only in Europe to build this new frontier of the Internet.
Coincidentally, Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard not only hopes to stand on the podium of global video games, but also hopes to attract appropriate talents and platforms to take a leading position in the development related to metaverse.
Chip maker NVIDIA has also begun to set foot in the metaverse and launched the concept of omniverse. Omniverse aims to integrate graphics, artificial intelligence, simulation and scalable computing into one platform and become the basis for connecting the virtual world. Through the omniverse, artists, designers and creators can use their design applications to create 3D assets and scenes with laptops or workstations. For example, BMW is promoting the use of the omniverse platform internally to coordinate the production of 31 factories around the world. In view of this, NVIDIA's demand for skilled omniverse engineers has intensified.
Investing in Multiple Fields
Many people began to enter the field of meta universe, and acquisition cases occurred one after another. Previously, the US game developer Take-Two acquired Zynga for US $12.7 billion, which is "the most expensive in history" for the game industry. In 2021, the total amount of acquisitions in the game industry reached a record US $117 billion.
Institutional investors and retail investors are also increasing their investment in the field of metaverse. At the end of November 2021, Softbank announced that it would invest US $150 million in the Korean metaverse virtual social platform Zepeto. The platform is one of the hottest metaverse social platforms in Asia, with about 2 million daily active users. In addition, some funds mainly investing in metaverse have also begun to appear and show strong ability to get money quickly.
Many people are also optimistic about the investment value of Metaverse real estate market. Metaverse Group, a digital real estate company, is investing in land in the online world. Digital worlds such as Decentraland and Sandbox have allowed virtual developers to build and rent digital shopping malls. In 2022, although many people are cautious about the fluctuations of digital real estate, more people will compete for "high-quality lots" in the Metaverse.
Breaking the Innovative Experience Boundary
When the company has talents and funds to define and develop a "borderless world", imagination can play recklessly because pioneers have created new experiences. It is these innovative experiences that will constitute a colorful metaverse.
Future work will be redefined by the new metaverse experience. In addition to NVIDIA's omniverse, Meta's horizon studio and Microsoft's Mesh also hope that people can work better in the virtual world and realize cross device remote collaboration through hybrid reality applications. Bill Gates predicts that the virtual conference will be transferred to the metaverse within three years and the staff will increasingly rely on the use of VR headphones and avatars but people's demand for the formal workplace will be further reduced.
School and social life will also change. For example, Roblox is planning to bring educational video games to the classroom. The company regards itself as the future metaverse experience center, in which people can not only play games, but also attend concerts. Microsoft's AltspaceVR platform also allows people to get together and participate in live virtual activities, such as comedy club or bar night.
In the metaverse, digital stores sell all kinds of fantastic goods, such as digital pets. More traditional retailers have also joined. For example, Nike has applied for trademarks for virtual equipment, shoes and accessories, and Gucci, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton have also started selling electronic clothing and electronic bags. Metaverse shopping center began to appear. People can shop in virtual reality stores and buy related clothes for themselves in Metaverse.
Although the development of the metaverse is not fast enough for its fanatical believers, it is all moving too fast for skeptics. The US Federal Trade Commission has extended the retroactive time of the antitrust investigation of the previously completed virtual reality transaction, which has set an obstacle to the rapid development of the metaverse. Expensive headphones may also become a stumbling block widely accepted by the public, because wearing headphones and spending a lot of time roaming in parallel reality may cause unclear mental and physical health damage. However, the science and technology industry has unswerving faith in the metaverse. It is expected that the total market value will reach 800 billion US dollars by 2024 and 1 billion people will enter the metaverse by 2030.
