Metaverse

The term “meta-universe” itself was coined, as it should be by the science fiction writer Neal Stephenson. In his 1992 cyber-punk novel Avalanche, the metaworld was a three-dimensional virtual reality that embraced the entire world. The Stevenson metaworld is the next stage in the development of the Internet, combining physical, augmented and virtual realities.

In it, people worked and spent their free time. The main character, for example, in real life was an ordinary pizza deliveryman, but in the metaworld he was a very cool ninja hacker.

The word “avatar” also came from a Stevenson novel. People plugged into the metaworld with avatars and could do all the same things they could do in the real world: travel, communicate with other users, work, search for information. Sitting in their homes, people were able to escape from reality and live in a virtual world.

Elements of meta-universes were appearing in the game industry and cinematography long before the hype that came in 2021: the movies “The Matrix”, “Blade Runner” or, for example, “First Player Standby”, where the analogue of the meta-village was a multiplayer online game “Oasis”. Among the games we can mention the game Second Life, which is not even a game, but a three-dimensional virtual space with elements of a social network. Over 1 million active users decide for themselves what they want to do inside this meta-universe. Signs of the meta universe are also present in such games as Warhammer, Minecraft, Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout, Fornite, Final Fantasy and many others.

So, in order to formulate your definition, let’s break down the principles on which the concept of “meta-universe” is based. Matthew Ball has articulated 7 basic principles:

• Be constant. No pauses or restarts-it is an immanent, infinite world.
• Exist synchronously for all and in real time.
• Have no limit on the number of users.
• Have a fully working internal economy. People can not only spend money in it, but also earn money, open businesses, invest and sell.
• Link real life and virtual life together. It’s not so much a world separate from the real world as it is an augmentation, an addition.
• To provide users with “unprecedented compatibility” of data. So that if you bought clothes for your avatar in Fortnite, you could use them in any other game or app.
• To be open to any authors and content makers who can create their own “expiriences” within the meta universe.