Join the Metavolution
Reading time approx. 10 min. Join the MetavolutionThe metaverse will upend our Internet usage just the way cellphones did. That’s what predictions say. We’ll encounter each other as avatars in the virtual world instead of as screen tiles. We’ll go for digital brand-name products to create our online identity. And we’ll work on projects from separate continents as if we were sitting in the same open-plan office. Is this a promise of a future with new revenue in the billions – or just plain old fiction?
Style before training: Business suit or T-shirt? Skirt or jeans? Blond hair or distinguished gray? On the way to the 3D learning space, visitors first have to design their own avatar. With the very first clicks, tricky questions emerge:Is my graphic persona allowed to look completely different from me, or does it have to look as much like me as possible – after all, you're meeting known colleagues and customers in the virtual world?That’s the joke in the metaverse: The boundaries between the analog and digital worlds are blurring
The digital training building of the WBS Akademie, a leader in continuing education and a trail blazer in the transformation of learning, gives an early taste of the metaverse that lies before us: Among the seminar rooms, lecture halls, auditorium and media walls, the space offers workstations with media labs, coffee break rooms, and a sunny roof patio with a view of green pastures and snow-covered hills. There are even birds chirping. Through the academy's hallways, avatars stroll independently by means of the arrow keys, attending coaching and training. They meet colleagues in small groups, rather than like fish staring out of screen tiles in Teams or Zoom. “Welcome to the virtual world,” says a voice from off screen. “Nice to see you.”
Digitally simulated academies developed by the TriCat company may be rare hidden islands now, but more and more are popping up.International companies like Porsche and Audi have already had complete, immersive 3D learning and working worlds established for their employees’ continuing education and qualification.They are online twins based on the model of real training centers – sporting the corporate design and speaking 13 languages.
Sci-fi becomes reality
Sci-fi becomes realityThe web is reinventing itself again. And not just since fall 2021, when Mark Zuckerberg renamed the Facebook group as “Meta” and thus claimed leadership for the Internet’s new dimension. For years, online games like Second Life and Fortnite have been conjuring up a vivid parallel life on the monitor.
hey are the forerunners of the metaverse –an online world where people and objects connect in 3D spaces in new ways, creating a new market worth billions.Already introduced to the world in 1992 by science fiction author Neal Stephenson, the “metaverse” is now the coming driver of innovation, that is upending industries and bringing new media, products, business ideas, payment systems and behaviors to life.
As early as 2023, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, the parallel universe's market volume in products and services may reach $800 billion. Canada’s Emergen Research predicts the global metaverse market of 2030 to be worth up to $1.6 trillion – with annual growth of 43%.But: What is the metaverse, anyway? What opportunities does it bring?
The big promise
The big promiseMatthew Ball, an American theorist, venture capitalist and thought leader on development, defines the metaverse as an ongoing network of virtual 3D worlds that will serve as a gateway to online experiences and accompany large areas of the physical world.
But for Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, an economist at the University of Münster,there is no one metaverse any more than there is just one Internet.“Whether there will ever be a macro-metaverse as a vision of a fully connected universe in which users jump from one world to the next is isn’t at all clear,” says Hennig-Thurau. However, today there are already countless micro metaverses that can be controlled from many separate apps: They come from drivers of innovation like Roblox and Epic Games, Decentraland, Sandbox and Netvrk, Horizon Worlds and Workrooms by Facebook, and Meshrooms and Altspace from Microsoft.
With his team at the eXperimental RealityLab at the University of Münster, Hennig-Thurau researches the results of virtual and augmented reality on companies and consumers. He assumes that the new meta worlds will grow fast and increasingly influence the economy. “If something generates value for the user, it quickly becomes attractive to companies – and then it really gets big.” The gateways to immersion in this world aren't just monitors and keyboards, but virtual- and augmented-reality headsets. Moreover, 3D sound ensures that voices and noises seem like they're in real space. A new community experience.
“Doing things together is the metaverse’s great promise for the future,” says Hennig-Thurau. “Creating social benefit is the core of its existence.” As opposed to that, two-dimensional Web 2.0 is a socially poor medium. This makes the challenge to companies obvious: “Create worlds in which people can meet, and they’ll make it something big!”
Nike understood this. On the Roblox game platform, they made a virtual country called Nikeland, in which players don't just buy digital sneakers and accessories, but also play with friends, or whatever they feel like doing. Roblox itself is developing a co-experience platform that is expected to create mutual experiences for billions of people. Today, three-quarters of children and teens in the United States have a Roblox account.
Meetings in the virtual world
Meetings in the virtual worldBut developers aren't just playing anymore. In the future, the metaverse will also means professional collaboration. In apps like Microsoft Meshroom, or Omniverse from Nvidia, teams can meet as avatars in artificial spaces, work on 3D models of vehicles, machines and buildings, simulate products, and present them to customers, and perform inspections, medical diagnoses and training in safety-related areas – without taking long trips.
“The metaverse is becoming the new interface to the working world,” says Hennig-Thurau. Between the weekly sales conference by video call and the team building trip to Cancún, there's plenty of room for this new way of meeting.“For implementing projects as a team and developing new ideas, it’s a real alternative. It saves companies enormous time and cost, not to mention CO2 emissions.According to a Gartner study, by 2026, a quarter of humanity will spend at least an hour every day in the metaverse to work, train, shop, play and make contacts.
By that time, brands will have come into play. “For time as an avatar, we need one or more identities,” says Hennig-Thurau. For that, we need products, whether they be sneakers, jewelry or other possessions.“Because whoever meets other characters, friends or colleagues in the metaverse, quickly starts thinking about how to present his virtual identity.“It will soon be embarrassing to show up as a standard avatar,” says Hennig-Thurau. “This presents enormous market opportunities.”
Billions for luxury brands
Billions for luxury brandsIn the midst of this, more and more companies are expecting billions in revenue from “NFTs” – non-fungible tokens. These are unique digital brand-name products generated on the blockchain, like cryptocurrencies are, and that belong to just one owner. Illustrious brands are already creating goods that the user might not be able to afford in the real world.
In its first NFT store on Roblox, fashion group Ralph Lauren is selling designerware for avatars for a few dollars. Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga are already earning real money with counterfeit-proof accessories made of bits and bytes. Porsche Digital is already developing its own platform selling original Porsche NFTs. According to a Morgan Stanley study, the luxury industry may soon draw $50 million in revenue from the metaverse.
At the same time, a giant land grab is happening: Companies are investing a lot of money in digital spaces, lots and buildings in worlds like Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium.According to estimates by investors and analysis companies, real estate revenue in the metaverse exceeded $500 million in 2021 and should double again. “Digital property,” says MHP expert Stephan Baier, “is one of the key elements of the metaverse.” Baier is an associate partner at MHP and an expert on immersive experiences. “The more levels of dialog and communication are popular, the more companies will profit from the metaverse,” Baier predicts.
But the metaverse won’t just be a computer-generated location where people interact – it will also be a location where physical and virtual experiences come together. Therefore, MHP is developing a showroom for luxury vehicle manufacturers on 5th Avenue in New York with a virtual stage: “We are extending the physical space with a digital dimension and showing car models in actual size as a perfect 3D illusion,” says Baier. “Customers can rotate the car in front of them and configure it the way they want.” Baier thinks the age of the metaverse marks the historical moment when people's digital existence will overtake the physical one in importance. “Today, no company can afford to miss out on the metaverse. Whether it's for a new sales channel or for sophisticated team collaboration.”
The limits of the metaverse
The limits of the metaverseSo far, many successful metaverse worlds have been two-dimensional and not very immersive. But sales of virtual reality equipment are booming, and the trend toward high-immersion experience is gaining – because it's more effective and more intense than the traditional online meeting of the pandemic era.
“Immersion is reaching a whole other level of communication, you’re in the middle of it, and you get a strong social presence,” says researcher Hennig-Thurau. In a comparison of three control groups, his team has observed that high-immersion work evokes more creativity and positive emotions than other formats. However, the physical exertion and exhaustion are greater than before. But these disadvantages will decrease as the goggles get smaller and finer.
Besides that, the metaverse offers still another charm: the serendipity moment. In public places on the Internet, people make surprising new discoveries and meet new people. “Building new worlds that create such moments of happiness is becoming a growing sector with big profits,” says Hennig-Thurau. “The metaverse will grab a part of our lives the way the laptop and cellphone did.” But it will never be able to do everything: The metaverse will never replace a perfect espresso at your favorite café or a walk through the woods among the birds singing.
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Sven Heitkamp
Sven Heitkamp is a freelance reporter and copywriter from Leipzig. He discovers what innovations startups are working on and explores how large corporations work. He researches societal trends and family histories
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Join the Metavolution
Is my graphic persona allowed to look completely different from me, or does it have to look as much like me as possible – after all, you're meeting known colleagues and customers in the virtual world?
International companies like Porsche and Audi have already had complete, immersive 3D learning and working worlds established for their employees’ continuing education and qualification.
Sci-fi becomes reality
hey are the forerunners of the metaverse –an online world where people and objects connect in 3D spaces in new ways, creating a new market worth billions.
But: What is the metaverse, anyway? What opportunities does it bring?
The big promise
there is no one metaverse any more than there is just one Internet.
This makes the challenge to companies obvious: “Create worlds in which people can meet, and they’ll make it something big!”
Meetings in the virtual world
“For implementing projects as a team and developing new ideas, it’s a real alternative. It saves companies enormous time and cost, not to mention CO2 emissions.
“It will soon be embarrassing to show up as a standard avatar,” says Hennig-Thurau. “This presents enormous market opportunities.”
Billions for luxury brands
According to a Morgan Stanley study, the luxury industry may soon draw $50 million in revenue from the metaverse.
Companies are investing a lot of money in digital spaces, lots and buildings in worlds like Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium.
The limits of the metaverse
“Immersion is reaching a whole other level of communication, you’re in the middle of it, and you get a strong social presence,” says researcher Hennig-Thurau.
The metaverse will never replace a perfect espresso at your favorite café or a walk through the woods among the birds singing.
Discover more
