Introduction
The world has had a major shift taking place with electronics, ever since the internet made its debut. With social media and online shopping, internet and virtual conversations have only increased. Moving forward with the doors that the internet helped open for us, virtual reality is a concept creating major buzz in recent times. Various segments of the online world have been uplifted with the introduction of Virtual Reality. One of the most significant parts of the internet that has soaked in everything virtual reality could offer, is the gaming world.
Various software available in the Virtual Reality world helps power different gaming platforms by creating an illusion for a realistic experience. These games usually use 3-D images, VR headsets, full display screens, and features like sensory features of scents and tactile sensations to help transform rooms into playgrounds! Now coming to the massive possibilities the advent of Metaverse has created in gaming. The Metaverse sector, powered by disruptive VR technologies, has given the gaming world a whole new realistic experience. The development of the gaming world into this highly immersive virtual experience is owing to the Metaverse. Not only has it helped transform the gaming industry, but also helped it in gaining major traction because of the new features the gaming world can now introduce to the customers using the metaverse offerings.
What is Metaverse?
Broadly speaking, it is a term that includes virtual reality, characterized by the presence of a virtual world that continues to exist even when you’re not actively playing the ‘game’ like Fortnite. It can also include augmented reality – something that combines the aspects of both digital and physical worlds – for example, this once-popular game called ‘Pokemon Go’.
To describe it in a nutshell, the metaverse is a concept of an online, 3D universe that consists of multiple virtual spaces. It is often referred to as the next internet. The metaverse ecosystem will allow users to work together, conduct meetings or plan a group outing, play games, and socialize in these curated 3D spaces.
Also Read: Top 10 Metaverse Projects
What is gaming in Metaverse?
The 3D universe that Metaverse provides for users to make use of, creates a huge opportunity for the gaming industry to tap into. The handshake that metaverse and the gaming industry have made, helped the gaming world to be one of the major sectors using Metaverse while engaging the gamers in ways that were never thought possible in the gaming world! The gamers can have an immersive experience! Moving on from focusing only on a flat screen, they can now adapt to the environment around them. This cumulative effort can also lead to a world where you can study, connect, work, earn money, and even attend concerts; all virtually. The onset of the Metaverse and its expansion of the external reality is here to make it easier for people to attend business meetings, online concerts, and play games in the virtual environment.
The Metaverse was created with the intention to captivate users by giving them the impression that they are truly in the reality they have opted for. Breaking the previously common two-dimensional screen, the metaverse world is here to take those collaborative possibilities to the next level. While in the Metaverse, users can be immersed in a three-dimensional environment where they can interact more personally with the elements around them. This collaboration and the evolved ‘internet’ is definitely a great technique to generate augmented reality when interacting in the games, taking part in the play-to-earn gaming with NFTs, minting and trading NFTs, live streaming of games, value exchange with crypto, all of which caters toward a deeper connection with the overall world.
Also Read: How to Buy Virtual Land in the Metaverse?
How Does Metaverse Power the Future of Gaming?
The power of the Metaverse to provide a space in Virtual Reality that can be used to not only cater toward immersive gaming, but also provide a space where an individual can get access to Web3, crypto, gaming, meeting with the team and so much more. To put it in simple words, since Metaverse leverages technologies like AR and VR to create a more organic experience, users can get a lifelike experience, which is exactly how they feel in the real world.
The Metaverse is still at its nascent stage when we are talking about how it can help evolve the gaming industry. With numerous projects and experiments going on and with projects like Decentraland and Axie Infinity already working towards the futuristic games, we only have time to get used to the projects already available to become an expert when the next step of gaming comes into the scene!
What Does Gaming in the Metaverse Look Like?
As mentioned above, the Metaverse can be defined as an online space that makes use of both AR and VR where users can interact with each other and the digital world around them through advanced human-computer interaction (HCI) hardware and software. While the Metaverse is providing the features, the gaming industry is one of the major sectors that is making use of the Metaverse features to offer a next-generation gaming experience to the users. Players can now engage in a way they had never done in a competitive gaming world. Moreover, the Metaverse and Gaming duo is cumulatively providing an immersive experience that enhances their overall gaming experience.
Players in the Metaverse x Gaming world would be able to navigate in and out of gaming apps, interact in multiple spaces with the same players they are playing withh, and even transfer their wins without having to take off their VR headset.
Social Gaming
It is a given that the metaverse is inherently social. It is one of the most important traits that sets it apart from the traditionally known VR experience where the players were playing alone. Multi-player gaming will take on an additional dimension as players will be able to invite multiple friends from the real world, interact with players from all over the globe, build relationships and so much more!
Games-as-Platforms
The games-as platforms offer a superior gaming experience to users. Along with the experience, comes flexibility. Here, users can make an addition to the virtual world, they can create their own content, even build sub-games within a game, and so on. Basically, the gamers can treat the gaming environment as a platform-like space if they want to work on other activities.
Mixed Reality Experience
The combination of AR and VR that the Metaverse provides caters to a much more organic experience for the users. The mixed AR and VR experiences in the Metaverse offer the incorporation of mixed reality, which helps the gamers move from normal group text in augmented reality to a mixed reality board game to a full-fledged world of virtual reality in a seamless flow of work.
Portable Game Assets
Having an interoperable architecture, the Metaverse could allow asset portability. Here assets mean the various weapons, weapon skins, and other elements gamers use. Weapons or avatar enhancements acquired in one game could be portable to a different environment, and the NFT rules would persistently be governing the ownership of these assets.
Play To Earn
Play-to-earn is one of the notable elements of gaming in the Metaverse. Apart from following linear storytelling and rules, the players are also able to engage in various profitable activities like selling their assets, or assets they have won in the game to other users in exchange for crypto.
What technologies empower the development of gaming Metaverse?
The Metaverse is the next generation of the existing internet technologies. The structure of the Metaverse is based on the common standards of interfaces and the communication rules between two different virtual environments. The latest development within the Metaverse has compelled gaming companies to switch to Metaverse games or start exploring the same. There are a few more technologies that cater to the deliverables of Metaverse and Gaming. Some of them are as mentioned below.
AR and VR technologies
The Augmented Reality and the Virtual Reality features of the Metaverse helps in catering to the players or users experiencing an organic atmosphere.
Blockchain and crypto
The Metaverse is built using blockchain technology. This helps the developers to develop decentralized Metaverse projects. While Metaverse is decentralized, it also helps in bringing benefits such as digital proof of ownership, transfer of value, digital collectability, and interoperability among others. While blockchain is catering toward the technology bit, the crypto assets are helping in exchange of the required gaming assets, NFTs and so on.
Internet of things (IoT)
The IoT helps the Metaverse in providing a much more realistic experience to its users. Taking the help of IoT, Metaverse can collect, obtain, and utilize data from the physical world. This helps in connecting the virtual world of the Metaverse to a large number of real-world devices. Doing so it helps objects in the Metaverse in switching the way they function based on changing weather or atmosphere.
3D reconstruction
Owing to the pandemic, 3D models have had interesting use cases. While realtors have been using 3D models to take their customers on tours, Metaverse has been using the technology to enhance all the other technologies already present in the virtual world!
Notable Players in the Metaverse Gaming Industry
The journey of the Metaverse is still new. The space has been here for less than a decade and has already attracted a considerable volume of investments. The players or investors all belong to different gaming companies, tech giants, and others. With the ever-growing popularity of Metaverse in the gaming industry, it is often rightly acclaimed that Metaverse is the future of gaming. Some of the eminent players of the Metaverse gaming industry are as mentioned below.
Decentraland
One of the first players to explore the Metaverse sector with gaming possibilities is Decentraland (MANA). Decentraland calls itself a virtual reality platform that is powered by the Ethereum network allowing users not just to create an experience but also monetize the applications and contents.
Coming from the crypto world, MANA is based on blockchain and is also open to all social gaming. MANA is suitable for playing a variety of games such as blackjack, poker, slots, and roulette. It is also where the players can play to earn. Users can play various games available and earn tokens on the platform.
Also Read: Decentraland (MANA) Whitepaper Summary
Sandbox
The Sandbox (SAND) was launched by Pixowl in 2011 which is a blockchain-based virtual world letting users build, create, sell and buy digital assets via a game. The primary purpose of sandbox crypto is to make blockchain gaming mainstream. The platform follows a very creative play-to-earn model that allows users to become both gamers and creators.
Within SAND, the players can play, build, own, control a virtual space, and monetize their gaming skills on the Ethereum blockchain. Sandbox’s economy is based on NFT assets and user-generated crypto. By partnering with different brands worldwide to deliver unique as well as enriching experiences to the users.
Also Read: Decentraland(MANA) vs SandBox(SAND)
Meta
Formerly known as Facebook, Meta is a new entrant among the Metaverse gaming participants. However, Meta has quite an impressive track record of innovation in the field of virtual reality.
Axie Infinity
Axie was inspired by the popular video game franchise Pokemon. It includes a fairly versatile gameplay that allows users to gather a variety of digital pets called Axies. They are reared, bred, and eventually battled against one another in the Axie ecosystem.
Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based game that provides players full ownership of the in-game items they collect. Vietnamese gaming startup Sky Mavis created it in 2018.
Epic Games
The Epic Game is best known for Fortnite, which is a virtual reality game and an event destination blended into one. With the immense popularity of Fortnite, artists from various parts of the globe have delivered concerts with the help of the Metaverse-like potential of the game. Very recently, Epic Games announced its investment plan of $1 billion to create its own Metaverse focused on gaming.
Concerns That Will Need to be Addressed
While AR and VR inclusive games are making their headway to the next evolution of online gaming, it has had a few encounters for legal and ethical issues. The same is predicted for Metaverse, which might be the issue, by experts.
- Age-appropriate services, control and experiences.
- Ownership rights for NFT
- Shortcomings in infrastructure
Conclusion
Though the Metaverse space is still new, it certainly has the potential to revolutionize how we connect with technology. It caters to not only the gaming industry but also various other sectors like jobs, trading, game streaming, regulating legal processes, video conferencing, and many more. With Metaverse, players get a chance to compete in a completely immersive environment. Undoubtedly, Metaverse is a step forward and we might start using its various use cases even before we realize the power of Metaverse and how it has helped us in boosting virtual reality.
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