Imagine a virtual world where people live, work, shop and interact with others – all from the comfort of their own home in the physical world. This is called the metaverse.
The “Metaverse” didn’t become a universal term until Facebook changed its corporate name to ‘Meta’ in October 2021. At this time, the company announced plans to spend $10 billion over the next year on technologies in order to build out its vision of the metaverse.
The metaverse is considered to be a next evolution of the internet. It will take many formats, including gaming, online communities as well as business meetings where people are able to collaborate using a digital facsimile or avatar of themselves.
The Rise Of The Metaverse
In order to fully understand the metaverse, we first need to explore its constituents. It is made up of ‘meta’ as well as ‘verse’. Meta has a Greek origin that means ‘beyond’ while verse is taken from ‘universe’. Otherwise, metaverse can be defined as beyond the universe.
The term first originated from Neal Stephenson’s literature in his novel entitled Snow Crash, which was released in 1992. Neal defined the metaverse as the peak or ultimate revolution of the internet, painting it as a virtual reality where all the virtual exchanges directly impact the real world. His book explains what the metaverse is, further defining it as a physical continual virtual creation with virtual avatars which can carry out social interactions and also support gaming.
The book went ahead to describe how the metaverse defined in the story impacted real-world advancements of the main character, even describing that it made people whose brains were connected to the virtual world crazy.
Neal’s book set the stage for the release of several other books, television shows as well as films that shed lighter on the metaverse. A great example is the film Ready Player by Steven Spielberg, released in 2018, which is based on Ernest Cline’s novel, Ready Player.
All in all, these books describe the metaverse as a virtual reality which allows people to perform everything that they do in real life depending on the advancement era.
Anyone Is Able To Enter The Metaverse
As we’ve said before, the metaverse is a virtual and interoperable world. Interoperability is a main component of the metaverse. This means that information is exchanged between different systems seamlessly. Entering the metaverse is far simpler than you may think.
If you have a VR headset, you will have access to the metaverse – although a VR headset will set you back around $300.
Just as anyone might have access to the internet and online blackjack real money games, the metaverse is also as easily accessible. You have need to download the right applications in order to access the metaverse though, such as the game The Sandbox – one of the most popular decentralised metaverse games. It gives users the opportunity to create, build and monetise from the virtual worlds that they’re creating within the digital world.
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