As we work on building our metaverse experience, we also want to provide some background on how Everdome views the metaverse, the direction we believe the metaverse is headed, and our thoughts the impact the metaverse may have on the future.
This is the first in a series of short articles to uncover some of the thinking and theoretical framework on which we build.
So to begin, let's take a brief look at what the metaverse actually is, or rather, what it can become.
Concrete and exact definitions remain difficult, as the metaverse is still in its very early, nascent phase. For example, a 1996 definition of the internet would have very little in common with the actual progression of Web2 twenty-five years later.
This said, Everdome has a working definition of the metaverse as we envisage it to become.
We build towards the future of a universe of limitless, interconnected digital communities where inhabitants socialize, collaborate, create and build beyond the constraints of the physical world, using spatial computing, blockchain technologies and the power of imagination.
We believe that in this future, the metaverse will form an infrastructure to link ideas and imaginations together, allowing transfer of knowledge, value and experience between them in a near limitless way.
In the very simplest terms, we believe the metaverse will have three overarching features:
A sense of immersion
The metaverse will allow people to go beyond just viewing digital content, as inhabitants of the metaverse will be able to immerse themselves in a space where the digital and physical worlds converge.
While immersive technologies, such as VR and other spatial computing technologies, combined with hyper-realistic visuals and sounds created by metaverse experiences such as Everdome, will be important to create this sense of immersion, true immersion is also augmented with the next two features.
Real-time interactivity & concurrency
We envisage a true metaverse as an ‘always-on’ universe with a multitude of destinations, of which Everdome would be one. Inside this universe, inhabitants will be able to interact with each other constantly, simultaneously and in real time.
Agency of action
Furthermore, throughout all interactions, a true metaverse will support full agency of action for all inhabitants. This means that rather than passively observing a story, or consuming content, those interacting in a true metaverse will be able to choose their own direction, build their own creations, and live their own digital lives with similar, maybe even higher levels of agency (personal choice) than in the real world.
These features will work together to spark construction of meaningful shared experiences for huge communities of like-minded people, extending reality to the limits of human imagination. When combined with spatial computing technologies, they will serve to provide a series of experiences that will be highly immersive, entertaining and full of personal value for their users.
We also feel that metaverse spaces should be:
Providing decentralized ownership of metaverse assets
Blockchain technology allows the creation of non-fungible assets that can be truly owned by their creators. This builds on the idea of personal agency to allow creator-led communities to expand near-limitlessly within metaverse experiences.
Driven by user or in-world economies
This then provides the building blocks for inhabitant or creator led economies that will sustain metaverse experiences.
In a similar way to real-world transactions, inhabitants will be able to create, sell and swap creations made by themselves or acquired from others. Creations need not to be limited to digital assets, and can also come in the form of in-world experiences, stories or events.
Interconnected and interoperable
The ideal future of the metaverse is one that is interconnected, interoperable yet still decentralized and free. This is probably one of the main areas of contention within metaverse building, as the tech, infrastructure and governance does not yet exist to describe interoperability in detail with confidence.
However, interoperability is one of Everdome’s key goals. We want to do our part to ensure inhabitants and communities across the metaverse can exchange ideas and own or transfer value while remaining independent of the monopolizing powers endemic in Web2.
We are therefore working on various different models to permit value and digital item transfer between metaverse experiences.
For the moment however, even simply a shared belief in the value and security of digital currency is one step towards interoperability and co-operation between metaverse experiences.
With this very basic and simplified explanation, we can start to see how the metaverse can provide a huge shift in human experience.
The metaverse has the potential, not only to place inhabitants at the center of their own stories where they can live to their potential in an extension of reality, but also to bring the humanity back to technology, moving civilization in a direction which is fundamentally more optimistic, unifying, creative and free.
In our next article in the Everdome Uncovered series, we will take a deeper look into some metaverse ancestors and proto-metaverses, to uncover how the metaverse is part of a much longer human tradition of imagination and storytelling.
#TheJourneyHasBegun