Is Virtual Reality Just What It is, or Is It Something More?

What Is the Metaverse?

The term “metaverse” is frequently used by tech CEOs. Mark Zuckerberg is adamant that Facebook be viewed as a “metaverse company” rather than a social media company, to the point that he renamed the firm “Meta.” Microsoft is building a “metaverse stack” for the corporate, according to Satya Nadella.

Snow Crash: The Origins of “Metaverse”

In his dystopian cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, released in 1992, author Neil Stephenson invented the word “metaverse.”

The metaverse is a form of 3D virtual reality in the novel. It’s not just a virtual reality game; it’s a shared, permanent virtual environment. Or, to put it another way, the metaverse is a vast network of interconnected virtual locations that you may move between.

You’re correct if this sounds like Ready Player One or a more technologically advanced version of Second Life.

In reality, Stephenson told Forbes in 2011 that video games like World of Warcraft were the genuine metaverse: virtual worlds that players could live with their buddies. In 2021, games like Minecraft and Fortnite may be closer to the metaverse vision he envisioned.

Is “Virtual Reality” Just a Rebranding of the “Metaverse”?

There are a plethora of excellent virtual reality headsets available. The Oculus Quest 2 is fantastic. It’s the future of virtual reality, and VR games like Beat Saber will persuade you of its benefits.

But let’s be honest: part of Mark Zuckerberg’s motivation for the metaverse is just a desire to rebrand virtual reality. It’s not just about playing games or using social media applications on an Oculus VR headset: it’s about getting into the metaverse!

If you’re using an augmented reality app, you’re right where you are. You’re in your physical world, seeing everything around you as usual, but there’s also some new information. As a result, virtual reality may transport you to a whole other fictitious world, similar to what is portrayed in Snow Crash’s Metaverse. You’re on the street, in the Black Sun, and your surrounds vanish as you enter the Metaverse. Hiro lives in a run-down shipping container in the novel, but when he travels to the Metaverse, he’s a big deal with access to super-expensive real estate.

Perhaps the Metaverse is the “Web 2.0” of the future

Is it the case with the metaverse? A large alternate digital simulation that we can access through VR headsets where we may pretend to live a wonderful life while living in “shabby shipping containers” as the reality around us decays, like in the novel?

Of course not, at least not according to Mark Zuckerberg. According to The Verge, he said:

The metaverse is a concept that encompasses several businesses, if not the whole industry. You may conceive of it as the mobile internet’s replacement… You might conceive of the metaverse as an embodied internet, where you are part of the material rather than just seeing it. And you feel as though you’re in other locations with other people, experiencing diverse sensations that you wouldn’t be able to have on a 2D app or webpage, such as dancing…
I believe that when most people think of the metaverse, they just think about virtual reality, which I believe will be a significant component of it… The metaverse, however, is more than simply virtual reality.It will be available on all of our multiple computing platforms, including VR and AR, as well as PC, mobile devices, and gaming console.

Zuckerberg goes on and on about how “the metaverse” is going to be the next big thing and that Facebook will be recognised as a “metaverse company” rather than a social media company “in the next five years or so.”
The notion of “the metaverse” appears to have more in common with “Web 2.0” to Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs. It’s a collection of cutting-edge technologies: Virtual reality headsets! Presence! Digital worlds that don’t go away! Imagine attending an office meeting in virtual reality while working from home — don’t worry, you can skip the VR equipment and participate via your laptop instead!
When you consider that Facebook owns Oculus, it’s easy to see why the firm would want to heavily promote a future VR platform.

“Digital Twins” and Microsoft

Microsoft’s metaverse vision appears to be meandering, buzzword-heavy language about “digital twins” and “converging the physical with the digital” with “mixed reality,” among other things. It’s possible using Microsoft’s Azure cloud!

Of course, as we found with Windows 10’s “Mixed Reality” headsets, Microsoft typically refers to that phrase as “Virtual Reality.” It can also refer to augmented reality: Microsoft, predictably, also has a headgear to sell you: the HoloLens.