Issue #3: The End Game of the Metaverse Evolution aka Web 3.0
Web 3.0 is the end-product of numerous developments and swings on the hinges of a transformational shift from Web 2.0. The swirling twist of events and announcements played a crucial role in shaping the mosaic of the metaverse as we know it today.
Now that we are on the last phase of the evolution of the metaverse, let's dive right into the nitty gritties and understand the importance of each one of them.
A New Facet In The World of Games
2016: The game Pokemon Go became a household name right after its release in the US, New Zealand and Australia on 6 July 2016. It spread like wildfire, so much so that it quickly became one of the most downloaded apps in the world.
In fact, in its first month of release, the game broke five world records. It also has the feathers of ‘most downloaded mobile game - over 130 million downloads’ and ‘most money earned by a mobile game - more than $200 million’.
2018: The game developer, Epic Games reaped the rewards of a bold strategy hatched in 2012 as its game ‘Fortnite’ became the world’s most popular game. It banked $3 billion in profit for the year.
Fortnite is free to play but makes money by selling digital items. It has successfully popularised the battle royale category — think Lord of the Flies meets Hunger Games — almost single-handedly, and also has been the standout title for the U.S.-based game publisher.
Music Meets Gaming
2019: Imagine joining a concert by DJ Marshmello while being a part of a game? Seems too much to imagine but it was turned into reality in September 2019 when millions of people attended a concert by DJ Marshmello in the wildly popular online game Fortnite.
He performed live in the game in a virtual reality spectacle that was lauded by fans. Social media was flooded with footage of the performance that showed in-game avatars dancing enthusiastically throughout the 10-minute show, in which weapons were disabled.
The Virtual Form of Real Estate
2020: A 3D virtual world browser-based platform, Decentraland became the talk of the town as soon as it was launched in February 2020. It lets people buy virtual plots of land in the platform as NFTs via the MANA cryptocurrency, which uses the Ethereum blockchain.
Brands like Samsung, Adidas, Atari, PricewaterhouseCoopers appeared in Decentraland or bought "properties" in it. Well, if this astounded you enough, brace yourself for more.
Decentraland also hosted Metaverse Fashion Week with fashion brands like Dolce & Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger, Elie Saab, Perry Ellis, Imitation of Christ, and Estée being a part.
December 4, 2021 witnessed the most unimaginable event. Virtual land adjacent to Snoop Dogg’s Sandbox estate sold for $450,000 in ETH. Riding back to the course of events that are a prelude to it, Snoop partnered with blockchain-based virtual metaverse, The Sandbox, and acquired land in it.
Trendsetting Shifts of Tech Giants to Metaverse
2021: In September 2021, Alibaba created cloud game Yuanjing, building an XR laboratory, and launching NFT platform Jingtan. In the Metaverse, Alibaba is quite a renowned name with its two core advantages: Metaverse solutions based on cloud computing and combining e-commerce user experience optimization with the Metaverse. It has a colossal storehouse of experience in cloud computing, with a public cloud that ranks third in the global market, only after Amazon and Microsoft.
October 28, 2021: The most unexpected event happened on October 28, 2021 - Facebook changed its name to Meta. With this move, Facebook didn't simply change its name or rebrand but fundamentally changed the direction of the company.
They've identified the next innovation aka big thing and gone all-in--while they are still at the top. However, the users have taken this news with a pinch of salt.
2022: The morning of January 28 was a testament to Microsoft Corp announcing plans to acquire Activision Blizzard Inc, a leader in interactive entertainment content and games publishers. This acquisition will amplify the growth in Microsoft’s gaming business across all mediums and provide building blocks for the metaverse.
For $95.00 per share, it will be an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion, inclusive of Activision Blizzard’s net cash. This acquisition will make Microsoft the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony.
The Journey So Far
Metaverse has come a long way from being mentioned for the first time ever in Sci-fi novel ‘Snow Crash’ to being an integral part of several games back in 1970s to 1990s. It then boils down to several community experiences with Second Life getting to the spotlight. All of these major developments together combine to be the first phase of the evolution of metaverse.
Switch to 2004 and Roblox made its grand entry with Runescape and Playstation Home, World of Warcraft winning hearts and interest of gaming aficionados. Seeing the attention that these multiplayer online games were garnering from across the globe, big tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft acquired the leading games in 2014. This chain of events played a very crucial role in putting together the second phase of the metaverse.
Enters Web 3.0 - the cornerstone of the metaverse that we see today. If that seems a little too fancy to read, then you will be astounded to know that ‘The total amount in USD people spent purchasing Web3 metaverse land from 2017 till date is $2,759,623,700.
The below mentioned infographic clearly states that Metaverse swings on the hinges of Web 3.0 and all the aspects such as blockchain network, virtual economies, decentralisation and much more together form the Metaverse ecosystem.
Conclusion
The above mentioned developments in the world of gaming, technology and music together amalgamated to put Web 3.0 in front of the world. However, these are just tip of the iceberg as a lot more advancements have a hand in it too. The major shift from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0 have enabled the users of today’s time to immerse themselves into every aspect of how they interact with the web.
Well, this isn’t the end of the story as the metaverse is evolving or in other words, ‘a work in progress’ - that will have a lot more concepts, updates and technological advancements unfolding in the near future. And now that you know about where Metaverse has come from, stay put as we will soon take you for a ride into the world of Metaverse and it’s various features and aspects that are going to be mind boggling. Are you game?