Into the Metaverse

How I Met Your Metaverse

I had never heard of "Ready Player One" until it showed up on my Prime Video feed.  The title didn't interest me (It sounds like a gamer movie I might have enjoyed as a kid, right?)  I didn't recognize any of the actors on the poster either, so I didn't watch it.  A while later I learned it was directed by Steven Spielberg and that piqued my interest, so I finally watched it.  I loved it!

The storyline was interesting, the acting was fine, the overall production was, of course, Spielberg quality.  Lots of 80's nostalgia was a pleasant bonus. But what really made the movie stand out was the vision of the metaverse it presented.  It was an entire virtual world complete with haptic hardware allowing you to truly be immersed in it.  

Side note:  I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the movie was based on the book "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline (Purchase through this link and earn me a commission.  Why isn't there a smiley emoji with $ eyes???  Picture this 😍 with $ instead of 💗.  Update: Nevermind on the commission.  I am apparently not a lucrative enough source of income for Amazon so they booted me from their associates program.  I do not earn any commissions for links on this page anymore).  The book was fantastic as well but in a different way than the movie.  The 80's nostalgia in the book was over-the-top with lots of deep cut references that I didn't get, even having lived through the 80's! 

 I would go on, but this post is about the metaverse, however, so back on topic...

State of the Metaverse

Meta just announced their new VR headset, the Occulus Quest Pro and most of the headlines and articles I have read about it have been primarily negative.  Similarly, most of the news I read on Meta is negative.  Granted, a lot of that news comes from financial sites which may be warranted given Meta's stock price woes at the moment.  A common theme is backlash against the metaverse.  My take: those authors don't get it.

To be fair, my opinion is heavily influenced by the vision of the metaverse created in "Ready Player One."  I believe we will get there.  I also believe we have a long way to go.  I have plenty of negative things to say about the metaverse as it stands today.  I understand, and for the most part agree with, all of the complaints detailed in various articles and reviews.  However, I do not agree with the conclusion that because of these flaws and problems the metaverse is doomed to failure.

Hardware

VR hardware currently leaves a lot to be desired.  I bought an Oculus Quest 2 to dip my toes into the world of VR and am not impressed.  The Fresnel lenses used to create the 3D effect don't provide a perfectly focused view throughout your entire field of vision.  Things get line-y toward the edges.  Your eyes have to be perfectly centered for stuff to be in focus.  The new Quest Pro reportedly ditches the Fresnel lenses and goes to something called pancake lenses which they claim gives you 25% full-field sharpness improvement in the center and 50% in the peripheral view.  Sounds great!  Unfortunately, at the $1500 price tag, I won't be finding out first-hand what that 25% and 50% improvement looks like.  That price is going to have to come down a lot before I can justify purchasing one.  That will happen, too.  Hardware always evolves and improves while at the same time reducing its cost.  We are still very early in the Metaverse.

Content- Where is the Killer App?

I've played a few games and watched a bunch of 3D videos, and while it is novel, none of it made me want to come back for more.  There is potential though.  I really wanted to take virtual aerial tours of places.  I found videos on Youtube of VR tours of interesting locales, but they inevitably were shot with 360-degree views which 1. requires you to turn around and crane your neck to look up and down and 2. requires so much resolution for the whole 360-degree view that even with an 8K resolution feed, whatever small patch you focus on has far fewer pixels than is needed to render that area sharply. 

I visited the VR websites of some museums, but it seemed like I spent more time navigating or trying to navigate around than enjoying the collections.   

When I did finally view a painting, for example, there was rarely any additional content available to read about it.  The content producers of these tours and videos are too focused on the gimmicky aspects of VR lost sight of what people really want: immersion.  I want to go on a tour while sitting in my recliner with a curated 180-degree view that I don't have to move my head all around to see everything. 

I tried out Meta's Horizon World for the first time today after learning a little more about it in an article.  It sounds like the closest thing to Spielberg's vision of the Metaverse.  Like with the hardware, I was underwhelmed.  That might be my fault, though.  In real life, I'm fairly uncomfortable in new social situations.  It turns out that translates to the metaverse as well.  I had no desire to walk up to a random group of people that were chatting and introduce myself.  I could see that changing if I found a location populated with people discussing a certain topic or if I could meet up with real life friends in the metaverse.  The cartoonish rendering is also a downer.  If it were more realistic, I would probably enjoy it more.  The new Quest Pro headset is supposed to help with this by using cameras to track eye movement and allow your avatar to mirror your facial expressions.  That will be a good step forward.

One topic not broached by any of the articles I read is adult content.  I don't have any current statistics handy, but reports from roughly 10 years ago indicated that one third of Internet traffic was porn.  It's not hard to imagine similar percentages of adult oriented entertainment for the Metaverse.  Again, I'm lazy on the research, but there must be a virtual strip club out there where you tip with real dollars.  VR seems like a natural fit for adult content and given the volumes we are talking about, that could sell a lot of headsets.  And haptics.  Those early adopters will drive the improvements and fund the next generations of equipment until it is good enough and affordable enough for mainstream adoption.

What could go wrong?

There will be problems.  There will be things to work out.  There will be more bad press.  How do you keep the metaverse from devolving into a lawless free-for-all when you combine millions of people with the shield of anonymity?  

I don't know.  We'll learn.  We'll adapt, just like we did and are still doing with the Internet.  Horizon World has a number of prominent features that let you silence people, block them and let them know what rules you have, such as no profanity and stuff like that.  So, people are already working on solutions to these problems.   There are also psychological ramifications.  Who would've predicted that photo sharing apps would lead to depression, body image problems etc. for some people?  I'm not even going to try to predict what influence the metaverse will have in these areas, but an alternate reality for people to escape to and inhabit seems like fertile ground for a bumper crop of social issues.  I do predict we will evolve and adapt to it.

Conclusions

I get what Meta and Mark Zuckerberg are trying to do.  I have the same hopes.  The people writing off the metaverse as a fad are wrong.  This is no Cabbage Patch Kid.  Or fidget spinner for my more youthful readers.  The people scoffing at holding VR meetings or hanging out with their friends virtually haven't glimpsed the potential.  It is the future.  It may be hard to see now.  The companies that are taking the lead today likely won't be the big winners tomorrow (which is making it hard to invest in!)  It will be disruptive.  I can't predict how, but like music streaming killed the CD, the Metaverse will change the world as we know it.

Editorial Note:  I am not sure whether "Metaverse" should be capitalized or not.  I spent a solid minute researching it and found answers saying it should be capitalized and other answers saying it should not be.  In honor of this confusion, I'm leaving it both ways in this blog post.  How I felt when writing that particular instance is how you'll see it.