Suddenly, from the end of 2021, those who produced or designed video games, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) or mixed reality (MR) experiences, digital twins, or even devices and solutions that somewhat resembled a 3D virtual world, claimed to be producing metaverses or participating in their development (see "The Metaverse’s alter egos"). The CEO of Reddit even went so far as to claim that his community website "was already a metaverse before its time, but with a deliberately minimalist user interface”.
The attraction, for these solution providers is not so much the design of the Metaverse, or part of it, but rather being included in the media hype surrounding it. Unlike the virtual worlds of the early 2010s (Second Life, Habbo Hotel, Poptropica, Club Penguin, etc.), the Metaverse, in its 2021 version, is embodied by Meta (see “The eight fundamental building blocks”), one of the world's largest multinationals. This company's positioning in relation to the Metaverse has had an immediate and phenomenal knock-on effect on a large number of digital players (business players, academics, institutions, etc.).
Some also see it as a way for many companies to present what they are already doing in a new light, more "futuristic than the internet", and which is "generating enthusiasm among investors and the media.
Yet another “new economic eldorado”
This opportunism was in response to the lure of the economic windfall that Metaverse potentially represented, which was quickly fuelled by numerous economic analyses, of varying degrees of accuracy, nurturing the prospect of a "new economic El Dorado”.
Some studies estimate a "market opportunity of over one trillion billion dollars in terms of annual revenues”, while others go further, estimating that the "total addressable market for the Metaverse could be between 8 and 13 trillion dollars by 2030, with total Metaverse users [...] numbering around five billion”. Behind these figures there are, above all, very different methods of calculation and scopes of analysis, which call for the utmost caution when they are quoted or even manipulated.
In short, there is a strong probability that the internet will see economic growth over the next few years, an increase in sales of virtual/augmented/mixed reality headsets, and more and more immersive experiences supporting the development of a specific economy. But comparing figures, as long as they don't relate to the same objects, is of little interest. Some studies even go so far as to consider that it is "impossible to predict, a priori, all of the areas in which metaverse technologies will be used, the extent of adoption of the metaverse, the innovations that will be developed that build upon the metaverse, and all of their associated economic impacts. Similarly, it is not possible to quantify all of the displacement effects of the metaverse to derive the net economic impact. In other words, there is no 'metaverse' to measure today”.
Test and acculturate as soon as possible
Beyond the promotional rhetoric that would have us believe the opposite, very rarely do companies give in-depth thought to the added value of the scenarios they are testing in the Metaverse. Their primary aim is to pre-empt possible disruptions and not “miss out” on the Metaverse bandwagon should it reach safe harbour. They are there to test, to experiment, and to learn.
