Mark Zuckerberg announced "his" vision of the future being the Metaverse. Except this wasn't his idea or anything new. In fact the idea is as old as video games.

We have had Secondlife for a long time, and that didn't go the way intended. Sony attempted their own take on the Metaverse with Playstation Home on the PS3. It came preloaded but hardly any owners ran it or even knew it was there.

Many multiplayer games have had their own take on the Metaverse idea. RPGs often have meeting places or hubs within their games where characters meet to chat, discuss, trade, form guilds or parties.

Authors such as William Gibson have explored the concept (and what could could wrong), and many have explored the idea of whole civilizations living in a virtual reality world (The Matrix, The 13th Floor, The Lawnmower man, Vanilla Sky, Tron, Inception, Existenz, Dark City etc. Even some are now considering Blade Runner might have actually been a concept in VR).

Back to the Metaverse. One conpany bought into his new Metaverse idea and having spent $1.2 Billion on their virtual world were shocked to discover only 38 people are online in 24 hours. Oh dear.

I've worked in the design world and IT for over 20 years. My main area being interactive electronic visual communication. Using technology and UI to create interactive environments for users to communicate with customers using technology as a visual language. Therefore I should be embracing the idea of the Metaverse. But I'm not.

If you are still confused. The concept of the Metaverse (MV). A VR where everyone can coexist to interact with store fronts, businesses, connect with people for business or pleasure. To access anything and everything in a single virtual space. If you didn't know what the Metaverse concept was before, well that's what it basically is.

And it wants to expand more into the ideas of Secondlife or something like Animal Crossing, where virtual currency in the MV can be exchanged to buy virtual realestate, decorate and furnish your virtual house or wardrobe. Or visit virtual bars and nightclubs, go to a location to play a game of VR chess or tennis with someone.

Why am I therefore not embracing it? It's just another VR virtual world "game". The world and avatars still look very much like they belong on the Wii. And what's the point? If you havecto try to convince people to use something then it's failed from the start. Most people don't want to wear axheavy restrictive VR headset all day, and either do doctors.

What's your view on the Metaverse? Did you even really know what it was?

But, everything does need to start somewhere and concepts like this from large companies that have the resources to create such things without the worry a small startup would face is a good thing. It means these ideas and concepts can be fully explored and tested. I just don't see a big market or success here.
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