Will the Primary Purpose of the Metaverse be to Escape Reality or Create an Alternate One?

Carl Torrence is a Content Marketer at Marketing Digest. His core expertise lies in developing data-driven content for brands, SaaS businesses, and agencies. He is an avid sci-fi fan. This is his second contribution to 21st Century Tech Blog writing about a subject that is increasingly in the news now that Facebook has changed its name to Meta. That subject, of course, is the metaverse. When he first approached me about writing about gaming in the Metaverse I asked him to expand on the subject to look at the social impact of escapist media. The following are his thoughts on how gaming may alter our perception of reality.

Our reality is becoming increasingly virtual with everyone governed by online social behaviours and norms. And online 3D games have moved us into the virtual space in ways many would have never contemplated. So much so that we are developing systems to provide us with an alternate reality where we act without fear of prosecution or judgement. This is a world we are calling the Metaverse.

The Metaverse: Changing How We Live

The term Metaverse was coined by Snow Crash author Neal Stephenson in 1992. It refers to a 3D digitized world. Long a subject in the virtual reality gaming community, the Metaverse is described by some as integral to our future, changing the way we live our lives. Replacing physical reality with a virtual one may sound like science fiction, but it’s already beginning to become a real possibility.

The sense of immersion in 3D virtual games today is getting better and better. That world feels more real than ever before. But will it become our main means of escape from reality much like television and movies today? 

Metaverse: Virtual Travel

The Metaverse is paving the way for us to experience real or fictitious places from the comfort of our homes. Open-world games are a great way to escape the current real-world pandemic and the existential threat of global warming. One example of a virtual fictitious place can be found in the game, Red Dead Redemption 2 (see an image from it at the top of this posting). The virtual reality it provides is a pastoral experience representing a patchwork of different areas of the United States in the late 19th century. 

With immersive games, we can visit islands and cities, travel through time or space, find ourselves deep in the jungle, or even create a virtual world of our own design? 

Metaverse: Virtual Assets

Today, buying a gaming PC online enables us to do more than play computer games. It allows us to buy virtual assets. For example, in June of last year, Republic Realm purchased a virtual plot in Decentraland, a virtual world. The purchase done with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) was valued at $913,228.20. Several artists and investors have joined in this trend to acquire virtual properties on platforms paying with cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

Metaverse: Virtual Industries

The online virtual world of the Metaverse is showing up in other ways. One can check out a house for purchase virtually. We no longer have to physically do a walk-through when we can do it virtually. Recently it was reported that 50% of U.S. adults on the Internet have taken virtual tours. And according to another survey, 63% of home buyers reportedly made offers on homes without seeing them in person.

And it’s not just real estate where the Metaverse is becoming a part of our reality. Today beauty is one of several consumer-centric industries that are buying into the virtual world experience. One example is Charlotte Tilbury, which introduced its first virtual store in 2020. Fast forward to 2022, and now we can visit the company’s virtual stores and game-based islands. Called Charlotte Tilbury’s Virtual Beauty Gifting Wonderland, it is an online shop and virtual beauty consultation site and if a visitor finds three hidden keys on one of the virtual islands it unlocks an exclusive lipstick shade.

Metaverse: Virtual or Not

From what we have previously described it is becoming obvious that the Metaverse is blurring the definition of online gaming while at the same time creating an escapist alternate reality for Internet users to explore. Will more industries join in providing immersive virtual world experiences? Will automobile manufacturers create virtual environments for us to outfit and test drive our next vehicle? Will our jobs be immersed in the Metaverse and will we ever have to leave homes again to experience reality or rather live vicariously in the virtual one? 

In 1909, E. M. Forster wrote the novella, “The Machine Stops,” where we interacted with the world by bringing it to us rather than going out to experience it. Was he foreshadowing the Metaverse? Will this be our future?