The rebirth of’Metaverse’ 30 years ago… the reason it is reality, not a bubble[IT흥신소]

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In 2021, a word is swallowing up the IT industry. It is the’metabus’. This word, which appeared like a comet one day, has become a hot topic today.

What is the metaverse? It is a combination of’meta’ meaning’transcendence’ and’universe’ meaning world, and it is difficult to outline exactly what this word means. I’m going to explain what a metaverse is in a more understandable way.

Have you ever imagined living in a virtual world? Eating, working, making money, and meeting loved ones are all done in a virtual space. The existing virtual space was only possible in a way that was separate from reality, but the metaverse makes all of this possible in the context of reality. Whether’reality is connected’ distinguishes the difference between virtual space and metaverse.

There are movies that are often talked about when talking about metaverse. Right away <매트릭스>is. The place where the protagonist Neo thought it was a reality is the Matrix, and the place where he came out after eating’red medicine’ was a real world that he had never seen before.

People in the Matrix believe that it is reality. On the other hand, Neo, who took the red pill, fights fiercely with the’Andersons’ who are trying to defend the Matrix System in order not to be subordinate to the machine. Every day is like a war. <매트릭스>Is the’inverted version’ of the metaverse. The implication of the Matrix is ​​that the life we ​​live in may be a metaverse.

How was’Metaverse’ born? It goes back about 30 years from now. 1992 Neil Stevens’ science fiction novel <스노우 크래쉬>Is the beginning. Set in the background of’cyberpunk’, which means a near-future dystopia, the story is about solving the crime that occurs in the metaverse, an extension of reality.

Some of the terms in the novel are familiar to everyone. It is’Avatar’. This word for self in the metaverse will be reborn as a 2009 film of the same name. The term’second life’, which is often used in novels, was also born as a game in 2003. And in 2020, when Corona 19 spread and outside activities became difficult, the word metaverse in novels finally emerged as the tide of the times.

Then, how does the metaverse appear in the real world? The game’Fort Knight’ would be a good example. It is a game that is not very familiar to Koreans, but it has 350 million global subscribers and more than 10 million concurrent users.

In May of last year, the game will show musicians and movie screenings under the name’Party Royal’. Not in the physical space, but in the digital space. Afterwards, BTS also unveiled the choreography here, and rapper Travis Scott also held a hip-hop performance. If it were in the real world, it would not have been easy to participate due to the physical constraint of Corona 19, but because it is a virtual space, the physical barrier has disappeared. Fortnite is considered one of the smartest companies to use Metaverse.

Some games have suddenly become hotter recently. It is Roblox. Roblox gamers create another game within it and interact with others. Roblox provides only places (sandboxes) where people can play. This is what Roblox is called a sandbox-based open world metaverse game. The number of active users per month is about 150 million. Roblox, recently listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has a ransom of 40 trillion won.

Another question arises here. Why does metaverse appear actively only in’games’? Although digital spaces are usually called metaverses that extend reality, games stand out among them because they are probably the best environment to enjoy metaverses. And the game is also the most familiar space for the’Generation MZ’ born after the millennium in 2000.

Games and metaverses also achieved a business combination that was difficult to imagine in the past. ‘Louis Vuitton’, a luxury fashion brand that has partnered with League of Legends early, is the protagonist. We launched a game skin using our logo, and a bag and shoes with the game mark. Since the collaboration between the two companies took place in December 2019, before the metaverse became popular, I think there was an’eye to see the future’.

Why did Louis Vuitton choose the strategy of partnering with LoL? One market research stands out that MZ generation will occupy half of the world’s luxury goods market by 2025. Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with LoL is an unprecedented new strategy for promoting the brand to’potential customers’ in the near future. This method of incorporating games into non-games is called gamification.

Of course, there are also eyes of doubt about the metaverse. Like any popular song, it will be talked to people, but one day it will disappear like a bubble. Do you think so too?

Just think about this. Just 30 years ago we didn’t know the term Internet at all. But now it is like air to us. The concept of a platform is the same. Words that weren’t there before became keywords of the times that penetrated the modern industry in the 2010s.

And with the advancement of technology, there are those who foresee that the metaverse will be in the same position as these. Nvidia CEO Jensen Hwang and Softbank head Son Jeongeui. The two CEOs talked remotely at the’Softbank World Conference’ in November of last year and talked about the advent of the metaverse.

It is an era in which technological advancement is leading the impossible to possible. There is a growing expectation that even a metaverse without outlines will become a part of our lives. And it seems certain that extended reality technologies such as AR and VR will be the best helpers to help in that era.

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