ABSTRACT
The Metaverse has vast potential – both as a pioneering new sector of the media business, and a distribution channel for all existing ones. But the Metaverse is conceptually imprecise. Whatever its exact definition, the Metaverse will require require key drivers: Presence, Persistence, Scaling, an Economy and Interoperability. Games software tools such as Unreal Engine and Unity are key potential software building blocks. Other major firms such as Apple, NVIDIA, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are seeking to build solutions. Fundamental AI technologies are essential to manage the calculating power required for the Metaverse to be useable at scale. For this, self-supervised learning is a much faster analytical tool than supervised learning approaches. ‘Egocentric perception’ (POV in film-speak) must be coded, to train AI systems for the first-person perspective that the Metaverse will require. Business development of the Metaverse will require market research, business strategy, plus smart selection and deployment of games engines, social media experience, VR and other technologies. Production of Metaverse-ready environments will equally require clear strategy, very substantial finance, a platform selection and core technologies. Distribution of a Metaverse solution will need further substantial finance, alongside interoperability with existing platforms and migration of existing user bases. Monetisation will require iteration of classic models – advertising, subscription revenue, e-commerce, in-game consumption, data – in, as yet, unclear Metaverse-specific processes. It is quite possible that the Metaverse may never be delivered as currently imagined.
