We are living days in which Facebook (Meta) announces 10,000 more layoffs and questions the development of the metaverse, while the movie Everything Everywhere at the Same Time (2022) wins seven Oscars with a crazy story that evokes how this platform in the future will be part of our lives. It is the symptom that this technology is still looking for what it wants to be.
But while the metaverse tries to define itself and take off commercially, it has already devoured economic resources like never before in the history of technological advances of our era: since 2019 it has accumulated some 36,000 million dollars in investments, according to calculations presented ago. few days by IESE professor Miguel Antón, who even dared to give a class to his students in a metaverse universe (forgive the redundancy), with the help of virtual glasses, in which each student had their own avatar ( and the teacher too).
According to their research, in comparison this platform (in which Facebook is heavily invested) has already cost more than ten times the money that was allocated for the creation of the iPhone between 2002 and 2007 (a device that has 1,200 million in the world of users) and six times the capital required to launch the Android operating system (between 2005 and 2008) and which is now present in more than 2,000 million devices. More comparisons: nine times the investments that Microsoft’s Xbox made in 2001 have already entered the metaverse and, depending on the source considered, this virtual platform would have already exceeded the entire amount invested in the last decade in terms of capital Several manufacturers have dedicated themselves to the implementation of the 100% autonomous car (whose release to the mass market, like the metaverse, is still pending).
This virtual world where users share experiences and interact in real time in simulated scenarios is, in the words of Miguel Antón, a “decentralized, social, creative, persistent, reactive and interoperable” technology. In his opinion, there are still challenges to solve, from the current limitation of 5G, energy consumption, system compatibility, data use and privacy, as well as advertising regulation.
But the key is who gets there first. As Epic Games founder Tim Sweeny said, “This is like a race. Whoever manages to attract a billion users to the platform first will be considered the leader who sets the standards.” The gateway is video games, which already have potential customers. This would explain, for example, why Microsoft aspires to take over the Activision Blizzard sector company, with an expense of 70,000 million dollars, the largest in its business history.
From there, it’s all a flourish of operations. Miguel Antón has compiled a series of specific cases of development. Investment in venture capital in augmented or virtual reality firms since 2017 already exceeds 21,000 million dollars, according to Crunchbase; McKinsey estimates that 80% of fashion brands already use the metaverse for marketing, while three out of four companies in the tourism or healthcare sectors have been on the platform for meetings or events; the US military just signed a $22 million contract with Microsoft for virtual glasses to help them in field operations; Accenture has decided to buy 60,000 Oculus devices for training and Zara has sold a new collection for avatars in the metaverse.
From fantasy to reality, going through billions. The consultancy Bloomberg Intelligence figures the global business of the metaverse of 700,000 million euros already for next year. A movie story.
