The idea of the ‘Metaverse’ was originally created in 1992 by the writer Neal Stephenson in his novel ‘Snow Crash’, as a mixture of the real world with a ‘virtual’ reality. ‘Meta’ means in old greek ‘beyond’ and verse comes from ‘universe’, i.e., the concept proposes a parallel virtual universe, which could be gradually mixed with reality.

The world of videogames has always been based on virtual realities, with virtual characters, normally called ‘avatars’, which are a virtual version of ourselves.

Now some of the largest technology groups (the so called ‘Big Tech’), led by Facebook, have adopted this idea to create a new concept of reality, which could have many applications and implications. So far, virtual reality has had some applications, but limited to very specific use cases, such as videogames, virtual training and science, virtual fitting rooms etc.

But yet, no large-scale application of virtual reality has been achieved. Could a large-scale revolution be achieved now with the Metaverse?

In our experience and opinion, the greatest inventions in the world of technology have always been successful at a large scale when they have brought a significant advantage for daily life to people. For example, the proliferation of mobile phones and social networks has happened because they allow people to make things in their daily life, which they have not been able to do before, such as accessing information, communicate in a variety of ways with friends, colleagues or followers in social networks in a ubiquitous manner, i.e., always and everywhere.

Therefore, we believe that the Metaverse may possibly become a technology of mass adoption, but only if it manages to provide a significant advantage in the daily life of people. For example, if we could use some type of optical device (some type of glasses) on a regular basis, which could provide a mixture of reality and virtual -connected- help. It could be called something like an ‘assisted reality’.

However, we believe that there may still be a long road to go until a technology of this type achieves sufficient maturity for a mass adoption, and several issues need to be solved, such as privacy and security, but it opens a hole new world of possibilities, both use and business possibilities for many types of players, and several powerful ones are actively working on it..