The metaverse made 2 fatal errors
But the microverse will fix it.
I got asked yesterday by a young startup, “What’s the future of the metaverse?”
I kept it simple:
The future is microverses.
It wasn’t what they expected to hear.
Something happened during the hype cycles a few years ago where some builders inverted the direction of how to win the hearts of consumers, especially digitally native ones like gamers. And in the process, failed on their goals.
How? They set out to build metaverses. Vast wastelands of speculative land sales and coins. Once they built the landscape, they looked around and asked, “Why are we here?”
The metaverse began with an existential crisis.
Ecosystems like Decentraland and the Sandbox (amongst many others):
Focused on creating a shell 🦪 (which made for this weird concept of you’re either “in” a metaverse or you’re not).
It created a high barrier to entry 🔒 often involving steep costs to get involved.
They envisioned usage too broadly, by everyone 👨👩👦👦, therefore by no one.
Then, they tried to fill the vapid space with partnerships 🤝.
HSBC
Snoop Dogg
Gordon Ramsay
Gucci.
Seeing the thread? Me neither… The focus was on PR, and never the user. A grabbag of guesswork as to what various sets of consumers would care to see in a digital world (hint: it’s not banks…). It was no surprise, then, that these platforms had more employees than players. They tried to ram people through a tedious threshold into a box with no killer app ⚡️, but rather disparate, half-baked experiences and cavernous silence. No reason for being.
It would be like Disney World 🏰, but all the parks come from IP no human has ever seen. And also the rides are horrible and don’t work 🚫🎢.
And, importantly, these platforms thought they were going to be the final destinations. That most (if not all) of the experiences would take place in an ecosystem they controlled 🌐, and that our identities would be created from the things we did and bought there.
But that’s not how things work.
Directionality: Killer app first
The biggest “metaverses” of the moment started as games. Roblox, Fortnite:
They identified target users 👶🏼 (namely young gamers).
They built with discrete, core experiences 🍏.
They refined for engagement 📈.
They amassed tens of millions of DAUs who showed up for the killer app ☠️.
Users reinforced their love with strong networks of friends 💞.
Then, these games realized they had stumbled into creating worlds that were so beloved that users wanted to spend more time and do more in them. From which arise the opportunity for branded experiences 🛍, concerts 🎸, the ability to buy and sell 🛒, and more.
Focus: WE are the metaverse.
The metaverse isn’t a place. It’s a concept of interconnectedness and interoperability where we are the nexus. Where we carry the portraits 🖼 of ourselves—with all our baggage 🧳, likes and dislikes ❣️, feelings 🎭, clothes 🩱, and tools 🔧—and have them seamlessly infiltrate and be recognized in each environment we enter. Where those environments react to who we are to further tailor the experience and delight us.
But the common denominator is us.
It’s like going to Disney World 🏰 and having your time slot for Rise of the Resistance 🚀 fast tracked because the World recognizes you’re a Star Wars uber fan who, in related microverses, saw every movie 🎞 five times and bought every collectible there is 🧸.
Each environment—those microverses 🔬—serves us with core experiences, whether for fun (games and media), community (social networks), or utility and commerce (banking, shopping, etc). It’s our movement amongst these interconnected experiences creates the metaverse.
But each microsverse is, by necessity, built with a keen focus on its killer app.
What’s the specific thing we’re meant to do there and with whom, and how will it be made better because that microverse knows who we are and where we come from?
Case Study: Fortnite
Fortnite—in my opinion leading this charge in gaming—has taken its core experience and allowed for anyone to build “islands” 🏝 (i.e. in-game microverses) off of it, using the same account and tech ⚙️. Meaning, as a Fortnite player, I can continue to play the battle royale I know and love, or peel off for specific experiences built with my friends, by my favorite creators, or by brands. I can move around seamlessly, everything connected to me as a user.
Then, Epic allows partners with their own microverses to connect to theirs, united through the common user.
For example, Epic’s recent showcase with Nike looked like this:
A Nike-branded microverse island built on Fortnite 🏝
An account connection to Nike’s own microverse, dotSwoosh 👟
Engagement in the Fortnite island interacts with, and influences, outcomes in dotSwoosh ↕️
Right now, all of this happens using private servers. And the clunkiness there shows (i.e. it’s a five step process to connect your Nike and Fortnite accounts). Not exactly the seamlessness of us strolling into a new microsverse and having everything—all other accounts and items—come with us.
But that’s the promise of the blockchain ⛓. Not only vastly improving the user experience, but making these kinds of connections infinitely easier to integrate and scale. Easier on development teams, easier on users.
It’s not impossible for the metaverses that were built the last few years to find their footing and grow, but you can be sure it will be because of one tantalizing core experience, one microverse within the meta, that sparks the fire. And it won’t be built for the metaverse. It’ll be built for us.