Phil Maggs answers the big question , What on earth is The Metaverse and why is it something that event professionals should be paying attention to ?
A s buzzwords go ‘ The Metaverse ’ is an impressive one . It sounds futuristic and visionary . All of which is accurate . The Metaverse is already huge and it ’ s growing fast , it has a bright future ahead of it . But it takes a certain amount of imagination and good faith to embrace it .
So what is it ?
The Metaverse is the collective term for the net total of all shared virtual worlds , most of them being multiplayer video games . It is also referred to as web 3.0 , which is as good a measure of its transformative nature as any . It ’ s basically an emerging new arena of human interaction , much like social media was in its infancy . We know how fast a presence there went from nice-to-have , to an business necessity .
Why is this happening ?!
It ’ s basically down to human nature . Wherever people congregate for a purpose they will also invariably begin
using that space for general social interaction . The point
Phil Maggs Innovation Director Identity
of a shopping centre may be shopping , but it ’ s also a place to hang out with friends . The exact same thing is happening in multiplayer video games . People come to game but stay to hang out , meet new people and do fun stuff besides gaming . They do it in their billions – 2.4bn of them to be exact . That ’ s the current number of active online gamers in the world . They stay for a long time . One hour and 10 minutes on average a day .
Let me put it this way : that ’ s currently one hour and 10 minutes out of reach of your media and marketing if you are not in The Metaverse . But that is changing …
But really , why should I care ?
Because like it or not , this kind of premise will be a large part of the future of all marketing , communications and events and the good news is we already have skills in this area . Within the events , experiential and conference sector ; we are experts at creating in three dimensions , thinking about every guest ’ s journey and how to impart complex messages in simple ways .
What do people like to do in The Metaverse , besides gaming and socialising ?
Well , the main takeaway from games is basically that we all love exciting experiences . Brands , companies , sports enterprises and artists are waking up to the fact that providing their audiences with epic and lasting experiences is a great way to interact with them in The Metaverse .
The Metaverse has begun to feature several kinds of branded experiences some of them game-related , but also concerts , meetings and product launches . Fuelled by the pandemic some metaverse spaces are being utilised as work environments .
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