There are 141 virtual worlds but investors are betting on the usual three metaverses
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Many virtual worlds, no metaverse and the money that for now goes only to the usual suspects. An analysis of the new Augmented Reality and Metaverse Observatory of the School of Management of the Milan Polytechnic tried to survey what is “left” of the metaverse now that we say the dust has settled, the announcements have decreased and someone has begun to do the math . «There are already 141 virtual worlds in existence, populated by the Avatars of hundreds of millions of people, with different rules, functions and business models», reads a preview of the research that will be presented in its entirety on April 20th. to date there are 220 companies globally, the projects are instead only 308, 84% of which were developed on three platforms: The Sandbox (43%), Decentraland (23%) and Roblox (15%). As proof, the Polimi researchers write, that companies prefer to launch initiatives within the most well-known and mature worlds.
What’s left of the metaverse?
After the initial media hype, in fact, we realized that the metaverse with a capital I still doesn’t exist. Zuckerberg’s, the most ambitious, is still in the laboratories and risks being bogged down by the crisis that is affecting all of US big tech. For the others, there are no common standards, there is no interoperability project that can push the inhabitants of the “new worlds” to create new contents. And companies to invest in transversal and sustainable communication projects and services.
The map of virtual worlds
In this sense, a map of these initiatives is needed more than ever, which otherwise risk being downgraded to re-branding operations of existing things or worse to technological “marketing” initiatives. According to the Observatory’s analysis, of the 141 existing virtual worlds, only 44% (62 platforms) are already Metaverse Ready, i.e. they are freely accessible by anyone, persistent (that is, they continue to exist regardless of the presence or absence of a subject) , economically active, equipped with 3D graphics, with interoperability components that would allow the use of digital assets in a cross-platform manner. This category includes platforms such as Decentraland, The Sandbox or the Italian The Nemesis. 33% of worlds are Open World, i.e. it is an open, persistent, modular and immersive virtual space, such as for example Horizon Worlds, one of Meta’s flagship products. Finally, 19% belong to the Focused World category, i.e. sectoral virtual worlds whose projects are focused on a particular area of interest (gaming, commerce, training, work collaboration), such as Fortnite and Microsoft Mesh. Then there are Showrooming World (4% of the total), such as Musee Dezentralvirtual showcases intended for display, for example for works of art by artists and collectors, without the possibility of creation by the user and without the presence of an internal economy.
As for investments…
As for projects, the majority concern the Retail (30%), Entertainment (30%) and IT (17%) sectors, but there are also 9% Finance and Insurtech projects and 5% Food&Beverage. Most offer services to entertain the brand community and attract new targets, to increase visibility or provide consumers with a new touchpoint for purchasing products.
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