The latest Navigating the Metaverse Podcast focuses on how companies are approaching the Metaverse, and where it could go next.
Podcast hosts, Tommaso di Bartolo and Cathy Hackl were joined by Andrew Hayward of Decrypt and Josh Roth of Decrypt Studios, the guests on their podcast.
Josh Roth works in project development at Decrypt Studios. Andrew Hayward is a Senior Writer at Decrypt.
Besides, the podcast shares experiences and gives listeners guidance on the business opportunities in Web3. Let’s take a look at the conversations in detail.
Andrew Hayward: I think we will get there, but it may not happen anytime soon. It feels like we see people talking about the Metaverse, we see announcements, But, it’s not entirely clear which version of what their idea is of the Metaverse.
Some people when they talk about the Metaverse it’s clear that it’s about crypto, blockchain technology, ownership, and interoperability. For other people, such as Facebook or Tencent it’s like a closed ecosystem. Thus, they may not be too friendly with start-ups or new projects. An example is the case of Microsoft and Activision, I read their announcement and I don’t see anything that makes me think of a crypto ecosystem of NFTs. For them, it feels like more of VR/AR.
At the moment, it makes it feel nebulous/unclear, and it may take time before we have a term that everyone can agree on or a term that better solves the differences between them.
Josh Roth: This is a good question as we have been in the development, to a certain degree where there is an acquisition of a lot of these spaces. Then, there is a question of what comes next, because now that we have these locations (Metaverse), what can we do there.
From our end at Decrypt, we have started to think about Metaverse defense, experiences with activations, and some fun projects that we have been working on. A fun part about this is that going into a Metaverse space, we don’t have to be bound by limitations in the physical space, we can go to different spaces, we can fly, and much more. So, it’s fun to see how people can be creative with the experience that they create which are beyond replication of reality. And I think this is going to be what will push people into these worlds to start having fun.
Josh Roth: That was actually a bit of fun, we were approached to hold a Metaverse film premier. So what we created in the virtual world was a screening that took its direction from a very popular meme to the moon in the crypto world. We have a Metaverse screening on the moon complete with sort of a landing site.
The film was about Gamestop, it was called Gamestop rising the players. It was about the whole Gamestop phenomenon of January 2021 with the stock going to the moon, and so on. We had some fun activations and some fun events.
It’s also kind of an example of what I was just speaking about, and that, you know, we could have held this event in a movie theatre, which a lot of you know, some of the other screenings that have happened to the universe, which is fine and fun. And I’ve seen them they actually look really great. At the same time. I can walk into a movie theatre in the real world, and it’s wonderful. But it doesn’t, it doesn’t take advantage of the technology. And I think that is part of the reason the response to the event was so great, both with the attendees and for people who wrote about it and so on is that it was something new was something interesting. It wasn’t something you can do in real life, which is part of the fundamental verse.
Andrew Hayward: I was just gonna say I got to sit in a Lambo on the moon and watch the movie with my boss who I’d never met in real life at that point. So, I mean, I’m probably not gonna get to do that in real life. And that was a pretty cool experience.
Andrew Hayward: Yeah, I mean, that sounds like an exciting opportunity. It has that potential to really feel what we see in developers and sort of have that that missing link filled so that it doesn’t just feel purely digital and purely in your head and sort of like, you could wear something that gives you haptic feedback, for example, and that way it sorts of translating the experience of digital into, you know, your physical experience. So, you know, I guess we probably need to get a little further along in terms of Metaverse adoption and get more of the infrastructure up before there’s significant demand for it, but I wouldn’t blame any companies for starting to build that direction. It could potentially be huge.
Tommaso: Josh, so what are your thoughts on the opportunities for connection between the physical and then the digital world?
Josh Roth: I mean, it clearly seems to be a step that will come at some point because the point of all this is the feeling that the experience is really about the immersion and right now we can see it in the future. Being able to feel it or smell it or you know, be completely surrounded by it or truly be able to walk through it like yeah, these are this is the dream-like this is the future. So I mean, it makes total sense to me. And I think it’s definitely coming in at some point.
Josh Roth: For me the main thing that we really took from it, the main value add is proximity and location. We had people who visited this experience from all over the world. And once the actual screening was done, we kept the room online for a week so that people again, could come in, see what it looked like see what the options were, and see what the possibilities were.
Andrew Hayward: I would think that there’d also be a big value addition in creating that unique scenario. Like you were always going to remember that you saw a movie on the moon in a Lambo versus just sitting in the theatre or even just sitting in like a VR version of a movie theatre. You know, it’s something really unique that really amplified the experience.
Josh Roth: It’s interesting, I would say the first big question is to get creative. Like what’s the best version of what you want to do because you can do it, you know, you can do it in the Metaverse.
Yeah, I wouldn’t expect that there’s going to be one blockchain platform and ecosystem that’s going to win out. I feel like there are so many different options and they’re similar in operation. But there are benefits to some over others and you know, over time, the technology will get better. There’ll be more capabilities that are easier to use, and cheaper to use. So there’s probably a lot of growth and transition and disruption that will happen in that space. But even in terms of kind of platforms and brands.
We hope you got a look into where some of the leading metaverse projects are looking to grow from here.
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