If there's anything I've learned from 2021 it's that the world's new favorite term for interactive video media - games - is "metaverse." The same way companies of yesteryear talked about cloud-everything, now we have companies all claiming they're building it. (For the record, we do, too - gotta fit in with the cool kids.)

What really IS the Metaverse, though? If seemingly every game with social elements claims to be it, there must be a familiar pattern, right? Fortnite is the Metaverse according to Epic. Roblox is the Metaverse, according to Roblox. Selling an image of an NFT on OpenSea is a Metaverse, according to some dude who totally didn't take it from google images.

The Metaverse could be how these assets interact with each other. The Metaverse could be a way that people socialize and engage. The Metaverse may also be the medium that connects you with content.

If we look at what Meta is building with Oculus - a genuinely virtual world - the only real difference between that and, say, Roblox is the medium you access it with. Meta wants you to see everything through a VR headset, while other platforms allow you to connect however you like. That means the Metaverse isn't just an immersive reality.

These are all plausible, but I have to step back: Is Metaverse just the 2021 word for "Internet"?

If seemingly anything is part of the Metaverse, doesn't that make everything part of it? Is the device you're reading this on not a window into the Metaverse already?

Personally, I'd consider the Metaverse an actual decentralized virtual reality. 

Let's break that down.

If you're wearing a red t-shirt - that exists. You just are. Someone can look at you and see that you're wearing that. Your ownership of that is not centralized, and it's just yours - that's just a fact. You don't need a unique Big Tech-provided pair of glasses to see that it exists.

Even the current internet doesn't follow this. If you post a Facebook post - that lives on Facebook. That content doesn't live anywhere else but the facebook.com link it's tied to. If you buy an avatar item on Roblox, that ownership is tied to Roblox saying you bought it. That's not decentralized. This is exactly what these Metaverse start-ups are all trying to do. They're not trying to build the Metaverse, they want to BE the Metaverse.

The platforms that tie into this - the Dectralands, Sandboxes, OpenSeas, and anything else built on top are your window into it. Your laptop, phone, VR headset, or TV is your portal to view it. The Metaverse truly explodes when you can truly own your virtual assets in a recognizable way across many of these platforms. And you kinda can right now - it just means different things depending on the platform you ask.

You'll keep hearting announcements about every company that has a slight interest in gaming, calling themselves a metaverse studio. 

It's the cool thing to do (and pays the bills). 

- Devon