VIRTUAL WORLDS TRANSFORMING THE FUTURE OF MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT
The rise of Virtual Reality VR and Augmented Reality AR, even before the word metaverse got widely spread, have opened up new avenues for creativity, social interaction, and economic opportunities. As virtual worlds become more advanced and immersive, they are also increasingly being seen as a potential disruptor of traditional media and entertainment industries.
At its core, the metaverse is a shared virtual space where users can interact with each other and digital objects in real-time. Currently spaces like Decentraland, Spatial.io and Meta Horizon, are examples of metaverse platforms. For instance, the metaverse could be used for virtual concerts, allowing musicians to perform for audiences around the world without the need for physical venues. After dominating the 2D image, video, and text based socia media through Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, Meta put the metaverse at the core of their work changing the name of the mother company from Facebook. They see future in VR social spaces, allowing users to hang out with friends and family in virtual environments. Many concerts are available within the Horizon app of Meta and you can enjoy them with your friends and/or meet strangers who can become your friends. An app called “Bigscreen” is basically a video consumption app where people can watch together a 2D or 3D movie in a setting that looks like a movie theatre, a living room, or any kind of space where people usually meet to watch videos. During the COVID-19 pandemic, my wife (Girlfriend back then) was studying a Master in Barcelona, while I was working in Madrid, we couldn’t travel regularly to see each other, but our avatars have met several times to watch Netflix through “Bigscreen”. We were using VR headsets. The virtual screen was around 200 to 250 inches. I definitely wasn’t able to fit a screen that big in my small studio back then and even if I could, the price of such a screen would be way more than the price of our 2 headsets combined. Together we attended Concerts and Karaoke events on Microsoft owned “AltSpace” and moved from one space to another. Does it beat real life interactions? Hell no! Does it beat real life interactions during a pandemic? Definitely ! And now that we are back to a life without a pandemic, I truly think that the metaverse is still better than just having regular video calls with your distant loved ones where opportunities to enjoy an activity is limited. If you don’t like the spaces that the current platforms can offer, you can have a custom place made for you, where opportunities to design it and make it feel relatable are endless. At Not Keepin’it Real we can create your ultimate hang out environment where you can have a work meeting, share your computer screen, watch a movie and get closer to your colleagues, friends or family.
You don’t need a VR headset to experience the different metaverse platforms, you can enter them simply with any browser on any device. However, having a headset can definitely improve the experience.
We differentiate the term “metaverse” from virtual reality as the latter is a tool that makes the metaverse immersive, but at the same time can offer experiences, worlds, and media consumption opportunities that users can discover by themselves outside what we refer to as the social metaverse. VR offers a level of immersion and engagement that traditional media simply cannot match.
I remember buying my first headset in 2015 which was a Google Cardboard where you put your phone inside to experience content like 360 videos on YouTube. They weren’t even in 3D but immersive enough for me to enjoy them. I even bought an LG 360 camera with 2 opposing fish eye lenses to create content while travelling. I was mainly checking roller coaster and sky diving videos and they were a good conversation starter with visitors and friends. Today, immersion in VR have reached amazing results. Cameras now not only shoot 360 videos, but in 3D as well, which allows the user to experience dimensions and distances. Many VR documentaries are available where you can live amazing and crazy moments with the person who took them. I remember seeing a an experience which was a production by Felix & Paul, National Geographic and Oculus, where former president Barack Obama was interviewed in the White House, and you can actually have the illusion that he is sitting in front of you. Shooting such videos, 3D and 360 degrees still comes with a high price tag. But there are affordable 360 degrees options from Insta 360 and GoPro that wouldn’t break the bank.
Live events are available right now as well, such as NBA games, where you can have a court like experience from the comfort of your couch! Imagine the endless opportunities that this can bring to people with mobility problems, patients or simply to anyone who can’t afford to book a plane ticket and/or an entry ticket to watch an event when it happens.
Other technologies like Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality have come in between our existing world and the virtual world. They allow us to consume all kinds of media, creating a virtual layer on top of our real environment. The Amazon app permits seeing many of the products in your actual space through your phone camera. My wife and I have visualised how a TV and a table would look like in our living room before we bought them. Many clothing items can be tried through augmented reality nowadays. Meta through their latest Quest Pro, have enabled the virtual desktop in mixed reality that allows you to add to your laptop additional screens without the need of buying physical ones. Which can be an effective way to solve a productivity problem of a laptop user. Imagine a scenario where you are on a plane going for a long flight, you can have your laptop with you but definitely not an extra monitor. Through mixed reality, you can actually have not only one extra monitor-like projection, but many ! When AR glasses get smaller and look more like normal glasses, many of our consumer products will be disrupted. We won’t need screens, as everything will be projected through our eyes. You can have a room with the bare essentials, and change its aesthetics with a virtual layer on top, adding an aquarium without the guilt of having innocent creatures out of their natural environment, and play on a fancy looking wooden chess board on an empty table knowing that it wasn’t made from a tree. You can add a virtual TV to play video games consuming way less energy than having a bright OLED. This will have many sustainable benefits.
*TV visualized in Augmented Reality in the living room through Amazon´s app.
As these technologies continue to evolve, it will create new opportunities for content creators and entrepreneurs. Even for big established companies, whoever will ride the wave of understanding these new platforms will have great economical benefits, but more importantly will future proof their existence in the market. The decentralized nature of the metaverse could enable new forms of content distribution and monetization, creating new revenue streams for creators. An artist today can only benefit from the first sale of his/her/their concert tickets. The secondary market can reach crazy amounts that don’t even benefit the artists, having the tickets as NFTs can protect a royalty for the artist on each sale.
Like everything new, there are also challenges to be addressed. The metaverse today still looks cartoonish, like a video game from the early 2000s. VR experiences and games have reached better detailing, but aren’t that user friendly and might take some effort to get used to. Many people experience motion sickness using virtual reality which makes it hard for them to use it for an extended amount of time. AR and VR glasses still look bulky and heavy all while having a very limited battery life. While the cost of experiencing Virtual Reality has decreased significantly, there are still limited pricing options available to cater to a diverse range of consumers. Tech companies have started showing their future capabilities and they are simply awesome, until then, we understand that the market for such products is still limited to tech and gaming enthusiasts yet definitely not ignored by the mass.
In conclusion, the metaverse, VR and AR have the potential to disrupt traditional media and entertainment industries in a variety of ways. While there are still many challenges to be addressed, the technology offers new opportunities for creativity, social interaction, and economic growth. As the metaverse, VR and AR continue to evolve, it will be interesting to see how they are used by media and entertainment companies, as well as by entrepreneurs and content creators.
*Artwork Created on Midjourney
