Tech leaders weigh in on how the metaverse will change the way consumers game and discuss the opportunity for growth in the industry.
The global gaming market is expected to be worth $268.8 billion by 2025 — roughly double what it is now, Statista reports. In that time, North America is on track to remain the top-grossing gaming market worldwide, despite industry growth in Asia.
At the same time, the buzz about the metaverse is growing, and gaming companies are claiming their stake in the conversation. But what does the metaverse mean for gaming? Will there be more competition across the industry? Will companies begin to take gaming more seriously as an industry of opportunity?
Two leaders in the space attempted to tackle those questions and more.
Subscribe for the biggest stories in the business of sports and entertainment, daily.
Meysam Moradpour
CEO, Moments
“The Metaverse is not just a science fiction world a la ‘Ready Player One.’ Virtual Reality has been around and it never really took off,” Meysam Moradpour, CEO of play-to-earn metaverse platform company Moments, told Boardroom. “Now we are entering the next wave of the internet, Web3, that has everyone buzzing about the potential of the metaverse.”
Moradpour says the metaverse will allow the gaming industry to grow beyond its core users. He used Axie Infinity in the Phillippines as an example. The region faced an above-40% unemployment rate as the world’s economy began to recover from the pandemic. To combat the failing jobs market, low-income workers were able to play Axie Infinity to earn more and make ends meet. This is proof that gaming-heavy regions with low-income populations can benefit greatly from the metaverse’s expansion.
“NFTs and Play-to-Earn games will enable third-world economies to start earning a sufficient income from just playing games all day,” Moradpour told Boardroom.
Metaverse growth will legitimize gaming as a career path and add new users to it who weren’t interested in the industry before now, according to Moradpour. He thinks companies that can create an ecosystem made up of users, a universal wallet that allows users to trade cryptocurrencies seamlessly, and robust play-to-earn games will have the best shot at becoming the internet giants of Web 3.0. The metaverse could take power away from major companies and put control back into the hands of the users, which aligns with the uprising of Web 3.0 and the decentralization of the internet.
“Allowing users to trade NFTs and crypto and play play-to-earn games on the same platform will merge Facebook, Robinhood, and Coinbase in one platform that is decentralized and allows true ownership in the purest form of Web 3.0,” he said. “The future metaverses will be like a virtual world that you can travel to and leave anytime you want — but you take your data and assets with you. With the growth of 5G and AI, the Metaverse will become faster, smarter, and more real over time.”
Travis Cloyd
CEO, WorldwideXR
Travis Cloyd, the CEO of Worldwide XR and a senior fellow at Arizona State, told Boardroom that the metaverse will change how we address gaming engagement in general. With the metaverse and gaming, consumers can engage and connect based on particular metaverse capabilities and personal desires. He thinks there will be a surge in virtual reality headsets and other advanced, hands-free technology gadgets as the metaverse grows.
“It won’t be controllers and sit-down experiences. It will be a full range of motion and six degrees of freedom engagement,” Cloyd said. “Gamers will be more like traditional athletes who have to use full-body reflex and not just fingers hitting controllers. We will have variations of haptics and full spatial delivery of game content.”
It’s no secret that gamers, and quite frankly anyone at this point, can create their dream selves and lives online, but the metaverse allows consumers to digitally immerse themselves online for hours on end. Gaming companies like Roblox and The Sandbox have designed online worlds that almost guarantee that to happen.
“The Metaverse is an ecosystem where digital and physical worlds collide. Where consumers have the ability to go into virtual environments, gaming, and display 3D objects in our real-time environments,” Cloyd said. “It’s a realm where we can be anything we want and a place where we can create our own digital identities.”
If you aren’t into gaming, now may be the perfect time to jump in, especially with the play-to-earn model. In a couple months, these phenomena may feel more commonplace.
I’m thinking about giving time to some metaverse game play and documenting my experience. Got any recommendations of games I should play? Shoot me an email at michelaigraham@gmail.com.
