Metaverse suddenly became popular when Facebook announced it would change its name to Meta in October 2021 and stated that Meta represents what Facebook is working on going forward.
This view cannot be underestimated because Mark Zuckerberg has proven to be successful in predicting the direction of the development of the digital world when Web 2.0 replaces Web 1.0 with the acquisition of services that are king of Web 2.0 today such as Instagram and WhatsApp.
This was also followed by Microsoft's move to acquire Activision Blizzard for a value of USD 68.7 billion or around Rp. 975 trillion. Making Microsoft the third largest gaming company in the world after Tencent and Sony.
These two things have a common thread and become a big gamble for the two largest IT companies in the world and the common thread is Metaverse.
Is Metaverse a Meta?
It is undeniable that the Metaverse became popular and discussed by many people because of Meta. Meta's Horizon World that can be accessed for free if you buy an Oculus VR glasses kit is Metaverse.
However, Horizon World is not the only Metaverse, and in terms of access and market capitalization, Horizon World is not even the largest Metaverse platform currently controlled by Decentraland, Sandbox and Axie Infinity.
Meta is a metaverse, but it is more than just a virtual world that can only be accessed with specialized VR devices like Oculus. The Metaverse existed long before the Facebook group changed its name to Meta.
Meta is a marketing jargon from Facebook because Facebook has a prediction that this metaverse is important and is the next direction of internet development (Web 3.0) and they want to focus and run ahead in order to get the most benefit from this new world that is coming.
Accessing metaverses such as Decentraland, Sandbox and Axie Infinity does not require special devices such as VR or AR glasses. Just armed with a normal computer with a computer screen is enough to access the metaverse service.
In fact, what is more essential for accessing the metaverse is not additional hardware, but access to a crypto-finance system that will link assets in the imaginary world of gaming to real currency in real life.
Metaverse and Crypto
Metaverse cannot be separated from the development of the crypto world which is driven by blockchain and disrupts many sectors. One sector that is growing very rapidly due to blockchain disruption is the gaming world.
So far, gamers enjoy expertise, hard work and achievements in the game world only limited to the world in which the game is played. For example, you can feel like a land lord because you have hundreds of hectares of land in farmville and are rich, you can become a property lord and have a multi-storey building in Sim City or you can have millions of gold coins in the Pokemon Go game that can be used to buy lots of buffs on the game. Pokemon Go echo.
But all that only applies in the game world. In the real world aka outside the game world, all your achievements, assets and treasures are of no value in the real world.
The financial benefits in the gaming world are only one-way, only game producers get financial benefits from providing games and game players have to pay to play games.
Much like when Web 1.0 which was only one-way informational in nature was replaced by Web 2.0 which enables two-way interaction and marked the rise of social media, the blockchain-enabled metaverse now allows gamers to directly benefit financially from playing games.
All of this is possible because of the existence of a liquid cryptocurrency exchange market that allows NFT digital assets in the game to be converted into real-world money.
This is what has been changed by Metaverse collaborating with blockchain into a game blockchain where assets in the game world that so far have no value in the real world can be converted into assets in the real world.
Of course, it becomes clear that the motivation to get financial benefits from playing games will attract many people to enter the world of the metaverse of playing games in order to get direct financial benefits from gaming activities.
So the benefit that the metaverse provides is that it creates new opportunities and new sources of income that can be accessed by computer users around the world who access the metaverse.
How much money can you get playing games in this crypto world? It depends on the fluctuation of the crypto currency that is the game token. It is not large for the size of the income of developed countries, but according to the author's calculations this figure could be higher than the average UMR in developing countries.