The Metaverse: 10 industries that it will revolutionise

What is the metaverse?

The concept of the metaverse is that a person could enter into a virtual world using a virtual reality (VR) headset. That person would be able to create a customizable digital representation of themselves called an avatar which would be able to interact with other avatars, virtual companies and non-human programs in an open virtual world. Within the metaverse people can have fun, purchase, play, learn, do business and just about anything you can think of in an immersive way. This (in a nutshell) is the metaverse.

Microsoft, Alibaba, Epic Games as well as Meta (Formerly known as Facebook) to name a few, are all in the race to become the first company to create a metaverse. This will take a few years (if not decades) as companies figure out the complexities of creating a world that never turns off.

Meta have already released some of their plans on how the metaverse will help us connect with each other, which includes collaborative working and more. This article will look at some other industries this will revolutionise in the years to come.

Which industries will the Metaverse disrupt?

Film industry

There was a time when musicians had to have large amounts of money to record their music in high-end studios. This has changed drastically since artists are now able to record great quality music from their bedroom using tools available at a relatively low cost on their computers.

The same trend could be on the horizon in the movie industry with the inclusion of tools available in the metaverse. Future creatives could look to the metaverse to create complex 3D sets that could host a range of tools to assist in the movie creation process. Users would be able to login to the metaverse using a VR headset, enter their project and then drag and drop various set props, adjust lighting, add special effects and even create characters using artificial intelligence (AI) to tell their story.??

Unreal Engine offers multiple tools for movie creation already. These tools have been used in various movies including the upcoming Batman film. As the popularity grows and collaboration within the metaverse is established, anyone from around the world could chip in to make the next blockbuster film with a minimal budget and an eye for detail.

Streaming Entertainment Industry

With more content being created with the aid of the metaverse, the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime will have more content to add to their platforms. Users will have a unique new method of consuming entertainment, for instance; a user could put on a VR headset, “walk” to the Netflix virtual building in the metaverse, go into the Horror cinema section, fight off a virtual Freddy Krueger before sitting down next to a virtual depiction of Slender Man and watching the latest release of Nightmare on Elmstreet. We could also see Freddy Krueger jump out of the virtual screen and try to nab one of the audience members leaving you on full alert throughout the experience.

The Advertising Industry

The global advertising market reached a value of $647 Billion in 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down. Meta (formerly Facebook) are a tech giant that make money by auctioning off space for adverts on their platforms. With the metaverse, this will be no different but the adverts will no longer be boring old 2D, advertisers could bring characters to life, for example; a McDonald’s advert where one interacts with the food chains mascot, Ronald McDonald, and have the chance to play a game against him for a free Big Mac. Alternatively, it could be a virtual McDonald’s billboard showing their new McHappier Meal (McDonald’s call me for new concept names). Whatever it is, McDonald’s and companies alike would pay the metaverse creator a fee to advertise their products to users running around the metaverse. The interaction with the advertisement could be fun and less tedious than in the traditional advertising world.

The Retail Industry

Businesses will push the boundaries of imagination to make shopping even better through the use of VR. Imagine the release of the new Air Jordan’s, but instead of it being a video of Michael Jordan dunking in these new shoes on your TV, it is an immersive experience where you are in his shoes shooting a three-pointer from the comfort of your living room all-the-while being in a virtual store in the metaverse.?

The metaverse will enable us to try on clothes virtually, skip the long queues and get everything we want delivered straight to our door. Retail will focus on the users shopping experience with the attention being on immersing the consumer in a brand to convert them into a purchasing customer.

The Photography/Video Industry

The tradition of capturing memories on video and photo could look amazingly different with the metaverse. It could enable us to capture entire environments, scenery and memories in 3D. We could record special moments and replay them back at any time for you to experience as if you were there all over again. Imagine being transported back to a time where you had your first piece of cake, but being able to experience it the same way your parents did in your childhood home with that skew picture on the wall and the leaky tap dripping, allowing you to relive that moment from a another perspective in a full 3D stream, taking you beyond the picture and putting you in the memory to feel the moment.

The Culinary Industry

FEELREAL Multisensory VR Mask is a device that adds smell, cool wind, water mist and vibration to virtual reality connecting the visual experience with smell and feel. We could see the inclusion of this in the metaverse to bring in an immersive dining experience that incorporates scent, visuals and tastes to challenge what our brain understands about our eating experience.

The inclusion of multiple senses within the metaverse will transform the way we experience our meals. Users could sit down at a restaurant, put on a VR mask and be transported to the Eiffel Tower where a chef creates real world flavours and complementing scents to challenge how our brain perceives the food we are eating. The setting could change between courses, for example; from the Eiffel Tower you are transported to the coast of Rio de Janeiro to feel and smell the ocean winds as you tuck into a fresh codfish cake before being transported to the streets of Rome to enjoy a traditional Neopolitan pizza. The metaverse will allow us to virtually travel and experience places without physically going there.

The Healthcare Industry

There has already been a massive shift of doctors moving from physical consultations to virtual ones. With the metaverse, doctors can dive deep into full explanations using VR/AR technology to walk through what a patients’ problems may be and even consult with other doctors from around the world to solve these issues in real time.

Psychology patients could also benefit from the metaverse as it would provide them with a safe environment to get over their fears, for instance, a patient with a phobia such as the fear of heights. The patient could virtually experience different heights and psychologists could assist their patients with overcoming their fear directly. VR has already been proven to assist patients with managing their pain through embodiment exercises. The metaverse will unlock this further with unlimited experiences.

This and many more collaborative experiences could exist in a metaverse hospital where doctors and patients meet to dissect complex medical problems and provide educated solutions to anyone with access to the metaverse from the comfort of their home. ?

The Tech Industry

While we currently use search engines such as Google to find what we’re looking for, the metaverse could animate this function and offer users a virtual assistant, like Siri, but as a 3D character that carries out the search and guides the user to the best options.

As generations migrate away from computers as we know them, VR headsets could replace keyboards and be the way to enter the metaverse. This could lead to the end of the traditional setup – even televisions could become archaic ornaments in households.

It’s strange to think that even the cellphones glued to our hands for hours may fall away as more people seek to access the metaverse in order to have a better experience of their favourite content and engage with businesses on a daily basis.

The Real Estate Industry

The real estate industry will transform in multiple ways, such as being able to purchase virtual property and experience virtual walkthroughs of real world developments.

Why would one ever want to own virtual property? It’s not real and you can’t physically go there. Well, in a game or in the metaverse, real estate can be used as a prime location to advertise products and services to a vast amount of people/avatars. This means virtual consumers having access to your business with no physical contact required if you had a virtual store. This concept seems far out but it is currently happening on virtual platforms like Decentraland.

Property in Decentraland is limited and controlled by the community. This community consists of the players and land owners who vote on what can and cannot happen, which keeps someone from monopolizing the entire place. The platform, also, only has a limited amount of property for creators to place stores and adverts etc. This means that the more virtual foot traffic one attracts, the more it will translate into a higher property value.

Monetization of virtual land can come in other forms: You could partner with a real-world pizza franchise and take orders for pizza from a virtual stand, accept payment using crypto and prompt delivery to someone’s door all while remaining in in the virtual world. Recently, a virtual plot of land sold for $913 000 in Decentraland making the purchase comparable to the price of a real world house in Brooklyn, New York.?

This concept may be even further expanded to host virtual walkthroughs of real-world property using VR technology to attract budding investors to new building developments. This could expand the way that real estate moguls showcase future developments and help shape the development with investors’ feedback before anything is built in the real world.

The Art industry

The art world may not completely shift to a digital platform (for now), but there is already money being made for digital artwork in popular games and virtual worlds. Different mediums of art in their digital form can be auctioned as a one-of-a-kind pieces to people wanting something unique for their virtual business or just to have as a statement of wealth.

Recently, an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) of digital artwork called “CryptoPunk #9998” sold for $530 million. NFT’s are a way of storing a digital certificate of authenticity on the blockchain, making the pieces of art in a digital world verifiable and authentic.

Sotheby’s launched a virtual art gallery in Decentraland, the art gallery was a digital replica of its London headquarters and even had a digital version of Hans Lomulder to greet new visitors at the door. The art gallery offers a viewing experience, but also an opportunity for big spenders to buy digital art. Digital galleries like this could exist in the metaverse with artists showcasing their artwork in a digital world.

As art evolves into new technology, the metaverse will be its next destination for creative exploration with NFT’s being the stamp of authenticity.

Conclusion

Although this article is limited to 10 industries, we could expand this out to countless industries including technical security, education, workplace training, sports events, fitness, fashion, architecture, gambling, and even crime scene investigation. Any enterprise that has a vision for making their products more interactive will have their eyes on the metaverse.

The metaverse will not only bring about a new way of doing things, it will bring about new businesses that provide experiences that don’t exist today and with that new types of jobs to fulfil those business needs.

The metaverse may very well exist parallel to multiple industries for the foreseeable future, but as new generations shift their preferences and choose how they want to interact with companies and other people, this may bring an end to traditional business as we know it today. Until then, enjoy the physical world and prepare for the Wall-E experience that awaits.

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