Top 7 Most Mature Metaverse Platforms

I’ve been in all things metaverse for a while now and oftentimes I have been asked what’s the best metaverse to get into. But there is no one-size-fits-all metaverse play. It depends on what experience you would like to dive into (from a user perspective), or what experience you would like your brand to activate for your community. The idea of the metaverse is to have one completely connected interactive world that appropriately reflects the physical world with virtual immersions.?

As of today, metaverse companies are trying to create virtual experiences, but no one yet has it all, since the market is still in its infancy. As we go further ahead improving our technologies and creating better experiences, we’ll approach a better world every day.

It’s actually very similar to the internet where we have billions of websites all providing some sort of services, covering every aspect of human life. The metaverse is the advanced version of the internet, where instead of reading and seeing, we’ll feel it. Millions of metaverse components will gather together on this massive ecosystem, just like countries and continents, to create the singular metaverse.?

But that’s the story of the future.?

For now, there are some initial projects that are doing well in creating experiences and communities in the metaverse. I have listed 7 of them and explained why they’re on top—as of today.?

I have taken the perspective of a business that aims to extend the brand into the metaverse and used three primary ingredients to analyze each of these metaverse components. The parameters are—token utility, the actual metaverse type, and the possibilities for creators.

Why These Three Parameters

In Web2, value creation for tech companies was mostly about technological IP and the level of business model distribution. In web3 instead, the value creation of a tech company extends across a set of pillars that altogether form the offering: the utility token, the metaverse type, and the tools and interfaces that empower third parties to add value to the core infrastructure. If one or the other is missing – or not at least on an official whitepaper representing the roadmap, the value offered is tangibly unbalanced.

• Tokens provide an easy segway to experience the company vision, by becoming a retail investor. It connects the users to the product, without using the product along with providing a sense of value creation.
• Besides, the token provides massive reach as being distributed throughout a series of exchanges. This consequently leads to eyeballs > to curiosity > to increased adoption on a mass scale.

Similarly, the “type” of the metaverse, dictates the environment of the metaverse. From fantasy worlds, through pixelated maps, or into actual worlds maps. If the metaverse specifically focuses on a subject or has a particular theme, it directly affects the community and the activities on the platform. Each type has pros and cons depending on what supports the ideal experience for a specific product or campaign. I have listed the ones that I have encountered the most, so please if I miss your favorite metaverse, don’t get mad… much love ya’ll.??

The last parameter is the ability of co-creation on the platform. Can you build on top of it? Does the platform provide SDKs, API, no-code apps, and other relevant tools to encourage creators to get on board? This is probably the most important core characteristic of a web3 metaverse.

If the platform enables and encourages the community to co-create and build what they want to see, only then can there be a healthy community and a thriving economy.?

Without further do, let’s have a look at all the metaverse projects.

Sandbox

Sandbox is probably the most talked-about metaverse in the decentralized space and for good reasons. Sandbox is a community-driven decentralized metaverse gaming platform where users can create, sell, and share digital assets. People can also buy lands in the form of NFTs to advertise or create experiences and later sell them like real estate.?

Sandbox metaverse environment is divided into several parts, and so is their business model. A user can get into Sandbox by simply buying a portion of the land to build an experience upon it. They can also create digital assets mostly related to artworks in the form of NFTs and sell them to the Sandbox marketplace. The in-platform economy runs by the SAND token, the native currency. Investors can buy it from exchanges as well.

Source: ChainDebrief

If you’re a creator, you have an easy way to do so by using VoxEdit for creating and animating 3D objects in Sandbox and the Game Maker creates gaming experiences. These free SDKs (Software Development Kit) make the experience of creating art much more attractive and seamless

It’s undoubtedly immersive with lots of fun to play games and presents the users with real money-making opportunities.?

As good as their platform is, they’re equally clever with their business strategies. If you remember the last five times you have heard or read about Sandbox, chances are the majority of the time it was about a partnership with a business or some celebrity. Sandbox is proactively partnering with dozens of businesses and celebrities by selling them land, creating exclusive experiences, and in return getting free eyeballs from those brands.

Decentraland

Decentraland is second in line in the list of the most popular metaverse. Similar to Sandbox, Decentraland is also a metaverse or as they call themselves “virtual reality platform” that allows users to buy, sell, and create digital assets; the browser-based platform also enables users to create games and gaming environments.

The in-platform currency of the metaverse is MANA which is used for all the trades that take place within the platform. Another currency used in the platform is LAND, it’s an NFT that comes with the purchase of lands.?

As the platform is run by a DAO, every user who owns MANA or LAND has voting powers on decisions. Investors who won MANA tokens, they’ll have to stake their tokens and get wMANA (wrapped MANA) to take part in the voting process. In the case of LAND, owners are entitled to voting rights without the need for staking.?

Source: NBC News

There are a lot of utilities in the Decentraland metaverse like advertising. Owners of land can use their spaces for promoting their own businesses or sell the advertisement spaces to other businesses for a profit.?

Decentraland also has a content curation system, where communities dedicated specific places to specific subjects. For example, a group of space-enthusiasts can have their own place to discuss all-things-space and invite others to join in. It not only builds new communities but also helps people sort through irrelevant groups and the ones they like.

Somnium Space

Somnium Space is another Metaverse that I keep an eye on—it’s one that leans strongly into virtual reality. This metaverse is like a giant world where everything is happening in real-time together, which makes it very different from other VR worlds where players are divided into mini-servers and mirrored instance rooms. This also talks about the massive computational power that Somnium pulls off to keep the world going.?

This VR world is compatible with all the virtual reality headsets and accessories and supports both Ethereum and Solana in-game assets. Somnium has also partnered with Polygon and OpenSea to keep the network fast and congestion-free.

From what little time I spent there, there are several maps available for exploring from sci-fi-themed towns to underwater experiences. Gamers will have a great time exploring these worlds and earn $CUBE, the native currency of Somnium space.?

Somnium’s UnitySDK “allows players to work with complete scenes, scripting, and animations to fully enhance their experience. Finger tracking is also supported inside Somnium Space for further immersion. Full-body tracking, lip & eye tracking are available inside our VR world."

Source: Somnium

Bloktopia

Bloktopia is another intriguing metaverse project out there. It is basically a 21-floor skyscraper based on the Polygon chain. The 21 floors, a tribute to the 21 million Bitcoins, contain everything from stores, business venues, clubs, learning centers, etc.?

Source:?Bloktopia

The projects aspire to become the learning hub of crypto and metaverse where everyone can learn and earn. What makes this project the most interesting is the unconventional thinking process. Where everyone is building worlds, Blocktopia is thinking about creating a massive building functioning as a world.?

The BLOK token is the primary in-app currency—all the transactions taking place inside the metaverse are done using this currency. Obviously, this is the primary utility of the token. Other than that, creators and users are paid and rewarded in this currency as well.?

The primary aims of the Bloktopia metaverse are – to learn, earn, play, and create. Here the play and creation parts are particularly interesting as the users are encouraged to create their own environments using the SDKs provided by the platform and interact with them. This upholds the idea of user contribution that leads to ultimate decentralization.

Bit.Country

While all these metaverse components are working on creating the best VR experiences, Bit.country has chosen a slightly different path. Bit country is something like a metaverse launchpad, where brands can come to build their own metaverse and organize events and other activities.?

To create your own bit country, you’ll have to buy lands in the Continuum world. Another interesting thing is, that they’re merging both 2D and 3D, where 2D representations will cover features like content creation, management, social media, and 3D visuals will be used for gaming and socializing activities.?

Source: Bit.Country

As brands will build their own worlds in the Continuum map, they can bring their own currency along with them to transact in their part of the world. However, to eliminate the friction of a multi-currency world, BCG (Bit Country Gold) is used as the universal currency. BCG can also be used for staking purposes and other activities.?

Bit country allows developers to use their API to build and develop over the platform.

Crypto Voxels

Crypto Voxels is a metaverse similar to Minecraft. It lets users create their world using blocks (voxels), depending upon the creativity and skills of the builder, which recreates a timely look and feel. It seems to be on the simpler side of the metaverse which is more brick and mortar and less shiny. But if someone wants to actually experience the raw taste of building from scratch, Crypto Voxels has no match.

Source : NFT Plazas

Crypto Voxels hasn’t yet come up with a native platform currency. They use Ethereum for on-chain activities and Polygon for trading wearables and other NFTs. So you’ll have to use those two tokens respectively.

In terms of SDKs and APIs, the platform is very hands-on and not complicated at all. But on some occasions, it supports scripts to build more complex games and activities.?

Upland

Upland is an intriguing metaverse platform that maps the real-world properties to a virtual world. As someone directly involved with the project, it excites me to see the differentiated approach of geo-location by mirroring planet earth. It falls in line with the concept of augmenting real-life events into the metaverse and a gamified mechanism with a series of play-to-earn engagement activities.?

It allows people to buy and sell digital assets and earn the in-metaverse token called UPX. An ideal environment for brands in sports, music, entertainment, mobility, retail, CPG, and others to leverage. Upland’s metaverse platform enables users to play, earn, and discover possibilities around known locations, brands, and events.?

Source: Upland.me

For example, Upland has partnered up with NFLPA to make Football part of the Upland platform and engage the users by making NFT merchandise available. As Upland continues to partner up with brands, the fun of the real world will soon be transported to the virtual world.

Users can also help develop the neighborhoods by building apartments and roads. As a decentralized team effort, the platform is working towards mapping the whole USA and later the whole world into the metaverse.?

For developers wanting to add an additional layer of fun onto the metaverse mirroring planet earth, Upland is releasing an SDK very soon. And while no public token is available for anyone yet, Upland is a reliable metaverse business partner for whoever wants to keep it real even in the metaverse.

Closing Thoughts

As more metaverse projects like Bored Apes and Niantic come up, the definition of immersive metaverse will conquer new frontiers unknown to us today. So will the user's expectation, creating a sharp demand for better service and more features.?

What we’re seeing now mostly is the creation of generic ideas, where it’s difficult to distinguish one metaverse project from another without going into the details. But that’ll soon change as metaverse projects start unbundling the idea and niche down on specific sections. We’ll soon be seeing specific projects like sports metaverse, entertainment metaverse, gaming metaverse, socializing metaverse, etc.?

The end goal of the industry is to slowly mature from completely digital experiences and find a converging point with the physical world to offer products and services which bundle digital ownership with a tangible product. When we get to this level where our physical self can directly access the metaverse without having to log in to a device, that’ll be the ultimate metaverse experience. The idea of phygital is simply connecting the universe with the metaverse.