It Will Take Serious Money to Build the Metaverse
Which is why smart money is on big tech; what does that mean for education?
As of 2022:
Minecraft has between 140 and 170 million average active users per month, the population of Bangladesh (which is the eighth most populous country on the planet).
Fortnite has 70m, about the population of Thailand.
Second Life, one of the oldest continuously running virtual worlds, has more than 64m active users, about the population of France.
Roblox has 47m active users, about the population of Spain.
Are any of these the Metaverse? Are they in line to become the Metaverse?
In theory, what makes the concept of the ‘metaverse’ different from any of the virtual worlds we use now, no matter how large they have scaled, is that “the Metaverse” is thought to be a single entity; like “The Internet” or “Asia”, or of course, “The Universe.”
This is distinct from other media models- there are millions of different websites, hundreds of thousands of game worlds, hundreds of television channels- but- at least in theory- only one “Metaverse”. It’s not ‘a metaverse’- it’s “The Metaverse”.
The “One Metaverse” vision has its roots both in the heady world science fiction (where books and films like “Ready Player One”, “Snow Crash”, “The Matrix”, “Neuromancer” and others have provided compelling, if dystopian, visions of a single cyber world) and in the cold realities of business logic: the Metaverse is expected to be a platform, not a property, one with massive switching costs; any one company that ‘owned’ it would wield unprecedented power and wealth.
Which is exactly why the biggest tech and gaming companies are in direct competition to create the one true Metaverse. This includes tech companies like Meta, Apple, and Microsoft, gaming giants like Epic Games and Unity (and Microsoft again, which owns Minecraft and the XBox gaming platform), and media giants like Disney.
Consider- in the past months:
Apple announced its new augmented-reality headset and a partnership with filmmakers like Jon Favreau to create metaverse content, in a clear collaboration with it’s Apple TV programming. (NYTimes)
The CEO of Unity Technologies defined the Metaverse as a ‘real-time, 3D’ platform accessible by many devices, which will have “millions of destinations” akin to the millions of websites (Venturebeat). Unity, a creator of gaming engine technology, is thought to be positioning itself to be the engine that powers the Metaverse. (Axios)
Disney poached the Creative Director from Apple Arcade as the new head of its Next Generation Storytelling initiative, which includes Metaverse strategy (Variety)
Meanwhile, an April report from Goldman Sachs named Meta and Apple as the two companies duking it out to create the Metaverse (Benzinga)
Microsoft, which has been characteristically quiet in the scope of its ambitions, released VR product Mesh for Microsoft Teams, and bid to buy gaming company Activision, creator of games like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and other immersive gaming experiences.
And of course, in late 2021, Facebook renamed itself to Meta, announced its broad ambitions to become a Metaverse company; meanwhile, this week veteran executive Sheryl Sandberg, the mastermind behind Facebook’s advertising businesses, stepped down after 14 years.
Epic Games- the creator of Fortnite- has warned against companies like Apple and Meta taking over the Metaverse and running it like a giant app store. Epic and Apple have been in legal disputes over the distribution of Fortnite through the Apple App store for years. (WSJ)
The race for the Metaverse is well underway; companies have created devices- like Meta’s Oculus Quest, Microsoft’s Hololens and Apple’s new headset (codenamed N301 with characteristic Apple secrecy), built extensions of their existing properties, and are acquiring companies and poaching executives with their visions in mind. There is a lot of money at stake, and they are serious about their ambitions.
What does this all add up to, especially for the education and edtech world?
My takeaway is this:
Educators and edtech startups that are interested in Metaverse technologies should prioritize partnerships with tech giants rather than going it on their own.
This has many advantages; strong distribution channels, enthusiasm from big tech, which are trying to outdo each other’s nascent Metaverses, and the ability to build on platforms which are receiving tons of investment money. Building a Metaverse is incredibly expensive
Some signs of the times in the tech-education partnership space.
Meta has given money to 10 universities, including HBCUs, to create Metaverse versions of their campuses. (Edsurge)
Language learning company Immerse raised $9m to launch its language learning app, including on the Meta Quest store (Pulse 2.0)
Microsoft is building an education ecosystem for its Hololens and Mesh products. (See video below)
Make no mistake: these are not education companies. For all of their technology, marketing and distribution power, big tech companies need the pedagogical expertise and imagination of the Edtech community to make their dreams into reality.
My suggestion for the Edtech community- don’t fight the tech giants; work with them to help craft an educational Metaverse we can all be proud of.