By Adam Bém is the co-founder of Victoria VR
The metaverse is gradually becoming an alternate reality as more people spend time in a digital universe. A Gartner report predicts that by 2026, 25% of people will spend at least an hour daily in the metaverse. Apart from games, the metaverse will emerge as the destination for everyday activities like education, work, shopping and entertainment. The 2021 Grayscale Metaverse Report documented a 10x rise in Web3 metaverses since 2020, with the market cap surpassing $27.5 billion.
NFTs constitute the fundamental building blocks of a metaverse and are crucial for the virtual economy. NFTs offer users immutable ownership rights and sovereign control over their digital assets. Leveraging blockchain technology and smart contracts, NFTs ensure that the metaverse economy is as robust as the real one. Out of all NFTs, digital lands are perhaps the most necessary components for early-stage metaverses.
In the real world, a plot of land is the scarcest but the most important resource. We first need to purchase land to build our shops, malls, gaming parlors, cinema halls, or anything for that matter. Similarly, NFT-based virtual land plots have the same utilities as their physical counterparts. Users buy digital properties to rent them, open virtual storefronts, design online gaming arenas and create concert venues.
However, most metaverse platforms offer digital lands and properties with shabby graphics that do not resemble real-life establishments. In fact, these pixelated land parcels resemble early-stage TV games, giving a cartoonish feeling to them. NFT-based metaverses are supposed to enhance our everyday experiences and expand commercial possibilities with better engagement and collaboration. However, low-grade graphics make the metaverse far removed from our lived experiences. If metaverses have to mimic reality, they must start resembling the real world.
Immersive Experience Is Crucial For Metaverse NFTs
People will eventually shift to the metaverse as NFT-based offices, conferences, schools, cinemas, and gaming parlors start operating in virtual worlds. But the digital environment must look and feel similar to real-life institutions before people start using them en masse.
A good metaverse won’t stop at a mere realistic virtual experience but will offer a hyperreal one. A graphically detailed digital world will enable immersive experiences as the distinction between ‘real’ and ‘digital’ gets blurred. These metaverses use photo-realistic content that offers an authentic flavor to digital interactions. The right tools will empower developers to recreate physical locations and effectively transform and enhance them. High-resolution, realistic graphics offer an embodied experience as users attend digitized schools, offices, shopping centers, gaming arenas, and concerts.
For example, Victoria VR, a blockchain-based virtual reality metaverse, uses the Unreal Engine tool to create an immersive digital world. Unreal Engine is one of the best available gaming engines that AAA gaming studios have widely used. Victoria VR is one of the first Web3 metaverses to adopt Unreal Engine for designing its NFT-powered digital environment. Victoria VR offers high-quality VR lands for its users with excellent visual effects, detailed graphics, and authentic simulation.
Designing a state-of-the-art NFT metaverse without graphical limitations is necessary for mass adoption. If NFTs are not visually stimulating and engaging, people will stop using them after a time. After all, rudimentary visuals and crude graphics might suit NFT flipping, but building a metaverse is a different ball game. Developers and entrepreneurs must stop looking at NFTs as mere investment vehicles and focus on graphic-intensive NFTs for building metaverses.
However, designing graphically rich NFTs is just one aspect of the metaverse. On the other hand, users need the right platforms to access these NFTs. Low entry barriers and easy access to high-resolution, authentic-looking NFTs are important if users want to build a realistic metaverse. Therefore, the sector needs proper NFT marketplaces where good quality NFTs will be available.
NFT Marketplaces: The Nucleus For Acquiring NFTs
In a real-world scenario, marketplaces are the central activity hub for everyday transactions. Similarly, a metaverse NFT marketplace is an important center for buying and selling digital assets. NFT marketplaces offer the ideal environment for entrepreneurs and users to securely trade visually enriching items for furnishing their metaverses.
For example, Victoria VR is developing the Big Market VR, a decentralized NFT marketplace where users will be able to purchase products for enhancing their virtual experience. Buyers and sellers will be able to experience assets like lands, objects, and resources, negotiate their prices, and trade them. Moreover, creators will be empowered to design NFTs, and buyers can request customized NFTs from creators on the Big Market VR.
NFTs have introduced a user-oriented approach to Web3 metaverses, offering novel ways of participation in the virtual economy. Unlike Web2 metaverses that only allow users to read-write content, NFT-based metaverses empower users to read-write-own their assets. Users can therefore become active participants in the metaverse and design their digital worlds from scratch.
A Bloomberg report estimates that the metaverse market may be an $800 billion sector by 2024. However, to reach that stage, the industry needs high-performing, graphic-intensive NFTs to build these metaverses. Despite bear market conditions, NFTs are doing well with blockchain-based gaming, accounting for 52% of all market activity. There is hope that with the right tools, immersive experience, and robust platforms, NFT-powered metaverses will keep growing.
About the author:
Adam Bém is the co-founder of Victoria VR, he is Blockchain expert and Virtual Reality propagator with over five years of experience in project management, strategic planning and blockchain technology. Victoria VR is a revolutionary Blockchain-based Virtual Reality Metaverse. Powered by Unreal Engine and featuring realistic, highly detailed graphics, it combines a MMORPG with a unique Social Experience Playground.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.