The ultimate checklist for virtual worlds and gaming projects
In this article I will lay out 8 simple rules that any project would need to follow in order to have a chance of becoming an important part of the metaverse. What does a blockchain project need to become a successful part of the wider metaverse?
Before I jump into the different rules, let me first make very clear that we can’t have 50 teams building the metaverse. There’s no such thing. The metaverse is all around us and it’s the fabric that connects all projects together. Any project that claims to ‘build the next metaverse’ is saying nonsense, jumping on a marketing bandwagon. Projects build to become part of the metaverse, an interconnected space where users can use one identity to move between services, tools, virtual worlds, social hubs and games.
Maybe, you’re building something in the metaverse or you want to buy certain tokens, become part of a community, invest time and effort. What is it that you need to keep an eye on? Here are 8 rules every project in the metaverse needs to succeed.
Metaverse checklist
- Interoperability – The metaverse can’t exist with walled gardens. As a matter of fact, walled gardens are automatically not part of the metaverse. Avatars, currencies and digital items need to work across different virtual worlds or services. Imagine using the same avatar, using the same user account, in various virtual worlds. The metaverse requires open software standards to improve and expand the concept of interoperability.
- Open-source – Open software standards also influence the tools made to explore the metaverse. Everybody can contribute. This means that any virtual world or service is automatically a foundation for building more services on top of the existing platform. A virtual world like Decentraland has also become an event arena as well as a gaming platform. These games can then tie to other blockchain games, and so on. In turn these games spawn financial services and NFT trading services.
- Network – Not only is the metaverse a network of gaming worlds, but it’s also a network of networks. Various blockchains exist separate from each other, but connected through bridging technology. Realizing that a dapp or virtual world doesn’t need to exist on just one blockchain, will make it more accessible to many users. Networks, blockchains, economies, all intertwine into a swirl of interconnectivity we call the metaverse.
- Users own rewards – In the case an event or activity in the metaverse offers a reward, this reward must be a digital asset owned by a player. Simply put, it needs to be a crypto token or NFT. Ownership means that users can take that reward, and sell it, trade it, lend it or simply give it away.
- Connected to real life – A metaverse can only succeed when it offers a direct real-life connection with the user. The user needs to be or own their unique avatar. Digital items in the virtual space need to be user-owned, and rewards earned can impact someone’s real life.
- Platform agnostic – The metaverse doesn’t lock people out, but it allows anybody to join. Access to the metaverse should not be limited for users owning a specific piece of hardware, but it supports a wide variety of platforms. Desktops, VR helmets, smartphones, web applications, dapps.
- It happens – The metaverse is something that goes on. Like our real world there will be moments users miss out on because they are at a different location. At the same time the metaverse allows people from different physical locations to get together in a virtual one. The metaverse happens, like time and space in our world. The metaverse changes, grows and can be spontaneous thanks to user creativity.
- User generated content – When making a virtual world of service within the metaverse, you need to ask yourself how the community can contribute. Your dapp will become something useful for a group of people, and they will commit and want to contribute. How does a project incorporate user generated content? And if they contribute, how will
