Augmented & Virtual Reality Metaverses: what is working?

After having followed closely what’s happening or not happening on various public and private VR & AR metaverses, here is what I think is working for VR and AR metaverses.

I see VR & AR metaverses filled with impressive buildings with ambitious architectures, beautiful artworks with seldom any visitor.

Virtual Reality Metaverses : meet real people with similar goals

The only 2 satisfying experiences, I had so far in VR metaverses are some VR professional meetings, the 1st one in 2006 on second life and another one 2 weeks ago in a private VR world built by Accenture. I was able to discuss with other participants, attending some presentations … basic social interactions with real people behind. That was more fun than the usual “teams” meetings.

What stroke me, though, is how little progress has been made since 2006. Here are 2 screenshots taken 15 years taken apart:

Augmented Reality Metaverses : treasure hunt … alone

The first massive AR worldwide experience is the “Pokemon Go” AR hunt.

On OVR the leading AR land based platform, the functionality having the most success are treasure hunts, either the native OVR one or the subsequent ones such as Dogepound hunts.

Sure, on OVR, there was some musical events but they were no more than pure VR meetings or usual desert NFT gallery.

Why not meetings in AR and treasure hunt in VR?

When doing some meetings in AR metaverses, I prefer to meet people without any additional digital features. In VR metaverses, some interesting functionalities, such as improved business cards, can improve the overall meeting experiences.

Play to earn treasure hunts don’t work in VR metaverses because they rapidly become some boring farming experiences while doing some farming in AR metaverse is rapidly more expensive because moving physically in the real world is mandatory.

What about Art NFTs?

Long story short: Displaying art started with the Renaissance studiolo. Then came the computer where it was possible to admire paintings without moving from your chair. Don’t you think that this VR way of viewing art is a step backward, having to move again in front of each paintings? Personally, I prefer my mouse and keyboard to navigate digital paintings or physically visiting the real studiolo and museums.

Post Scriptum

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