Everyrealm

Ready Player One gave us the misconception that the Metaverse is VR — Everyrealm CEO, KBW 2022

Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One” presents an unrealistic glimpse into life in the metaverse, Everyrealm CEO Janine Yorio told an audience in Seoul.

Everyrealm CEO Janine Yorio has dispelled misconceptions that the Metaverse can only be presented “exclusively in VR.”

Speaking on Tuesday during Korean Blockchain Week 2022, Yorio told an audience in Seoul that Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One had given us a glimpse into what life could be like if we were living in the Metaverse.

However, the movie gives us this misconception about the Metaverse because “the protagonist is wearing a VR headset,” she argues, despite most developments in the Metaverse currently being “developed for your desktop,” according to Janine Yorio.

Yorio highlighted that consumer preferences has been the reason behind this, as the way humans like to “interact with technology” is “18 inches from your face, not three inches from your face” adding that “way more people have computers than have VR headsets.”

Yorio highlighted that the idea of the Metaverse being exclusively in VR is unrealistic, saying that while Ready Player One showed us that this “immersive photo real environment” was an exciting concept, it isn’t going to happen in the “near term future,” as it isn’t how humans are used to interacting with technology.

The Everyrealm executive suggested that the Metaverse being “exclusively in VR” contradicts how humans are used to using technology, which is generally multi-tasking or used to “procrastinate,” whereas “when you’re using VR you have to check out of life entirely.”

We can expect the next “12 to 36 months” to be the most exciting time for the Metaverse, said Yorio, noting this will be the time “when a lot of the triple A gaming studios…are actually going to start building and delivering the kind of Metaverse” that people are looking forward to.

After this major shift in development happens this is when we can expect “mainstream adoption […] the moment we’re all waiting for,” she explained.

Everyrealm is a company that invests, manages and develops digital assets such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs), metaverse platforms, gaming and infrastructure. The company currently has holdings in 25 Metaverse platforms as well as owning over 3000 NFTs and managing more than 100 real estate developments.

During the presentation, Yorio also shared Everyrealm’s project plans for the near future with a focus on fashion, as it is “one of the private primary driving drivers of commerce:”

“Metaverse users will be able to look forward to having a look-alike avatar that they can dress with clothing from different designers […] as we strongly believe that fashion will move the Metaverse forward.”

Yorio also noted that they were not prioritizing building music concerts in the Metaverse, calling the idea of concerts in the Metaverse “terrible.”

“We go to live shows to get the ‘bass’ feeling in our feet and being with friends and actually dancing and you can’t do any of that […] but the pandemic made us a little bit more forgiving of what a concert can be.”

Experts clash on where virtual reality sits in the Metaverse

Experts have given mixed views on what role virtual reality technology will have in the Metaverse.

Virtual reality (VR) will eventually have a place within the Metaverse, but not for the foreseeable future given its slow adoption rates, according to experts.

There isn’t much that can rival the experience of having one’s senses almost immersed in a virtual world — which is why many believe that the technology will have a natural fit for the Metaverse.

It’s a technology that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is betting big on by introducing Meta accounts that it says will allow users to access its Meta Horizons platform more easily through Oculus VR headsets.

Founder and CEO of metaverse platform CEEK Mary Spio is also one waving the VR metaverse flag. In an interview with Cointelgraph, Spio argues that the true power of a Metaverse cannot be realized unless users are totally immersed through the use of VR devices.

Spio’s metaverse platform CEEK helps digital content creators, including musicians and athletes, connect directly with their fanbase in a virtual world setting.

Spio said that her platform opted for a focus on VR immersion because “the benefits of the Metaverse cannot be fully realized in the non-VR mode:”

“Virtual Reality enables full immersion and creates that sense of presence, real emotions and memories; no different than actually being at a time and place in real life.”

However, Spio admits that their metaverse needs to allow for both VR and non-VR accessibility, as content, ease of use, and accessibility are all still required for the mass adoption of VR technology.

She believes that a “quantum leap will be in the next two to three years” for Metaverse and VR adoption.

Janine Yorio, CEO of metaverse ecosystem developer Everyrealm, however, disagrees.

To Yorio, Metaverse platforms and VR technology should develop exclusively of each other without mutual consideration.

By her estimation, a very small portion of Metaverse experiences are being built for VR like CEEK, noting VR making a significant change in the world likely won’t happen in any meaningful horizon.

The reasons for this lie in “technological obstacles” and simple human preference for the most casual applications of technology:

“People typically game or engage with technology while they are doing something else. That is impossible when using a VR headset which effectively blocks out the rest of the world and makes the user physically vulnerable while using it.”

Her view is backed by the numbers, as Statista found that the VR market size was about $4.8 billion in 2021 from only 2.4 headsets per hundred households, according to Virtual Reality Marketing. Compare that to Web2 metaverse companies that enjoy a $14.8 trillion market cap and the metaverse token market worth $7.1 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Meanwhile, the creative and technical director at Human Park, Rick Pearce, took a middle-ground stance on the issue.

He told Cointelegraph in an interview that it might be five to ten years before VR becomes a Metaverse-ready item due to developer-side limitations, as well as the various hurdles to mass adoption — though he admitted that VR implementation “isn’t off the cards.”

To Pearce, the main hurdle is the headset, which he says Oculus has solved for the most part by making the device more accessible. However, connectivity and gameplay will remain a difficult challenge for least the next five years.

Pearce added that some of the limitations of integrating VR and the Metaverse may have no solution because of “physical limitations that stop those things from connecting on a fundamental level:”

“When we saw VR kickoff, you could see that there was potential. But the mechanical components to be able to deliver a sustained enjoyable experience just weren’t there, and they still aren’t now.”

Human Park has not yet implemented VR to its platform, but says it is a possibility for the future.