A Crucible Moment
"Hello, World!"
“Hello World!”
A Metaverse is a big idea — the Open Metaverse can be even bigger. Perhaps the biggest idea of our modern times. It can fundamentally change not only what we know, but also how we connect as a networked species.
People are arguing over how to define this - is it open or closed? If it’s closed, are there more than one competing for dominance? Up until now, it’s been a science fiction concept from books like Snow Crash and Ready Player One — but we have watched it become one of the themes of our time.
A “Crucible”, in ancient alchemy and modern metallurgy, is a vessel in which elements are rendered to their base form by extreme temperatures, to then be reformed. In modern times it has been used to define experiences that shape us - break us down, change us, and force us to a point of deep self-reflection - questioning who we are and what matters to us.
A true crucible moment requires us to examine our values, question our assumptions and hone our judgement. Invariably, we emerge from the crucible stronger and more sure of ourselves and our purpose - hopefully changed in some fundamental way to move forward.
The world of tech is facing a true crucible moment right now, and every corporation and startup should be thinking about this or they will be left behind very quickly. While the global population shelters in place, we’ve all projected ourselves online to try to emulate the real world and salvage as much connection as possible. We’re living through something now that has drastically accelerated our understanding of the cracks in our society and current ways of doing things - and most importantly where the future is promising to take us and future generations.
If you zoom into certain parts of the world right now, you can see the metaverse taking shape in real time.
Gaming is exploding ($120B+ in 2020), eating culture and driving a lot of this growth; more specifically game engines like Unreal and Unity. There are 10M registered developers using game engines to build things like video games, virtual and augmented reality applications and immersive worlds. Now that Hollywood is in a holding pattern for physical production, these engines are enabling new methods and creations as the industry looks for ways to stay alive, relevant and manage the creative pipeline in a time of pandemic.
Game engines are the new reality engines.
One of the clearest examples of the metaverse taking shape is Epic Games, owners and creators of the Unreal Engine and the open world game Fortnite, in which players spent 3B hours during a single month. Just last year they shared a stunning demo of the type of generational shift in graphics the newest Unreal Engine 5 will have. That same day they announced their Epic Online Services SDK for federated identity and cross-play functionality.
Video games are now social networks and even places to hang out and party with friends. So it’s not too far-fetched to see a future where these worlds create new jobs and opportunities to earn money within these virtual economies. In-game skins and currencies are already at an annual multi-billion dollar consumer spend. Designer skins are creating a new industry of virtual fashion. For a generation whose wealth is more digital than physical, self-expression is happening through avatars, and consumers’ demand is there with 63% of them wanting to spend more for real world value and a secondary market.
Another example is the growing decentralized web3 networks of blockchains and crypto. A good way to think of this is a digital trust layer being formed onto the internet to prove ownership. This is important, but it comes with a lot of complexity and risk which makes for a huge barrier to entry keeping many developers and creators locked out.. Brands who would be interested in the value and digital trust that it offers are hesitant to pull the trigger, and when they do they are often let down and confused.
Ethereum based virtual worlds like Decentraland, Somnium Space, The Sandbox, and CryptoVoxels sell scarce virtual land — similar to a 3D version of the million dollar homepage from web1. Owners of the land can build anything they want on it, and in the case of The Sandbox we are seeing established IP like Atari and Square Enix staking their claim. This is a small market but it will grow quickly.
Blockchains have created a small current in gaming that is beginning to swell, but very few projects here are truly gamer-first and really just paint a thin layer of gaming onto crypto-first design. We need to flip that on its head and make easy and protected ways for game developers to add this technology to the gaming tech stack.
If you squint you can see that at some point fairly soon, gaming and mixed reality, underpinned by these new economic frameworks, will work together to truly give way to an immersive metaverse economy - but a technical bottleneck exists before we can get there. Crypto just comes with too much friction to be viable for billions of people as is. This is a trillion dollar opportunity but we need new identity models, stronger security standards and ways of managing data that are on the right side of history - preserving user agency over profit.
Crucible has created the Emergence Software Development Kit (SDK), which provides an easily integratable on-ramp for game developers to access the web3 (decentralized) digital trust layer of user sovereignty and a network of secure in-game economies.
For gamers, Emergence takes the form of a familiar game-style Agent interface to manage their online lives -in-game, or anywhere else. Gamers don’t have to think about identity or crypto, they just play, collect skins, talk to their friends and move from world to world seamlessly with no passwords and no friction. This is all now starting to feel like Ready Player One is becoming real. That’s exciting, and in 2021 it makes perfect sense.
To avoid the closed and corporate owned ecosystem of “The Oasis”, however, Crucible’s job is abstracting and minimizing all that complexity to allow players to focus on the experience. while bringing user sovereignty and control to the forefront. This hasn’t been done yet in gaming, these worlds are yet to truly collide and the tech hasn’t been designed with game engines in mind. We remove the friction for game developers so they can find on-ramps more easily to acquire new players and retain them with new ways to play and earn money in a growing digital economy. We empower gamers, respect their rights as creators and put them at the center of an Open Metaverse that they can help shape.
On top of the substrate of user sovereignty, we are the originators of the Direct-to-Avatar (D2A) commerce model. The Direct to Avatar digital property market for world building, skins, avatars, digital fashion, music, collectibles & experiences is predicted to be the largest digital economy in history, topping at least $1T this decade.
It’s no secret that Epic CEO and majority shareholder, Tim Sweeney, has a vision for an open metaverse and he’s making some strong chess moves — executing quickly and consistently. Changes like federated identity are just the first step in a long term vision that we share with them and will continue to execute on.
For this reason, we have chosen to start with the Unreal Engine. We have selected projects that we believe are building important components of the metaverse and are currently in Pre-Season for our Alpha for the Unreal Engine. Over the coming months, we will build a small-scale pilot of the Open Metaverse with these projects and our partners
Unreal is just where we start. Unity3D other game engines, mobile and web will follow shortly after. This includes open standards such as those with the Khronos Group and VRM in Japan.
This Open Metaverse Substack will be used to publish much more of our thinking, our progress, announcements and content, documenting how this all unfolds in real time. We will be diving into more detail on everything very soon over the next 30 days. - starting with our launch today at Into the Metaverse.
If you’re interested in helping impact this future, please visit our website and get in touch. https://crucible.network/. We’ve also started “Blueprints for the Open Metaverse”, a cross-industry consortium for forging the Open Metaverse based on open standards. We will be announcing founding members shortly as well.
We’re excited for you to join us in this Crucible moment, and become part of the new digital renaissance ahead.
Ryan Gill
🌐
Telegram - (https://t.me/joinchat/HYvwRSzJA4Na6NW0)
Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/openmetaverse)
Twitter (https://twitter.com/CrucibleNetwork)