вЂњWeвЂ™re building this thing called the metaverse - a social place.вЂќДЄ Travis Scott concert held within Fortnite last April drew more than 12 million concurrent views, the company said. вЂњItвЂ™s more than a game,вЂќ Matthew Weissinger, the vice president of marketing at Epic, said in court. Now, Epic markets Fortnite as not just an interactive experience but as a metaverse. Players spend money to dress up their characters in superhero costumes and banana suits. In financial documents made public in federal court in May as part of an antitrust suit against Apple, Epic said Fortnite made more than $9 billion in revenue in 20 combined.

вЂњIt took off in a way none of us quite anticipated,вЂќ said Donald Mustard, the chief creative officer of Epic.ДЄs millions of players flocked to Fortnite Battle Royale, a game mode that is a bit like вЂњThe Hunger Games,вЂќ the company rushed to add social features, like voice chatting and dance parties. The plan, according to DecentralandвЂ™s founders, was always for its users to take ownership of the world, building and doing what they please.

What separates Decentraland from its predecessors like Second Life, a virtual world owned and operated by a private company called Linden Labs, is that it is indeed fairly decentralized. Michael Bouhanna, who ran the sale, estimated that 90 percent of the galleriesвЂ™ 3,200 visitors had little sense of what SothebyвЂ™s is or does, but said the exercise was useful for helping existing customers conceptualize NFTs, which the auction house is already selling. SothebyвЂ™s, which acquired a small plot in DecentralandвЂ™s arts district and constructed a replica of its London galleries, recently closed its first show in the metaverse. This month, Republic Realm, which calls itself a вЂњdigital real estate firm,вЂќ purchased an NFT of a 259-parcel virtual estate in Decentraland for more than 1.2 million MANA, or, at contemporaneous exchange rates, more than $900,000. Speculators seem less confused after all, Decentraland is first and foremost an experiment in scarce digital property. Between events, users are mostly left to wander and wonder: What now? The sense that Decentraland is a work in progress pervades the sparsely populated grid of half-developed plots and themed zones. There are casinos where you can gamble in MANA, with croupiers who are paid in MANA to show up for work. вЂњInstead, it will slowly emerge over time as different products, services and capabilities integrate and meld together.вЂќДenizens of Decentraland are constantly creating scenes and experiences for other users, like concerts and art exhibits. There вЂњwill be no clean вЂBefore MetaverseвЂ™ and вЂAfter Metaverse,вЂ™вЂќ he writes. Matthew Ball, a venture capitalist and prolific essayist, describes the metaverse not as a virtual world or a space, but as вЂњa sort of successor state to the mobile internetвЂќ - a framework for an extremely connected life. If youвЂ™ve attended a work meeting or a party using a digital avatar, youвЂ™re treading into the neighborhood of metaversality.ДЇounders, investors, futurists and executives have all tried to stake their claim in the metaverse, expounding on its potential for social connection, experimentation, entertainment and, crucially, profit. Virtual and augmented reality are, at a minimum, metaverse adjacent. If you own a non-fungible token or even just some crypto, youвЂ™re part of the metaversal experience. Video games like Roblox and Fortnite and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, in which players can build their own worlds, have metaverse tendencies, as does most social media. Together, these new technologies hint at what the internet will become next. As a buzzword, the metaverse refers to a variety of virtual experiences, environments and assets that gained momentum during the online-everything shift of the pandemic.

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