The Metaverse Is Dead On Arrival
Will the concept become (virtual) reality before we lose interest?
Since I wrote this “viral” piece about the Metaverse (and NFT) boom going bust on March 15, the traffic trends have continued to tumble down towards zero.
The Metaverse exploded into public view on the back of Facebook’s rebrand to Meta in late October 2021. It quickly became the corporate buzzword of the moment, and companies scrambled to release statements and visuals of future Metaverse-related projects because… well, reasons.
But, just 7 months later, the hype is fading fast, and there’s a real danger that interest in the Metaverse will flatline long before it’s fully realized.
The situation can be summarized by Marc Petit, Epic Games’ VP and general manager of Unreal Engine, who put it bluntly, “People have kind of lost interest in the Metaverse, because characters look like cartoons with no legs. I mean, who wants to be that? This is not attractive.”
While that’s an excellent explanation, there’s more to it than that.
