Livable Reality Ecosystems - Insights and Observations
The sun always shines in the cyberspace.
In a world without fixed time and space, there is a need for a persistent and continuous functional livability.
In the current oversaturated metaverse market, not every project has what it takes to become successful. Many claim to ‘bring value’, but most metaverses offer only partial solutions to actual problems, forgetting that Web3 is much more complex than Web2 when it comes to building functionality. To populate Web3, it is not enough to offer a service that one can already find an adopted solution for in Web2. Web3 ecosystems need to be designed to continuously validate their service offer within the XR program. They need to accommodate movement of users (by movement I don’t just mean static online presence) with an adequate frequency of exchange, and create an incentive for people to actually enter Web3. This alone cannot be accomplished by technology alone. In a livable XR ecosystem, due to increased dimensionality, more puzzle pieces have to come together to make things work. If you are amidst of building a Web3 virtual reality platform, you might find these insights valuable:
Acquisition of the User Base
Every pitch presentation and roadmap talks about this as a follow-up point after introduction of the technology. ‘After we build the tech, we plan on developing a user acquisition strategy’, is the approximate sentiment. Yes, for platforms to be platforms, they need to have a solid daily active users (DAU) body. The bigger, the better, and companies do make building a user base as one of the priorities. But oftentimes they introduce the user-base-building strategies too late, leaving them lingering empty between phases or a long time after the launch, that is in case they make it to that point at all.
Starting to build your user base after you finish the technical foundation is too late. These are not two steps going after one another. They must be built simultaneously and the roads need to be embedded into each other. Example:
Specialized user base – What are the unique technical features of your platform and which group of professionals is it appealing to — developers, designers, other creators? How can you make this group to become the first wave of users? As an example of what acquisition of a specialized user base could be: the OWNverse platform uses an open source engine as a technical basis for the operating system. The community is able to create extensions to the platform functionalities, making the platform and their own creations grow. For this platform, that is the group of early adopters.
General user base – If you don’t have an open source or unique technical or creative features, what is your strategy to appeal to the non-specialized groups? How did you conceptualize the Unique Selling Proposition of your business? How can you start planting the seeds during the process of building via messaging strategy? Do your functionalities fall into a category of valuable or critical? (I will touch upon valuable and critical use further below.)
Overall – Have you done research on the user base trends, numbers, statistics in your particular metaverse category and all XR? Is this information properly embedded into the design program? Does it reflect your selection of interfaces your platform will be offering?
Many of the most prominent mobile platforms have millions of DAU. Pokémon GO was groundbreaking in terms of wider adaptation of Augmented Reality with tens of Millions DAU, for Snapchat it makes 363 Million DAU. Virtual Reality has a different user dynamics from Augmented Reality due to a different level of immersion. It is all-consuming and that makes plurality a challenge. You cannot walk down the street with a VR headset, but you can with your AR mobile app on your smartphone. Technically, you can walk down the street with a VR mobile app as well, but you will be presented with a different environment in the app, not an overlay, with a deeper level of immersion and more ‘detachment’ from the immediate environment. VR lacks plurality, which is statistically the reason why users gravitate towards less immersive environments as their first intuitive pick. The scalability standard for VR is also a contributory factor. So, it is currently much more difficult to acquire a user base in VR than for AR.
The goal for the metaverse is billions of DAU. Currently, Roblox is one of the most active platforms with 58,8 Million (Q3 2022), Second Life has a daily average of 200 000, Sandbox 39 000 and Decentraland 8000. Further, the user base cannot consist of casual users, but of core returning users, which brings me to the next point.
User Visitation Frequency
The frequency is proportional to the revenue. High frequency → more money. To keep the users on the platform and make them come again, they need something to do repeatedly. For example, metaverses in the gaming niche may benefit from moving beyond the concept of offering a rather simple gaming program, mostly on P2E basis, thinking that it will be enough to attract a larger user base. Games can be incorporated and are desirable to many users, but that alone or VFX won’t be enough. The quality of graphics is very important, even my favorite metaverse is one that I visually enjoy the most, while I am intuitively discouraged from returning to low poly virtual worlds that I don’t enjoy visually, despite them offering interesting functionalities. The point — VFX alone will not retain the users and increase the frequency long-term, unless your metaverse is constantly visually updated, frequently offers new environments and its primary function is visually immersive experiential exploration. This is not the case for the vast majority of the metaverses, because it doesn’t usually promise a high revenue and is extremely labor-intensive. A high quality XR program for user retention is a decisive factor.
Critical vs. Valuable Functionality of the XR Program
To determine the most important functionalities to the users, we distinguish between what is a valuable and what is a critical functionality. Valuable functionalities may be technically difficult and the final result might be a great experience, but they differ from critical functionalities. If something can be done that the user cares about, it is a valuable functionality. If it must be done and there isn’t any other way of doing it, it is a critical functionality. Ideally, the ratio of critical and valuable functionalities in the ecosystem would be balanced and both categories would be present. Unfortunately, it looks like we are yet to build solid proprietary critical functionalities of VR. They will come with a more persistent metaverse foundation and more transference of actual daily necessities performable via the metaverse environment. It will be an important milestone for the open metaverse builders.
Critical Integrations
The average app use of Americans is 9/day and 30/month. Most people don’t frequently download new apps, which means there is a recurrent use of the same apps. That is a significant number and a variety of applications with a constant use that has the potential to drive users into Web3. Considering there is a need to create an incentive for users to choose Web3 over Web2, it would be worthwhile to study the critical features of these apps and the quality of their interface to make it a part of the metaverse.
There is a good chance it could carry the quality of ubiquity and a relation to location. This creates a specific set of circumstances that made Pokémon GO and Google Maps so successful. Augmented Reality apps that add an experiential value with an element of orientation within the physical space, because it does exactly what is supposed to to make it interesting: augment the thing that people already know, use and can relate to, and make it more fun. For VR it must go beyond augmentation – it has to be connected to overcoming a significant issue that is relation to space (and time). That is of course a high-quality virtual presence that is functional without any glitching, is reliable and persistent. Example:
Physical reality tied to physical spatial coordinates = visiting the bank in 3D physically
Web2 platform entered via 2D interface (screen) and no ties to space coordinates = using the internet banking platform of the bank (2D)
Web3 platform with bank’s digital twin entered via 3D interface = visiting the bank in 3D digitally
This can work as digitizing physical facilities (creating their digital twins), or increase dimensionality of Web2 platforms that don’t have physical presences. That would be taking any widely used and established Web2 platform with a rich user base (Shopify, Canva, Behance, Artstation etc.) and create a bridge to Web3 by adding a third dimension to the existing template. Explore these features, templates and integration in the OWNverse Whitepaper.
The current problems are still bulky 3D interfaces. Many people would still prefer to use a Web2 platform to do basic transactions. But if the task required an actual exchange, advice or some type of problem solving, these are rather difficult to solve with website’s chatbots or take a long time to communicate via email or chat due to capacity or time availability.
If this bulkiness could be solved with a virtual platform, many people would opt for the Web3 option. It would solve a problem and a lack of a feature in Web2 and provide an actual value — not just offer a feature that Web2 already has. It is to solve a problem that exists on Web2 with an additional dimension.
Co-creatorship
Now with 3D immersive features and advanced web applications, it becomes a digital connective tissue that interconnects elements into a complex web system. Currently, most internet users are passive consumers of information that exists on the network. This is the baseline of presently spread and widely used Web2 (dubbed as “Internet of Information”). As we shift towards Web3 as the “Internet of Value”, users become co-creators of the 3D immersive experiences.
The features of the 3D web move towards distributed systems. Although not all are blockchain-based, many apply – to some degree at least – an element of distributed creatorship and interlinking. In the end, that was the true purpose and nature of the Internet originated with Web1.
OWNverse is one of the Web3 platforms that apply an open source and co-creative model. Co-creative within the functional core – the foundation of the ecosystem, but also allowing general users to create with already existing tools (top layers of the ecosystem).
The real value of virtual experiences is co-created and consumed by many, and for that the users (co-creators) need access to creative tools they are already familiar with. There are many platforms with complicated interfaces that are difficult to understand and not intuitive at all. That narrows down the user base to a group of professionals and a few enthusiasts that persist enough to stay around. This is not a good strategy, and although there certainly is a learning curve towards adopting new habits for the general use, it cannot be completely alien, because it will discourage people from ever using it. The goal is a relatively fast adoption rate to reach a wide audience.
If we think one step ahead, a prerequisite for a wide adoption is ultimately open creatorship in an open metaverse. Not within an enclosed specialized virtual space, but a holographically projected interoperable platform with real-time open creatorship. This can be achieved by using templates that consist of familiar tools. For example, OWNverse builds on existing use and daily habits of the user base. To make everything as simple as possible, they use integrated Web2 features that become spatialized in 3D. The goal is to make use of the existing workflow of users.
Spatially, it is also literally built by the users themselves. The platform has an integrated virtual space constructor with pre-designed elements that can build mini-metaverses of various complexities. Interactive features, 3D builders, importers are embedded in the builder. It is interoperable to some degree, being able to functionally communicate with digital systems of other platforms and compatible softwares.
Final Thoughts
It is important to put the whole development into a perspective. Even though XR has been around for a while due to gaming, for general use, the surface has barely been scratched. There is a lot of work lying ahead, we just need to take one step at a time.
Title credits: Cyberwar