메뉴 메뉴
닫기
검색
 

LIFE

제 12 호 Metaverse: An Invitation to the New World

  • 작성일 2021-11-22
  • 좋아요 Like 0
  • 조회수 9099
최영진

KICKER: LIFE (TECHNOLOGY) 


Metaverse: An Invitation to the New World




Yeong-Jin Choi, Editor
pch39067@gmail.com


  As we are coexisting with Corona more than a full year, new technologies are being developed and introduced to the world. There are some old technologies, too, which are newly highlighted for their usefulness. Have you heard about the term, “Metaverse”? The word metaverse was first introduced in the novel, “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson in 1992. It is a newly coined word combining the word “meta” which means transcendence*, and the word “universe” which means the world. Thus, metaverse is a concept of fluently combining the reality and the cyber world. 


*Transcendence: Experience that goes past normal limits, or the ability to achieve this. 



Metaverse in Games

  Roblox, Fortnight, and Animal Crossing all share one similarity. They all use metaverse technologies, which combine the cyber world and reality. All three of those games above are both popular and high in profitability* worldwide. What makes a good metaverse model then? Three qualifications are needed in order to be successful. 



텍스트이(가) 표시된 사진  자동 생성된 설명Animal Crossing


  First, a high degree of freedom is required. Users of metaverse create their unique avatar, and act freely. Users can either design the character that looks identical with them, or they can just make up a character with an attractive outlook. If they want to swim or catch a fish in the game, they are free to do so. If the users want to build a house and sleep in it, sure, it is up to their free will. 

  Second, social connection is needed for a successful metaverse model. Communicating with other users online is one of the key elements. Chatting or even talking with their own voices are very welcomed, and if not, at least showing emotions can be a good option. It is important to offer the users to exchange their feelings and thoughts not just in the real world, but also online. 

  We should know that metaverse technology is not for free or being voluntary. Companies and government embraced metaverse because it can draw people’s attention, and if attention is drawn, they try it. Therefore, third, profitability should be marked as the last key to success. Not only the presenters gain the chance of monetary* advantages, but the users also get the chance to make money. Roblox, for example, offers a studio where everyone can make their costumes and maps in the game, and they can make money by selling what they have made. 


*Profitability: The fact that something produces or is likely to produce a profit. 

*Monetary: Relating to money or in the form of money. 


Pros and Cons of Metaverse

  As the technology enables the users to be connected anytime, anywhere, possible advantages of metaverse would be: fun to use, bring people together, improve work and increase education efficiency as people work and study at their home. On the other hand, metaverse can generate addiction, separate the users from the real world, be hard to adapt for elderly people, and overstimulate* the senses. Some say that after they used metaverse technology to do their work and study at home instead of going out, they felt headaches and felt unusually exhausted afterwards. 


*Overstimulate: To cause a part of the body to produce too much of a particular substance or have too great effect on a process. 


텍스트, 다른이(가) 표시된 사진  자동 생성된 설명Gather Town


Metaverse in Sangmyung

  Have you heard of the platform, Gather Town? Gather Town uses metaverse technology for virtual office, personal space, and lecture room. One major class in the Global Area Studies uses Gather Town during classes, making students discuss about the given topic freely and fluently. Since the platform offers to make multi-discussion rooms simultaneously, students can be divided into small groups of four to five each and share ideas privately. Speaking out loud while seeing each other’s face in a private room really makes students to feel like they are actually in a real office room. 

  As a student who is attending the class above, I had some hardships while using the platform at first. Since I have never experienced metaverse platform outside games, there were lots of things to keep in mind like to press x for object interaction, or to press g to go through other people when we are stuck. The hardest thing to adapt was to stay in the same area with the speaker in order to hear what he/she says, because when we are not near him/her, we cannot hear a thing. As time went by, however, when I started to realize how to use the platform easily, I thought it was quite meaningful. Listening to the professor lecturing is one thing but having an opportunity to fully participate in class was another. O/X quiz, for example, was one of the things our class tried during the class, and it felt like a real quiz game to me since I had to move my character to the left and right for an answer. 



  Embracing new technologies is always both interesting and hard. Though the concept of metaverse has already been quite familiar to the modern people after the Corona virus, there are still a few tasks to solve like addiction and the difficulty to adapt new technologies for elderly people. I personally believe that metaverse technology still has to take the long road to commercialization*. Therefore, I hope that advancement in metaverse is made as soon as possible to make the world a better place. 


*Commercialization: The process of making a product or service available for sale to the public.