• by Jason Steinberg , Op-Ed Contributor, February 14, 2022

To many, Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard was a clear case of a company with a gaming subscription service looking for a wealth of game titles to add.

But the company, echoed by many Web3 prophets, followed up to claim that the purchase gave them a foothold in the metaverse.

The announcement is the latest in a slew of companies announcing plans to build a metaverse or join a theoretical metaverse that… doesn’t quite exist yet.

Activision Blizzard is the video game studio behind "World of Warcraft," "Call of Duty," "Candy Crush," and many more games. And while it may one day make video games and experiences for the metaverse, it does not today. It makes video games for consoles and PCs. 

The metaverse has become a shiny new toy for brands to brandish and wave at consumers -- but in reality, today the metaverse is still a dream.  What the metaverse promises -- an alternate digital reality -- exists today through augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

The advent of high-quality AR and VR consumer devices has finally made the fantasy seem within reach -- and understandably so! Experiences that fuse our physical selves with digital content have never been so powerful. 

Audiences are meeting Darth Vader face to face in their living rooms in VR, or inhabiting alternate personas, even animated cartoon characters in AR — with more expression and fidelity than is available to a professional cast member in a Mickey Mouse bodysuit.

These high-impact experiences suck audiences in, engaging on multiple levels of stimulation and exploration. They use sensor fusion to create a cross-reality bridge, allowing us to place ourselves in digital environments, or place digital items in the real environment, or use any combination of the above across a sort of reality spectrum.

But these powerful experiences are transient, while the popular conversation around the metaverse promises permanence and ownership. 

Many will remember Second Life, an online world that still exists today, albeit with little to no buzz. The premise was intriguing (create an avatar that can build property and live a full life on this platform), but the tech was unreliable, the user experience was better on paper than in “reality,” and a laissez-faire approach to moderation led to an overabundance of bad actors dominating the world. The end result is, in its way, the opposite of permanence: a digital ghost town.

The truth is that the metaverse is years away from being a viable entity. And companies like Facebook, Amazon and perhaps Microsoft will likely invest heavily to become gatekeepers of whatever it may be. 

For most brands, there is no need to chase ownership or position in any of the “metaverse” pipe dreams at this time.

But there are powerful, immersive VR and AR experiences being built each and every day, and it’s these examples that are quietly becoming a regular part of consumers' lives. 

Virtual reality has arrived on PCs, gaming consoles, and even untethered as a stand-alone device on the Meta Quest. Major brands like Disney have rolled out Star Wars and Coco VR experiences that created their own mini universe to activate their audiences like never before.

AR has arrived in people’s homes and on cell phones in such a way that it has almost become mundane. Someone might use an AR app to measure their room, use an AR product demo to see a new couch in that space, or augment the space with silly AR characters before posting their renovation plans to social media -- and even use their phone to make a one-to-one 3D scan of the room that they can share to 3D sites like Sketchfab.

The point is that we can create exciting augmented experiences without waiting for the metaverse. More than 60% of Americans and 37% of the world’s active social media users have access to AR tech. More than 40 million people in the United States will enjoy social AR experiences in the form of Snapchat Lenses or AR Effects on Facebook and Instagram.

And modern webVR experiences can be enjoyed across multiple devices, from VR headsets to desktops (where users can navigate 3D space with their mouse) to phones (where the device acts as a “magic window”, allowing users to look through the plane of the phone into a 3D world all around them).

By all means, keep an eye on the metaverse (to be honest, it would be hard to avoid all of the noise and hype). But remember that its promise remains unfulfilled, and there is a spectrum of meta-realities available for exploration right now.