The World is Not Ready for The Metaverse (is Not Ready for the World)!

  

    What is the 'Metaverse'.  

Virtual worlds where users can meet up, play, create, and collect items for their avatars to wear and show off. 

This is not a new concept. Games like SecondLife (2003) had all of those things. 

Now VR headsets are getting better (and cheaper), and things are getting a bit more interesting with NFTs and virtual land. Brands and celebrities are buying up land in online worlds; selling cosmetics and collectibles as NFTs for players is getting more common (and branded).

Second Life had its peak in 2013 and ran into some of the metaverse issues that are still a problem. Loading a ton of different  items (textures, player avatars, animations, textures, sounds, etc.) can make scenes slow and clunky; and some players (griefers) will find bugs and glitches that they can wear or bring along with them to lag or crash the game for other players. Even with fast internet it can take a while to download several textures and animations in a scene, and for every character that loads in. Without strict scene limits, a player can often run out of graphics memory as well. 

Although there are lot of good games to buy for VR, none of them are exactly GTA 5 or Halo Infinite level in graphics. Consumer VR headsets are far from ready to handle games of that size. A VR game has to render a scene twice, once for each eye, which is even difficult for most computers. VR headsets are basically androids on the face. This is why most VR games so far are mobile games quality, or low-poly. 

    PCVR

To get the best of VR you need a decent gaming computer and a VR headset able to connect to the computer.
Buy the games on Steam, for PC, whenever available, not on the headset store. 

TIP: see How to improve Oculus Quest graphics Quality - Increase Resolution

    The world is not ready for the metaverse?

It's clear to see in the comment sections, and many influencer opinions, people are not too excited about the metaverse. besides the lack of graphics, it's mainly the idea of Meta (Facebook) 'Zuck's Metaverse' telling us what our future is going to be, taking over the gaming industry, or, at worst, trying to 'trap us in The Matrix'.
Is it just another way for the rich to get richer?
So many people are already attached to their Androids and iPhones, but they are not ready to put them on the face yet?
"Oh do not ask what is it, let us go and make our visit"