In this article, I identify 9 megatrends — exponential shifts that are already underway on a global scale — and how they will shape the future of the metaverse. Most of the megatrends are a blend of both technology and social change. Here are the megatrends I’ll discuss: By looking…

The “creator economy” is about unleashing creativity — enabling anyone to earn a living or build a business around an audience, unconstrained by the high technological barriers that existed in the past. We now have enough history to look back and see a predictable pattern play out: whether it was…

In my article on the value-chain of the metaverse, I described the seven layers of the ecosystem. In this article I’m going to focus-in on three of the most important metaverse companies — Unity, Epic Games and Roblox — and describe the commonalities and differences. Let’s start with where companies…

Trillions of dollars: that’s how much private industry is investing into the metaverse. In this article, I provide a description of the value chain of this market, from the experiences that people seek out to the enabling technologies that make it possible. More importantly, I also provide a prescription —…

Within a decade, an independent developer, working alone, will create a game with the size, scope and artistry of Elden Ring. And then a millions of other people will do the same thing. How is it possible that a single person will do the work of a team that cost…

Compose, component, combine, compound, composability — all of these words stem from the same common Latin root, com, meaning together. What we can accomplish together is more powerful than any one of us can do alone. That is the subject of this article: composability in the metaverse. I will explain…

The first Gulf War was described as the first to play out in real-time in the mass media; the War in Ukraine is the first war that’s playing out on the real-time internet: Twitch, TikTok and Twitter. Although there have been other conflicts in the past decade, this is the…

Economies in virtual worlds have a large number of distinguishing characteristics. This ontology attempts to describe them in terms of two of the important ones: an open <-> closed axis, and an externalized <-> internalized axis — and then place a number of worlds into this structure. Open vs. Closed An open economy…

It’s been several months since I shared my thoughts about the world of NFT-based games and digital collectibles. Since then, we’ve seen an explosion of interest in the category of games — as well as a huge increase in the amount of misinformation, confusion and downright cynicism. My purpose is…