I can’t say that I was intentionally searching for a book about the Metaverse, but it found me on the Artbooks website when I was searching for information about the cyberthriller «Perfect Storm». At first, I was drawn to the most striking cover I’ve seen recently, and then, after reading the synopsis thoughtfully, I realized that it was a perfect fit for the Friday feature on ITC.ua. It contains a lot of information and thoughts about the Metaverse, research on the topic, and the author’s thorough suggestions on how to build such a meta-universe step by step. He also talks a lot about technology and video games, making them the main examples to explain certain aspects of the Metaverse. Isn’t this a book for us?
Later, while reading the book «The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything» I was more and more surprised at how deep, encyclopedic and geeky it was. The fewer pages there were left, the more vividly I saw the title for this material you read above. And it is indeed true. Unexpectedly, I found a reference book for gamers and technology fans.
Author Matthew Ball
Translator Sergiy Stets
Publisher Artbooks
Language Ukrainian
Number of pages 504
Cover Solid
Year of publication 2023
Size 140×210 mm
Website artbooks.ua
As the author himself says, the main goal of this book is to offer a clear, comprehensive, and authoritative definition of the Metaverse concept. It also helps to understand what exactly is needed to implement this project and why entire generations of people will eventually move into virtuality, which will forever change everyday life, work, and the way humanity thinks.
Matthew Ball has conducted extensive research on the topic, so he gradually reveals and explains certain aspects of the Metaverse. He talks about Internet bandwidth, graphics rendering and digital computing, supercomputers, cryptocurrency and online transfers, movie graphics creation, and the mechanisms of modern gaming hits like Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft.
Through this and many other examples, the reader realizes that the Metaverse is still a long way off. It also becomes obvious that it will probably not be one big world, but at least several competing Metaverse. They will combine not only popular franchises, games, transactions, and research. These will be diverse realities with VR and AR, but the author has only assumptions about how this will work.
According to Matthew Ball, the Metaverse has been in the works for a long time and is being created at this very moment. If we draw parallels, then we, modern users, are somewhere in the early 1990s and are watching the formation of the Internet. We can definitely see that something incredible and extraordinary will come out of it, but our wildest assumptions do not even come close to the reality of the 2020s, when the Internet has become what it is.
In other words, in 10-30 years, the Metaverse will exist, but its form, type, and capabilities will be radically different from what we are fantasizing about now. We can’t even imagine which way it will go, what will affect it, how it will be exactly and in what form. There are only assumptions and a list of problems. The latter are very important, and they are more technology limitations than problems, but there are a lot of them, so there is still a lot of work to be done on them.
As an example, the author cites the limitations of graphics rendering capabilities in modern online games. Eve Online servers can barely withstand 15-20 thousand simultaneous players gathered in one place for a massive slaughter. And this is despite the fact that the developers have gone to a lot of gameplay tricks to create a full-fledged single universe server. World of Warcraft servers are not designed for more than 4-5 thousand players, and even those are distributed through channels if a lot of them gather in a particular place on the map. Fortnite has more modern, colorful graphics, but it still looks cartoonish, and technically, the game can only gather a maximum of 100 gamers on a small island.
All these game ideas are not the whims of game designers or the work of scriptwriters, but technical limitations. It’s a ceiling that the industry has long since hit and can’t go any further. And if that’s the case, how do we plan to hang out with millions of gamers at the same time in the Metaverse? The answer is simple: no way. It’s not possible at the moment.
There are many such diverse technical and gaming examples in the book. The author explains this or that Metaverse concept in detail, explaining how the Internet, modern games, game design, gadget creation, game consoles, and PCs work. He discusses online trading and shopping, where in today’s world of digital transactions, there are companies like Google and Apple that take a 30% commission on every purchase. And this, as you can imagine, is not an option for the dream Metaverse.
Gradually, chapter by chapter, explaining certain problems for the Metaverse, Matthew Ball creates a complete reference book for gamers and geeks. The book contains a lot of interesting facts about certain devices, technologies, technical trends, the creation of graphics in blockbuster movies, this and that, and a lot of other things. I don’t think the author was counting on this, but it turned out that way.
«The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything» is written in a simple and accessible way. Some might call it dried up, and they might be right. But this only helps to get a lot of useful and simply interesting information without being distracted by literary devices, etc.
Each chapter is literally crammed with facts and explanations, so you can’t read it in one go. I read it a chapter a day, and it was a normal pace for me to get the information into my head and memory. So I don’t advise you to rush. Also, this book is one of the few options for re-reading and re-reading individual chapters. And this is worth a lot.
Book «The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything» has a bright soft-touch cover, colorful cuts and straps that are fashionable now. It also has yellow paper that is pleasant to read and a relatively large font.