Why Globant seeks to disassociate the metaverse from hardware

Since Meta presented its vision of the metaverse, many technology companies have joined the wave. 

However, this virtual reality-based world in which people communicate through avatars and a virtual society and economy develops may be a long way off.

But a metaverse that is not associated with hardware and that can be accessed from any cellphone is about to become a reality.

"Animal Crossing [the video game] is more similar to what we are thinking of as a metaverse," Kevin Janzen, managing director of the gaming and metaverse studio of Argentine technology company Globant, told a press conference.

Janzen says the metaverse should not be associated with specific hardware – virtual reality headsets or video game consoles – because that excludes part of the population, so it must be inclusive and accessible through cellphones.

Globant's version of the metaverse is more akin to a video game experience than to virtual or augmented reality.

The company is creating its own virtual world to generate greater interaction among its employees, encouraging them to share common interests and have a greater sense of belonging.

In this world, Globant intends that its users can carry out work interactions, as well as entertainment. The first version of its metaverse should be ready by the end of the year, Janzen confirmed during the conference.

In the future, Globant intends to offer the virtual metaverse platform as a white label.

WHO INVESTS IN THE METAVERSE?

In general, startups and technology companies are the first to invest in the creation of virtual worlds.

“The further away they are from technology, the more lost they are, to the point where we get questions [from companies] like: should I be making money or spending money on the metaverse?” Janzen told BNamericas.

“We are like it was with the internet in the 1990s, we knew it would be important but we couldn't predict how much,” said Verónica Futaoka, product director of Globant.

According to Janzen, there are currently few companies that are investing in the new virtual world, which may have applications for video games as well as for companies in terms of brand positioning, new customer service channels, new models of business and monetization, as well as new products and services.

In addition, the metaverse appears as a continuation of the digital twins that companies are using for training and testing before making process reengineering decisions.

According to Forrester, 76% of companies globally plan to spend part of their marketing budget on activities related to the metaverse. However, in terms of investment in the metaverse, the figure is much lower.

“There is a lot of interest, but we still don't see that they have made the decision to invest,” Janzen said.

One of the problems has to do with the budget, since creating a metaverse costs close to a million dollars. "It may make sense for the business, but you have to review the budget carefully because they are projects from six zeros up," he said.

Janzen said prices might only start to drop "once things are built on a consolidated platform."

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, seeks to be that platform. However, at the beginning of the year Mark Zuckerberg's company said that, in the medium term, its efforts to build the metaverse will mean a significant loss of money.

In Latin America, Mexico and Brazil are the ones that are investing the most in the construction of the metaverse, according to Meta.

Japanese IT consulting and services group NTT Data previously confirmed to BNamericas that it is designing metaverse proofs of concept with companies in the region.

During Internet Day 2022 held in Buenos Aires, Benjamín Silva, Huawei Global Video's chief digital officer, said that at least one telecommunications operator in Argentina was working on metaverse issues.

“In general, large multinationals are investing, but there is also a lot of trial and error,” Futaoka said in response to a question from BNamericas. “There is a very strong world of startups [in the region],” she added.

PROJECTIONS

Citibank predicts the metaverse market could reach US$8-13tn by 2030 as it becomes more accessible across multiple devices and can support a wide variety of use cases, including commerce, art, media, advertising, health and social collaboration.

According to BCG, virtual assets traded in these digital worlds should move between US$150bn and US$300bn by 2025.

“But getting to that market level is going to require infrastructure investment. The content streaming environment of the metaverse will likely require a computational efficiency improvement of over 1,000x today’s levels. Investment will be needed in areas such as compute, storage, network infrastructure, consumer hardware, and game development platforms," Citi said in a statement at the end of March.