What all to know about Metaverse and Gaming

The relationship between gaming and humans has been since time immemorial. Until the last century, we played only real physical games, most of which were outdoors. During the stone age days, humans used to play, ‘who will hunt more animals?’, Then we started playing team games like cricket and football with proper rules. The indoor games mostly comprised chess and card games.

Then in the 20th century, with the revolution and spread of personal computers, digital or virtual gaming became a rage. In the beginning, the games were played offline, i.e. they didn’t require any internet connection. Then in the 90s decade of the 20th century, the world wide web and the internet grew manifold and online games were introduced, they quickly became popular.

Metaverse and Gaming

In the 21st century, digital games began to be made in 3D too. Gradually, the concept of the metaverse came into being and games are now also made and played in the metaverse.
Side note: if you want to know more about the basics of the metaverse, click here.

There is no clear distinction between metaverse games and other online games. The evolution began at the start of the 21st century and has been gradual. The first game that can be called a precursor to today’s metaverse games was ‘Second Life’ released in 2003. It was a 3D virtual world in which players made their virtual avatars and they socialized with each other. With the success of Second life, other game titles began to be released that can be considered in the metaverse games list. Some of the popular games that had a 3D world and social interactions are:

• Active Worlds
• The Palace
• Hotel
• Minecraft
• World of Warcraft
• Fortnite, etc.

There are more games in the category of MMORPGs or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. In recent times PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) has gained worldwide popularity for its realistic 3D world graphics and engaging gameplay. Some of the platforms that started their own interpretation of the metaverse are:

• Metahero
• Decentraland
• Blocktopia
• Meta Horizon Worlds, and
• The Sandbox.

Let us know more about a couple of them.

Decentraland

It is the largest metaverse as of Dec 2022 and is a virtual social environment or decentral game based on blockchain. You can basically explore virtual worlds, trade, build, and earn money too! You can also play the decentral game in this metaverse and do many other activities like conduct meetings, events, study, etc. 3 native tokens are used in Decentraland – Estate and LAND which are NFTs, and the MANA which is an ERC-20 fungible token that basically serves as the digital currency of Decentraland. As of November 2022, the total market value of Decentraland is $2.5 billion, according to the Investopedia website.

The Sandbox

The sandbox metaverse is the 3rd largest metaverse as of Dec 2022. Sandbox metaverse is based on the Ethereum blockchain. It is best known for two mobile games - The Sandbox (2011) and The Sandbox Evolution (2016) that together generated over 40 million downloads on Android and iOS. Due to this, the developers brought Sandbox from the 2D mobile to the 3D blockchain ecosystem. In the sandbox metaverse, people build things, interact with each other, make money, and do many other activities. Sandbox metaverse has 3 integrated products that help users give a comprehensive experience of User Generated Content (UGC) production. They are VoxEdit, Marketplace, and Game Maker. 4 types of tokens are used in sandbox metaverse – SAND, LAND, ASSETS, and GAME.

Metaverse and Card games

Since you can do so many activities in the metaverse, it is obvious that rummy and other card games are also a part of the metaverse games. We can expect more metaverses in the future, some of which will be made only for playing games, like card games or only rummy game, like the Rummyverse. You will get to make your virtual avatar, play rummy with a stranger from any part of the world, take part in virtual rummy tournaments, and in the process, win lots of real money and other prizes that will be on offer.

From offline outdoor games to metaverse games, humans have progressed a lot and there doesn’t seem to be any end. All thanks to technologies like AR, VR, HCI, etc. playing any game in the metaverse is going to be a completely different experience for us humans, whether you play rummy or football. Just like online games like the MMORPGs, metaverse games are soon going to be a rage among millions of gamers across the world.