Behind the Metaverse Fever: Avoiding Involution Competition and Technological Separation

The popularity of the Metaverse continues unabated, and the world markets and governments have deployed the Metaverse. The United States took the lead in proposing the concept of "Metaverse". First, the first metaverse company Roblox was established, and then the Internet giant Facebook changed its name to Meta. Since then, American companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia have successively announced the layout of the metaverse. While embracing the metaverse, U.S. regulators have focused on data security and privacy protection issues. Looking at Asia again, the Korean government responded the fastest to the Metaverse. It not only established the Metaverse Association, but also stated in the "Tourism Industry Recovery and Re-Leap Forward Plan" that it will build a "South Korea" that integrates major Korean attractions, popular film and television drama locations, etc. Tourism Universe Platform", and promote the "dual-track" system of virtual tourism such as Metaverse and smart tourism of actual visitors.

Looking at China, the policy layout and implementation of first-tier and new first-tier cities are taking the lead. The digital transformation of Shanghai's cities has entered the "comprehensive promotion stage", and the electronic information industry involved in Metaverse is a key basic industry for the high-quality development and digital transformation of Shanghai's economy and society. Li Qiang, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, pointed out at the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee's Economic Work Conference: "Guide enterprises to step up research on important platforms for the interaction between the virtual world and the real society in the future, and make timely arrangements." The "14th Five-Year Plan" proposes to strengthen the forward-looking research and development of the underlying core technology and basic capabilities of the Metaverse, promote the development of new terminals that deepen perception and interaction, and the construction of systematic virtual content, and explore industry applications. On December 13, 2021, the Chongqing Municipal Government issued the "Chongqing Municipal New Urban Infrastructure Construction Pilot Work Plan" and proposed two-stage goals: start the construction of the city-level city information model (CIM) basic platform in 2021, and develop the core areas of the two rivers and four banks. By 2025, based on the CIM basic platform, promote the application of the Internet of Things in urban infrastructure, intelligent connected vehicles, intelligent communities, intelligent construction, intelligent urban management and other fields. In addition, Zhejiang has research and reserves in the fields of AR engine, virtual portrait, 3D space and virtual scene construction, new human-computer interaction, 5G cloud network, edge computing, industrial XR interaction engine and other fields in the development of the "Metaverse" industry; Beijing also has The basic technology of the Metaverse, the industrial foundation of services.

The above cases are bound to become a reference model for the construction and governance of China's urban metaverse. Only by judging risks in advance and treating governance as an opportunity can we achieve "China's speed" and show "China's height" on the global metaverse track.

1. Metaverse acts as a magnifying glass for industrial risks, exposing construction problems

(1) There is a lack of consensus on new concepts, and the confusion of application scenarios leads to an unhealthy competitive landscape

At present, there is no clear definition of the metaverse, and there is a phenomenon of vague references to conceptual gimmicks in the industry's discussion of the concept of the metaverse. Various voices continue to put forward new ideas and interpretations, trying to combine the metaverse with all industries, such as "new consumption + metaverse", "new social interaction + metaverse" and so on. The abnormal fluctuations in stock prices have already attracted the attention of regulators, and many Metaverse concept companies have received frequent inquiries from exchanges. According to the statistics of Yuanchuang Metaverse Research Institute, as of early November 2021, there are 663 Metaverse-related enterprises nationwide. At present, 29 provinces and municipalities directly under the Central Government already have Metaverse-related enterprises. In this case, the mutual disapproval and involution competition among the major platforms resulted in improper competition in the Metaverse:

First, ecological closure. From a pessimistic point of view, as each stakeholder competes to seize the commanding heights of the Metaverse, the competition among giants shows the relative closedness of the future ecology, which is contrary to the decentralization concept advocated by the Metaverse. Since the currently planned metaverse does not have a unified digital social governance principle, it has caused a fragmentation in governance. Unity is the only law for the normalized operation of all things. From the point of view of the platform, the major factories operate independently, build their own standard industrial ecological construction, and become the "center" in a special sense, but the system must be able to be interconnected and closely integrated with the human scene in the transformation from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. , extensive interaction. This requires cross-platform operation and selective liberation of virtual and real.

Second, the technical division. From a technical point of view, the application technologies of Metaverse are nothing more than technologies in network and computing, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and blockchain. One of the features of the metaverse is the virtualization of space. As the physical and digital worlds converge more and more, their boundaries will become increasingly blurred. If the application of technology lacks a certain consensus and malicious hidden behavior, it may give birth to the selfish psychology of "weapon hiding". For example, the current development tool chain has problems with many camps, resulting in high content development costs.

Competition undoubtedly promotes the progress of human society, but it should not be a means of involution and consumption, and the metaverse should not be a division of the virtual world. The competition among the revellers is caused by excessive confrontation, which is not easily detected in the group, but this "jealousy" may be transformed into greed, making the mentality of quick success swallow up the original intention of building the metaverse.

(2) The supply and demand structure and responsible subjects are not clear for the time being, and there is a lack of standardized governance construction ideas

Metaverse advocates "decentralization", and users can participate in the content creation and profit of Metaverse without barriers. But at present, the platform on which the Metaverse relies is still monopolized by private companies, and the industrial development is chaotic. At the same time, due to the huge number of Chinese users, whether they should access the Metaverse indiscriminately or by category, how to determine the relevant basis and standards, and whether it will further exacerbate unfair social problems such as the gap between the rich and the poor, remains to be considered. This phenomenon is reflected in the following aspects:

First, the content production level. Internet content from PGC to UGC, users can be both consumers and producers. This is not a privilege given by the Metaverse. The rise of the current live broadcast and short video platforms has already triggered "national creation". The main thrust of the metaverse seems to come from all users, but capital usually favors excellent content creators and gives special support. If there is no neutral third-party platform to provide the corresponding monetization mechanism and retention mechanism, high-quality content will still be bound to capital, and the "MCN organization" of Metaverse will have a serious and unfair impact on the creation ecosystem.