‘Snow Crash’, the novel that predicted the metaverse, the technology that some companies already use

By changing the name of Facebook to Meta, Mark Zuckerberg made it clear that he believes the future of the Internet lies in something that is becoming more visible: the metaverse, a virtual world where people will live, work and play. It’s a futuristic idea, yes, but the origin of the term actually comes from the past. Almost 30 years ago, in fact. The word metaverse was created by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, which foresees a successor to the Internet based on virtual reality.

In the book, people use digital avatars of themselves to explore the world online, often as a way to escape a dystopian reality. Something that is already being seen and several brands have turned to this model to expand their businesses. Companies like Microsoft, Roblox, and Epic Games are also planning their own metaverses. And Stephenson now works as the “futuristic boss” of virtual reality startup Magic Leap, after a stint as a consultant at Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin.

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Here’s what the author predicted 29 years ago and how it compares to the virtual worlds Meta and other tech companies are trying to build today.

Neal Stephenson (62 years old) is a history and science fiction author, technology consultant, video game designer and the main provocateur behind Hieroglyph. Responding to Arizona State University President Michael Crow’s challenge to create alternatives to the dystopian visions that permeate stories about the future, Neal helps pioneer new methods of radical collaboration between storytellers who dream of the future and those who do. scientists and engineers who build it.

He began his literary career with The big U (1984), a thriller with some science fiction elements, and Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller (1988).

Neal is perhaps best known for his novels The Diamond Age and of course, Snow Crash, presenting compelling, socially and culturally rich visions of the human future, while also foreshadowing the development of important technologies such as social media, nanorobotics and 3D printing. also wrote The Baroque Cycle, an extensive three-volume work on the history of ideas in 17th- and 18th-century Europe, and co-created The Mongoliad, a collaborative work of transmedia fiction produced in collaboration with filmmakers, martial artists, computer programmers, and video game designers.

his novel Reamde transforms the now-everyday realm of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing video games) into a global minefield of criminality, religious extremism, and geopolitical intrigue. Neal studied Physics and Geography at Boston University, graduating with a BA in 1981. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

about the novel

Snow Crash It is set in the early 21st century. Stephenson imagines a bleak future: the global economy has collapsed and federal governments have lost most of their power to a handful of giant corporations.

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The metaverse is an escape, and the novel’s main character, a hacker Computer scientist and near-broke pizza delivery man who goes by an ironic name, Hiro Protagonist, spends much of his time there. He accesses the metaverse wearing goggles and “headsets,” and appears within the digital world as his own personalized avatar.

Once there, the avatars can wander down a single wide street, tens of thousands of miles long, and home to amusement parks, shops, offices, and entertainment complexes. People with fewer resources often use public terminals to access the metaverse, and are generally looked down upon by users with superior technology.

And actions in the metaverse can have dire consequences: much of the plot revolves around the protagonist trying to stop a computer virus causing users of the metaverse to become brain-damaged in the real world.

According to a report by Bloomberg Intelligence, this digital environment has such great economic prospects that it is expected that by the middle of this decade it will reach $800 billion and that in 2030 that figure will multiply until it reaches 2 and a half billion. So it’s clear why big tech companies see the metaverse as the future of the internet.

The headphones worn by the characters in Snow Crash they sound similar to today’s virtual reality headsets. Meta’s Oculus brand already makes several of them, and in a post, Zuckerberg argued that such technology will be necessary for users to feel “fully immersed” in his company’s future metaverse.

Virtual avatars exist too – they’ve been in video games for decades, and users of large online communities like Roblox, Minecraft from Microsoft or Fortnite from Epic Games are very used to exploring virtual worlds with avatars.

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People spend billions of dollars each year on digital clothing and accessories for their avatars. That willingness to spend could be a key monetization factor for companies like Meta.

the metaverse in Snow Crash also features an encrypted electronic currency, similar to current cryptocurrencies. And the novel explores the idea of ​​spending real money on virtual real estate, which is already being developed on virtual reality-enabled platforms. blockchain like Decentraland and The Sandbox.

Business

There are many companies that have already started a series of initiatives to promote this technology, such as Microsoft’s HoloLens, PlayStation VR headsets, Facebook’s own Oculus, video games from Epic Games, Alibaba’s Ali Metaverse, a new video game studio based on the metaverse of Tencet, even the owner of TikTok has already declared his interest; Microsoft surprised in the last edition of the Ignite conference by presenting Mesh, its virtual reality bet designed to be used, mainly, in Teams. In fact, Microsoft announced that it would acquire Activision Blizzard, the maker of video games like Call of Duty Y Candy Crush, in a deal valued at nearly $70 billion. Microsoft, the owner of Xbox, said the acquisition was a step toward carving out a niche for itself in the metaverse.

The world of fashion has not been left behind. Zara, the textile giant, has chosen Zepeto (South Korean) as the metaverse to launch its first virtual clothing collection. Egonlab, the French brand that paraded for the first time in the most recent edition of Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, is already versioning its products in the virtual world or metaverse at the same time.

There are exclusively digital fashion brands: more than 100, for example, only in DressX, a virtual fashion boutique opened in 2019 by Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova. Digital styling games like Drest, property of Farfetch, the digital marketplace turned conglomerate, offering the ability to play with hundreds of digital outfits, many also available in real life. There is also a growing number of brands of ready to wear who test virtual versions of their collections on various virtual platforms and create metaverse business units that employ fashion school graduates trained in virtual design.

Gucci created a virtual Gucci garden for Roblox Y Ralph Lauren a virtual ski shop RL. The British Fashion Council hosted The Fashion Awards Experience on the platform, with an award for metaverse design. Balmain worked with gaming platform Altava to offer its own limited collection. Balenciaga created special masks for Fortnite (like Louis Vuitton) after creating your own game, Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow, which presents its collection of ready to wear, and has announced its own metaverse split. Too Gucci and OTB, the parent company of Maison Margiela and Diesel, they named it Brave Virtual Xperience.

In December, Nike bought RTFKT, the virtual sneaker company. Virtually every week seems to bring the announcement of another brand that makes NFTs, including Givenchy, JW Anderson and Adidas. A metaverse fashion week will be taking place in March courtesy of Decentraland and UNXD (the digital marketplace that hosted the $6 million NFT couture auction Dolce & Gabbana).