(2021-01-27) A Crucible Moment

A Crucible Moment. A Metaverse is a big idea — the Open Metaverse can be even bigger. Perhaps the biggest idea of our modern times. It can fundamentally change not only what we know, but also how we connect as a networked species.

Game engines are the new reality engines.

One of the clearest examples of the metaverse taking shape is Epic Games, owners and creators of the Unreal Engine and the open world game Fortnite, in which players spent 3B hours during a single month. Just last year they shared a stunning demo of the type of generational shift in graphics the newest Unreal Engine 5 will have. That same day they announced their Epic Online Services SDK for federated identity and cross-play functionality.

Video games are now social networks and even places to hang out and party with friends.

Another example is the growing decentralized web3 networks of blockchains and crypto.

Ethereum based virtual worlds like Decentraland, Somnium Space, The Sandbox, and CryptoVoxels sell scarce virtual land — similar to a 3D version of the million dollar homepage from web1.

If you squint you can see that at some point fairly soon, gaming and mixed reality, underpinned by these new economic frameworks, will work together to truly give way to an immersive metaverse economy  -  but a technical bottleneck exists before we can get there. Crypto just comes with too much friction to be viable for billions of people as is. This is a trillion dollar opportunity but we need new identity models, stronger security standards and ways of managing data that are on the right side of history - preserving user agency over profit.

Crucible has created the Emergence SDK, which provides an easily integratable on-ramp for game developers to access the web3 (decentralized) digital trust layer of user sovereignty and a network of secure in-game economies.

We empower gamers, respect their rights as creators and put them at the center of an Open Metaverse that they can help shape.

On top of the substrate of user sovereignty, we are the originators of the Direct-to-Avatar (D2A) commerce model.

It’s no secret that Epic CEO and majority shareholder, Tim Sweeney, has a vision for an open metaverse and he’s making some strong chess moves

For this reason, we have chosen to start with the Unreal Engine.

Unreal is just where we start. Unity3D other game engines, mobile and web will follow shortly after. This includes open standards such as those with the Khronos Group and VRM in Japan.