Digital 2023 Deep-Dive: Is the Metaverse going in reverse?
The Metaverse was easily one of 2022’s most “hyped” digital trends.
But has the hype endured, and will the Metaverse really become our digital future?
Let’s see what the data says.
Is anyone actually using the Metaverse?
It’s tricky to put exact figures on the number of people who engage in “the Metaverse”, partly because there are so many different definitions of what the Metaverse might be.
But at the broadest level, there’s already plenty of evidence to demonstrate the widespread appeal of virtual worlds.
For example, figures from ActivePlayer.io show that more than a quarter of a billion users played Fortnite in December 2022, while more than 200 million users played Roblox.
However, figures for other “celebrated” virtual worlds can be somewhat less impressive.
For example, ActivePlayer’s data indicates that Axie Infinity may have lost more than 80 percent of its active users over the past year.
That’s largely due to a hack in the first quarter of 2022 that drained the equivalent of USD $625 million in cryptocurrency from the game’s “treasury”.
The value of the currency that players could earn by playing the game tumbled shortly after, and active user numbers followed, falling from a peak of almost 2.8 million in January 2022, to fewer than 470,000 in December.
Second Life still alive
But one of the most striking findings in this set of data is that Second Life has more users than Meta’s Horizon Worlds.
Despite the tens of billions of dollars that Meta has invested in its Reality Labs ventures to date, reports indicate that Horizon Worlds actually lost users during the course of 2022, and the Wall Street Journal reported that worldwide users had dipped below 200,000 by October.
Meanwhile, data published by Daniel Voyager indicates that Second Life continues to attract an average of more than 200,000 active players per day, suggesting that monthly active users will be even higher still.
For context, Second Life will celebrate its 20th birthday on the 23rd of June this year.
And what’s more, Voyager reports that Second Life continues to support a vibrant and tangible economy too, with his analysis indicating that Second Life “creators” cashed out more USD $80 million in real money during 2022.
The outlook for the Metaverse
But despite these challenging figures, it seems Mark Zuckerberg isn’t alone in his conviction that virtual worlds will play a central role in our future.
According to research conducted by Shopify and Ipsos, three-quarters of global business decision makers believe that interacting with customers in the metaverse will become commonplace at some point in the future.
Google search trends offer a slightly different perspective on that opportunity though, with the number of searches for “Metaverse” dropping by more than 80 percent between January and December.
However, Google Trends data does show that interest in “virtual reality” increased over the final quarter of 2022.
There’s a chance that people searching for VR headsets as gifts fuelled this trend, but that trend still points to increased interest.
As a result, marketers may want to think carefully about the terms they use when referencing virtual worlds and experiences.
“The Metaverse” may get a lot of the buzz, but with “virtual reality” attracting eight times as much search volume, it might be worth using a variety of different terms.
Learn more about 2023’s hottest digital trends in our complete new Digital 2023 report.
Click here to see all of Simon’s articles, read his bio, and connect with him on social media.