Matthew Ball explains the meaning of the Metaverse in a new book

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Over the past four years, Matthew Ball, CEO of investment firm Epyllion and former global head of strategy at Amazon Studios, has been one of the leading thinkers in the metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds. which are all interconnected, like in the novels. like Snow Crash and Ready Player One. And today his book debuts: The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything.

As we moved into the pandemic, Ball wrote a timely and prophetic piece in early 2019 about Fortnite's opportunity to become a metaverse. The idea gained momentum at the start of COVID-19 as we were all forced into lockdown and had no way to socialize with each other except through games. Boring Zoom calls made us all long for something better, and it brought us back to the ideas sci-fi author Neal Stephenson raised with his original book Snow Crash. And it turns out that Ball and many others think the metaverse is going from science fiction to reality as it becomes the next internet.

In June 2021, he put together much of this in a 30,000-word article titled Metaverse Primer. It only prompted him to embark on a book where he defines the Metaverse, describes its meaning, and predicts how it will unfold in the future. He also found a way to invest in the metaverse through a project he did with others dubbed the Metaverse ETF.

Ball is an optimist about the Metaverse, but he constantly brings up complicated arguments about what could slow it down or speed it up. The need for real-time communication and low-latency technology is just one of the challenges we face. His book puts meat behind the buzzword.

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So his arguments are grounded in reality, and his optimism is tempered by the darkness of real life. Naturally, during our interview, I peppered Ball with questions about whether or not the game would lead the way.

I appreciated Ball mentioning that he read much of my work and interviews with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney to formulate his thoughts on the book. Please see GamesBeat's own thought leadership for...