Opened in 2017 in an abandoned railway depot in the east of Paris, Station F is the world’s largest startup facility, its main purpose to provide services for new businesses in digital technology. For the builders of web3 in Europe, there is perhaps no finer place to be. For visitors to the 2022 Metaverse Summit, no more appropriate location.
Hosted over two days in the historic heat of July, the Metaverse Summit was an international convention showcasing creativity and technological advancements in the metaverse space. It featured talks, workshops, networking events and conferences by metaverse builders, entrepreneurs, investors and experts in web3, gaming, 3D, VR and AR.
The event was an opportunity to talk strategy, find investors and outline the blueprint for an open, inclusive and decentralized metaverse, together. But it wasn’t all talk, many headed straight to the investor lounge to pitch ideas and enter the Metaverse Startup Competition, a collection of awards for design, mixed reality and the creator economy. Congratulations to the winners — Ristband, Kinetix and Meta Adventure.
Talking Metaverse
Led by Sebastien Borget, CEO of The Sandbox (you can read about RLTY’s partnership with The Sandbox here), and supported by a cast of over 100 eminent speakers from across web3, visitors were treated to a decadence of choice on the mainstage.
Representatives of Decentraland, Unstoppable Domains, Boson Protocol, Rarible, Dappradar, Metamask, Chainlink, Polygon and Dogami were all in Paris to get granular on the characteristics of the metaverse that matter most in 2022 and showcase their respective visions for the future. You can see the full list of speakers here.
Gameplay. Community. Interoperability.
What were the characteristics of the metaverse they were all in Paris to speak about? Interoperability and an open metaverse framework were the biggest talking points. (When aren’t they?) AR, VR, education, community and decentralization were all discussed in great detail, as were social and digital identity and assets, the latter prompting some terrific predictions. “Digital assets,” said Sophia Shluger of Amber Group, “will be the most important category of wealth in the future.” And well they may be.
Gaming, the sometimes enfant terrible, sometimes unstoppable catalyst to metaverse adoption back in 2021 has had a reconfiguration in 2022. The general consensus at the Metaverse Summit was Play-to-earn got it all wrong, studios need to get back to what matters most: gameplay.
Finally, you can’t speak about the future of the metaverse without asking the bigger questions its impact will have on civilisation. Can the metaverse save the Amazon rainforest, reduce social inequality, give opportunity to the maligned, remove economic disparity and lower human suffering?
The metaverse Metaverse Summit
Enlightening indeed. The Metaverse Summit was a formidable event (although we agree with Christophe Cousin that it lacked the French Touch such a setting demands.) But what about the people who couldn’t get to Paris? We’re biased — we’re building the metaverse one event at a time, after all — but having metaverse conferences replicated in the metaverse is not only part of the immersive fun, but vital for wider adoption and enjoyment.
We worked with the Metaverse Summit to build a connection between the real world and the digital and give a global audience a way to experience the summit in Decentraland.
RLTY and the Decentraland Metaverse Summit
Using our suite of metaverse building tools, we set about creating an immersive event. As always, the first matter was the visual design of the building. It’s no secret that current market conditions have led to a decrease in excitement for the metaverse, so it was important for us to create something special for those in Decentraland.
We created a 4-story Pyramid shaped structure. It was, as Station F in Paris, incredibly luminous, and filled with networking opportunities, NFTs and big screens to stream live footage of the talks and conferences on the mainstage.
The ground floor and entrance were designed to welcome visitors and give out POAPs (immutable proof of attendance). As with most metaverse events, the welcome area is a place to get bearings, learn what’s on offer and enjoy the decor.
Replicating the real world Metaverse Summit, we filled the first floor with virtual exhibitor booths. This was the metaverse equivalent, a chance for visitors to learn more about the companies and startups building the future metaverse. Many of the metaverse companies showcasing their wares in Paris were also at our event.
We put an NFT gallery on the second floor and used the top floor as a rooftop bar and networking area. This is also where we installed the live streaming screens, the most useful experience of the event. Metaverse events are not a replacement for real life events, but an extension of them, a tool that can be leveraged to give access to people who would otherwise be unable to attend. Giving visitors the opportunity to watch the talks and conferences from the Metaverse Summit, in real time, and in an immersive experience, is our most prized achievement so far.
Stats from the event
User numbers across metaverse platforms are down as the market re-aligns after recent carnage. However, there were 493 individual user sessions, with 36 peak simultaneous users. The average user session was 8 minutes. 334 wearables were minted and 122 POAPs were claimed.
Only through talking and collaboration is an interoperable metaverse (and the community, gameplay, financial freedom spoken of at the Metaverse Summit) achievable. That’s why these events are so important to our fledgling industry. The next is NFT Expoverse in Los Angeles. We’ll see you there.
What’s next for RLTY?
We’re excited to announce our beta program, an opportunity for early adopters to help develop metaverse events and experience our suite of easy to use event building tools. If you represent a business (web2 or web3) and can gather an engaged community of at least 100 people for a metaverse event, we’d like to hear from you (HERE).
