The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything

by Matthew Ball

Overview

WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER
Apple Books: Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2022
Amazon: Editors' Choice in Nonfiction
Fast Company: Selected Among 11 Best Technology Books of Summer 2022
InsideHook: 10 Books You Should Be Reading This July

“A thought-provoking look at the evolving intersection of technology, society, human nature, and creativity. Matthew Ball’s enlightening guide is a must-read for every creator and company that is embarking on their journey to the new frontier that is the Metaverse. A new world shaped by individuals and driven by incredible social experiences has just begun.”
—Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO of Sony

“Matthew Ball has been writing massively influential essays on the Metaverse for years now, and here he distills everything he knows into an authoritative guide for anyone the Metaverse will touch—which is to say, all of us. This book not only captures our moment—it will also shape our collective future.”
—Taylor Lorenz, technology columnist at the Washington Post

“Matthew Ball’s essays have defined, analyzed, and inspired the Metaverse for years. His book is an approachable and essential guide to the strategic, technical, and philosophical foundations of this new medium, and highlights the opportunity to build an open system bringing opportunity for all—and avoiding the trap of another Big Tech walled garden.”
—Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games

“This book feels like a rare achievement—a definitive statement about an emerging phenomenon that could shape the digital world, the global economy, and the very experience of human consciousness.”
—Derek Thompson, Atlantic staff writer and national best-selling author of Hit Makers

“The Metaverse provides a clear and informed picture of what the Metaverse will be, and how and why it will emerge. Matthew Ball gives us a deeply insightful analysis of the key technologies that will inevitably bring us the Metaverse, and of how the Metaverse will change lives on a global scale while creating tens of trillions of dollars of value.”
—John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity Technologies and former CEO of Electronic Arts

“‘Metaverse’ is the new buzzword, but few can define it. Matthew Ball’s comprehensive treatise lays out the potential and—just as importantly—the challenges in realizing the Metaverse and how it fits into the technological evolution from personal computing to the internet to mobile computing. This book helps separate fact from fiction, hype from reality, and should be foundational reading for anyone that wants to understand the possibilities of the Metaverse.”
—Reed Hastings, co-Founder and co-CEO of Netflix

“Will the Metaverse replace the internet? Will it fizzle like a bright firecracker? . . . Enter clear-eyed Matthew Ball, a brilliant student of business and the digital age. In sentences that clarify rather than obscure, Ball serves as our sherpa, helping readers decipher both the hype and the potentially seismic changes ahead.”
—Ken Auletta, New York Times best-selling author of Googled and Frenemies

“Thoughtful, engaging, and relevant. However what we think of as the Metaverse evolves, the issues that Matthew Ball raises in this book will continue to shape our shared future, both online and off.”
—Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324092032
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	07/19/2022
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	20,114
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Matthew Ball is the CEO of Epyllion and the former global head of strategy for Amazon Studios. He has written for the New York Times, the Economist, and Bloomberg. His self-published essays on the Metaverse have been read millions of times and cited by leaders at Epic Games, Facebook, Tencent, and Coinbase. Ball divides his time between Toronto, New York City, and Miami.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Part I What is the Metaverse?

Chapter 1 A Brief History of the Future 3

Chapter 2 Confusion and Uncertainty 18

Chapter 3 A Definition (Finally) 29

Chapter 4 The Next Internet 60

Part II Building the Metaverse

Chapter 5 Networking 71

Chapter 6 Computing 89

Chapter 7 Virtual World Engines 103

Chapter 8 Interoperability 121

Chapter 9 Hardware 141

Chapter 10 Payment Rails 164

Chapter 11 Blockchains 207

Part III How The Metaverse Will Revolutionize Everything

Chapter 12 "When Will the Metaverse Arrive? 239

Chapter 13 Meta-Businesses 250

Chapter 14 Metaverse Winners and Losers 269

Chapter 15 Metaversal Existence 290

Conclusion Spectators, All 305

Acknowledgments 311

Notes 313

Index 323

Editorial Reviews

07/11/2022

In this thorough guide to the future of the internet, Ball, the former global head of strategy for Amazon Studios, introduces readers to the metaverse, “a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds that can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users.” In the first section, Ball explores some of the metaverse’s precursors, which largely consist of online video games such as Minecraft and Fortnite that allow players from all over the world to jump into the same in-game locations and have a shared experience. The second part covers technological challenges to making the metaverse a reality, notably outdated infrastructure and a lack of low-latency connections (which are required to efficiently transmit large amounts of data through a network). The final section predicts how metaverse technology might change people’s lives: education and dating could be reimagined, he posits, and the most exciting prognostications are for the entertainment business, where filmmakers are using real-time rendering engines for sets and greater interactivity is coming for movies and TV shows. Informative and accessible, this is worth a look for anyone curious about what’s around the digital corner. Agent: Pilar Queen, UTA. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"[P]rovides more than just a definitive definition of the metaverse, which despite mounting interest, many people still fail to fully understand . . . Much of the book is a breezy read . . . [it details] what systems will be necessary for the metaverse to thrive."

Science - Dov Greenbaum

"For this emerging generation the metaverse will be a perfectly natural psychological extension of everything they have ever known. For the rest of us, who will soon need to catch up, Ball’s book is the best crash course we have."

Kit Wilson

"A great historical perspective on technology and how it brought us to this point . . . an excellent book if people want to learn where we are and where we are going."

Toronto Star - Raju Mudhar

"[In] The Metaverse, Matthew Ball explains how it could operate in practice and explores how it might turn out to be a lot more exciting and beneficial invention than the miserabilists imagine, so long as we help shape its evolution . . . [written] in an informed and provocative style . . . it serves as a comprehensive guide to every aspect of the metaverse, from its technical underpinnings to its societal responsibilities."

Financial Times - John Thornhill

"I’m reading [The Metaverse]. It’s fascinating, because it’s both about the technical infrastructure that is being built and has yet to be built to really enable mass application of this digital existence—which I find so thought-provoking on an industrial, human, and creative level."

Karlie Kloss

"Excellent . . . Chapters on bringing the various iterations of the developing metaverse together, making them interact, and the hardware required, are lucid and logical. The third section is even better. Ball prophesies about where and how the metaverse might arrive, and what it could do to our lives. Its strength is testament to years of thinking deeply about the area."

Chris Stokel-Walker

"Matthew is the leading thinker on the metaverse and gaming, one of the leading thinkers on media… The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything, in my opinion, [is] the very best book on its topic… [I] recommend highly."

Conversations with Tyler - Tyler Cowen

"There is no better guide to where the Internet may—or may not—be heading... Ball has an intimate understanding of the work necessary to bring the metaverse to fruition, and what might derail it."

New York Review of Books - Sue Halpern

"[A]n instant classic . . . detailed, meticulously researched, and dense with observations and insight. I read it twice, just to make sure I scooped up every gem within it . . . a must-read for those in digital media . . . I loved this book and can’t recommend it highly enough."

Charlie Fink

"Mr. Ball’s summary of the history of virtual worlds, in both fiction and computer science, provides helpful context. But his book’s most valuable contribution may prove to be his definition of the metaverse . . . For anyone who wants to understand the process [of building the metaverse] and what is at stake, Mr. Ball’s lucid and timely book offers a portal into a new realm."

The Economist

"Where big tech waffles about the metaverse while spending billions on making it a reality, Ball has exacting standards for what the metaverse must be and what would be needed to achieve it."

The Spectator - James Ball

"The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything, offers a better understanding of the metaverse than the novel that coined the term — 1992’s Snow Crash . . . it tactfully toes the line between enthusiasm and skepticism while weighing possible futures against infrastructural realities . . . A tour of metaverse concepts from heady theory to gritty technicalities"

Bloomberg - Cecilia D'Anastasio

"[Ball’s] book puts some meat behind the buzzword . . . his arguments are rooted in reality, and his optimism is tempered with the murkiness of real life . . . a good read that handles the hard work of describing the technology and defining the metaverse in elegant ways that don’t sacrifice all of the complexity. And so it’s worth your time, particularly if you want to know what the future is going to be about and whether the metaverse will truly generate trillions of dollars in new wealth."

VentureBeat - Dean Takahashi

"Written by luminary Metaverse theorist, essayist, and VC, Matthew Ball, this book explores the ‘next internet.’ Ball demonstrates that many proto-Metaverses are already here. Yet, these offer only a glimpse of what is to come . . . The Metaverse is a timely, authoritative overview of the subject. Don’t miss it!"

Forbes - Cathy Hackl

"The Metaverse is a timely, authoritative, and accessible overview of the subject . . . well-pitched for the interested non-expert."

Hilary Lamb

"Ball [is] clear and transparent on his assumptions and ground[s] his discussion in real data and facts. His analysis then manages to integrate logic, humor, and an appropriate degree of skepticism of the most extreme claims, often made by those with vested interests. The result is an entertaining and thought-provoking guide to the coming alternative virtual world that should prove indispensable to not just users and developers but investors, competitors, and regulators."

Business Insider - Jonathan A. Knee

"Just as the present internet can be described as a network of networks, so the metaverse will be the virtual world of all virtual worlds. This is the vision offered in The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything by Matthew Ball . . . Ultimately, the fundamental question [Ball addresses] has to do with the social value of the metaverse: Can a human life spent in a virtual world still flourish? [Ball believes] that it can. The structures of our personal and social lives . . . are just as meaningful whether the substrate is our physical reality or a digital world . . . What, by the way, will happen to the real world that so many of us are supposedly eager to leave behind? Mr. Ball is excellent on the enormous infrastructure investments required to build a metaverse."

Wall Street Journal - Steven Poole

"[Ball] has long been one of the most interesting writers analyzing the technological and cultural shifts behind the emergence of the Metaverse, and his new book, The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything, provides an informative account on where our online existence is heading…. [Ball] knows what he is talking about, and perhaps more importantly, when the enthusiastic prophets of the new digital age are blowing smoke… If Ball’s illuminating guide is anything to go by, there is a bright future ahead for those building the Metaverse — and time perhaps for the rest of us to dust off those mirror-shades."

Los Angeles Review of Books - Paul Dicken

"This is the big reason why Matthew Ball is so influential in shaping our understanding of a conceptual metaverse: he is a skilled communicator and writer with clarity of thought. His book is a showcase of this talent as he traces the contours of our theoretical, collective future. Matthew goes beyond jargon and marketing smoke and mirrors to shine a light on the challenges of evolving the internet. His book is essential reading to anyone interested not just in what digital life may evolve into, but how we’ve already evolved with it throughout time."

Gene Park

02/01/2022

Having revealed Harvey Weinstein's violent behavior two decades ago in a New Yorker profile, Auletta asks in Hollywood Ending whether Weinstein's sexual predation can be attributed to himself alone or to the Hollywood power game—and why it took so long to challenge it. Tech theorist and venture capitalist Ball explains The Metaverse as a three-dimensional network of interconnected experiences and devices, tools and infrastructure that transcends virtual reality and has the capacity to reshape society. In Nobody Is Protected, Geopolitics editor in chief Jones (Border Walls) tracks the U.S. Border Patrol from its brutal early days to its current power to conduct warrantless stops and interrogations within 100 miles of the border, arguing that it is trampling on the Fourth Amendment in its bid to become a national police force. From New York Times best-selling, National Magazine Award-winning Leibovich (This Town), Thank You for Your Servitude critiques the cult of submission in the Republican Party that allowed Donald Trump to flourish. A veteran of the U.S. intelligence community's Combating Terrorism program, the Black, Arabic-speaking Nance shifts his focus from al Qaeda and ISIS to the threat posed by the January 6, 2021, insurrectionists and their supporters—privileged, he argues, by their whiteness—in They Want To Kill Americans (200,000-copy first printing).

Library Journal

2022-05-10
A robust explanation of a “persistent, 3D, virtual world—a network of interconnected experiences and devices, tools and infrastructure, far beyond mere virtual reality.”

What is the metaverse? Over the past year or so, it has become one of the most buzzworthy topics in the tech world, but do we understand what it does and why it matters? Since “much of the tech community continues to dispute key elements” of the metaverse, consider tech maven Ball, CEO of EpyllionCo, former global head of corporate strategy for Amazon Studios, our knowledgeable guide on this journey of discovery. A foremost expert on the metaverse, the author defines and demystifies what has yet to materialize, encouraging readers to suspend disbelief and instead consider the concept as they did their early interactions with tech innovations such as touchscreens, app stores, and Zoom. Although not yet fully unified or conceptualized, certain elements of the metaverse presently exist in tech services such as video games and virtual reality systems. The author nods to tech grandparents like GE and Honeywell while noting the rise of NFTs, cryptocurrency, and blockchain, explaining how they function. Though it will be a long time before a fully realized metaverse becomes an everyday reality, once in place, it could be used in myriad ways to improve human life. “It’s rare,” writes Ball, “that the world’s largest companies publicly reorient themselves around such ideas at an early stage, thereby setting themselves up to be evaluated by employees, customers, and shareholders on the basis of their success in realizing their most ambitious visions.” The author lucidly lays out the background, current state of affairs, and fantastic possibilities for the future.

Readers will gain unprecedented insight into an otherwise insular aspect of the tech world.

Kirkus Reviews