Transcending the metaverse and the metaphygital: An early review and trial of metaverse technologies

What is the ‘metaverse’? Who owns it? How is it different from virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality? What purpose does it serve to different sectors and industries? These broad questions are among the many others that have spearheaded both conjectural grey literature and scrutinized under an increasing body of academic literature; with the latter being more granular in its attempt to generate significant findings. The main challenge of research studies and analyses however is that the metaverse, as how it has been elucidated as, is yet to have an established presence. This research paper investigates the development of the metaverse from its inception to its current status as the buzzword among technologists, digital founders and futurists for 2021 eliciting a dynamic discourse among its proponents, critics and pragmatists. The research paper employs a tripartite approach of firstly identifying the metaverse and its iterations throughout the literature, followed by creating a pilot metaverse ecosystem comprising of prefabricated and self-created meta-worlds and content architected via different platforms, codebases and devices, and finally assessing the resulting metaverse based on polling research of the user interface and user experience, and visitor feedback on the piloted metaverse.