Throughout
this series
on the rise of multiverse virtual worlds, I have outlined the collision of gaming
and social media
into a new multiverse era of social media within virtual worlds
due to technological and cultural changes
. The result will be a healthier ecosystem of social media
than what currently exists and the economic development of these virtual worlds
such that many people turn to them as sources of income.
The critical question that remains in this final part of the series: Who will be the dominant companies of this multiverse era who build the most popular virtual worlds? Will one virtual world achieve a monopoly or will there be many worlds we hop between on a daily basis? Will the most influential company be the developer of a certain world or an infrastructure layer underpinning many worlds?
*(**This is the final column in ***
a seven-part series about “multiverse” virtual worlds
.)
There are three categories of competitors in position for this new stage: gaming incumbents, social media incumbents and new virtual world startups.