METAVERSE INHABITANTS - On the Web you can find many metaverses. From the purely playful ones to the business ones, but how many people visit these metaverses? In the latter part of 2022, some research was conducted that sought to answer this question. So let’s find out how many inhabitants the metaverse counts.
Giving a unique number on how many inhabitants live in the metaverse is impossible, because there is not a single virtual environment but there are many, and many users go from one to another. In fact, there are metaverses for pure fun, others that reproduce virtual offices, meeting rooms and work environments and others that offer hybrid solutions between work and leisure. So how many of these people populate the various metaverses online?
An article by Coindesk, which cited DappRadar data as a source, spoke of metaverses devoid of inhabitants, reporting some numbers on visitors:
535 for Decentraland
619 for Sandbox
6,160 for Decentraland
10.190 for Sandbox
However, these data have been denied by the interested parties, who have reported the internal data. This would mean 56,697 monthly active inhabitants for Decentraland and 201,000 for The Sandbox.
The reason for this incongruity is explained by the CEO of The Sandbox, Arthur Madrid stating that DappRadar’s research has calculated as visitors only those who have used crypto wallets within the metaverse. In so doing, Madrid said, "it is as if only those who bought something were counted among the visitors to a shopping mall" and not all those who even entered.
The data related to other metaverses is reported by research conducted by the Ipsos Institute and the Metaverse Observatory. According to this study, there are 350 million inhabitants of the metaverse out of 5.1 billion citizens of the web worldwide. Of these 350, 270 million per month visit Fortnite, 210 million Roblox and 170 million Minecraft. For Meta Horizon World the visitors would be just 300,000.
To make more effort and to count a number of minor visitors are those that can be accessed only through viewers. The causes would be multiple, from the high cost of these devices, to the fact that the life of their battery in use is low. But there are those who have found a solution to this. Some users of Meta Horizon World would have purchased long cables to keep the headset charged while they are inside the virtual setting giving rise to the so-called "plug and play" technique.
Taking into account the ease or difficulty with which the various users examined have indicated access to the Metaverse, the research of the Metaverse Observatory, identifies three categories of users who approach this new way of interacting with the web.
They are 31% of the sample and are the most enthusiastic and prepared about these new technologies. Demographically, Generation X (43-57 years) and Millennials (27-42 years) prevail slightly, probably also favored by the fact of having experienced the metaverse. They have a medium-high degree and use cryptocurrencies and NFT to a greater extent than average.
They are 29% of the sample and they are the ones who feel more similar and less afraid towards metaverse and immersive reality, but they frequent it less than the Connoisseurs Enthusiasts because they consider it still too expensive for them and they don’t have occasions to use it in professional field. It’s actually the cluster of the highest concentration of people in Generation Z (16-26 years). They expect to use the metaverse for activities beyond the game, such as attending meetings, learning new things, and intensifying their entertainment experiences.
Sceptical are 40% of the sample and both knowledge and emotional affinity towards the metaverse are below average. They are sceptical about these new technologies, which they associate exclusively with video games. They concerned bring a negative confusion between real and virtual life. Demographically it is a substantially transversal cluster, where the Baby Boomers (aged 58 and up) are slightly overrepresented while Generation Z is underrepresented.
These are very high percentages considering that we are still in the early stages of adopting these technologies. It is significant that 51% of respondents agree that thanks to the Metaverse they will learn to do new things.
But what do people in the Metaverse do today with their avatars?
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Viola Meacci, student of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Pisa, has always been interested in the world of journalism. In her job, she explored the world of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFT and metaverse which she now very is passionate about it .
