Microsoft’s Activision deal could bring ‘metaverse’ to enterprise tech

Strange as it may sound, videogames have already had a major impact on corporate technology in other areas such as online collaboration, artificial intelligence and virtual marketplaces.

By acquiring Activision announced Tuesday, the deal is valued at $75 billion—Microsoft is also taking a big step into the metaverse, analysts say, referring to the emerging development of a three-dimensional virtual world where users produce stuff. Buy, sell and do online services within a self-contained digital economy.

Analysts say much of the technology expected to underpin the metaverse, including both hardware and software, comes directly out of the gaming world, pointing to Activision franchises such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush. Those games will now become part of Microsoft’s own stable of Xbox games, which includes Minecraft and Doom.

Jeremy Belenson, co-founder of VR-based training platform Striver and founding director of Virtual Human at Stanford University, said, “Microsoft has been a leader in business-to-business technology in general, and also a leader in virtual reality and augmented reality. Used to be.” Interaction Lab. “Now, they have access to one of the most elaborate and longest-running metaverses ever made with World of Warcraft,” he said, referring to the online role-playing game that popularized the purchase of virtual goods. helped in

Microsoft declined to comment.

For Chief Information Officers and other corporate tech leaders, Metaverse offers an array of digital-first strategies in core business areas, such as remote job interviews in virtual settings, in-house training simulations, 3-D demos, digital malls and products. program to promote. and services—all interacting with customers’ videogame-like avatars.

“We see it as a forerunner in the enterprise metaverse,” Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at IT consulting firm Constellation Research Inc., said of Tuesday’s acquisition.

Constellation estimates that the metaverse economy will be worth $21.7 trillion by 2030, with an annual growth rate of 38.6%, as businesses leverage a mix of augmented and virtual reality to reach customers through avatars, bots and other digital surrogates. pick up.

Fortnite-maker Epic Games Inc. And along with Active Theory LLC, Constellation lists Activision as a major player to watch.

“Every enterprise will want to reach people through the metaverse, whether to communicate, advertise or do business with people who are making virtual reality their business,” said Tim Draper, a Silicon Valley venture-capital investor. ” Video-chatting service Skype and on Elon Musk’s SpaceX, among other tech ventures.

Mr. Draper said innovation in the gaming industry has always had far-reaching effects. In other instances, he said, virtual currencies created by gaming companies have given rise to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

“The metaverse is real, and I believe a ‘ready, player one’ world will become a bigger and bigger part of our economy,” Mr Draper said.

In October, Facebook changed its name to Meta Platforms Inc., with plans to expand its namesake social-media platform to Metaverse.

Jost van Druenen, who teaches the business of videogames at New York University Stern School of Business, said that over time many technology platforms have found their way into the enterprise world, initially intended to support non-work uses. For example, Slack Technologies Inc.’s Office Chat tool began as a messaging feature for a videogame. In December 2020, Salesforce Inc., an enterprise IT giant, announced that it would acquire Slack for approximately $27 billion.

Exposing gaming technology to the workplace provides depth and multiple dimensions to an otherwise static communication model, Mr Van Druenen said: “Companies may consider layering gaming with other communication platforms.”

That said, the metaverse is probably years away.

“The technology just isn’t there,” said Sally Earnshaw, managing director of the Culture Change Practice at consulting firm Gallagher. As of now, there are not enough coherent platforms or common languages ​​or standards for integration, she said.

“But workspace will soon start using a lot more stand-alone virtual environments,” she said.