As the world continues to advance and technology becomes more prevalent, the benefits of adding a virtual reality layer on top of physical warfare become more evident.
As society advances, we are seeing less use for traditional physical wars. The future of war could be in the Metaverse. This will be a new form of combat that would add an extra layer of safety for humanity while making sure that the battles are fair and legitimate.
Before we go deeper, let’s understand the Metaverse.
What is the Metaverse?
The moment Facebook changed its name to Meta, there’s has been a lot of buzz about the Metaverse and its potential to improve the way we socialise, work, play, and learn.
But what is the Metaverse?
The Metaverse is simply an extension of the internet, which is a collection of web-based virtual worlds and spaces.
The Sandbox is a Metaverse project where players get to build and create their own gaming experiences on the platform
The term was coined by Neal Stephenson in his popular science fiction novel “Snow Crash.” It’s Stephenson’s vision of what the Internet could evolve into, with an interactive virtual environment that can be explored, shared, and experienced.
Some people say that we are already living in the Metaverse because we can experience reality through our smartphones, tablets and laptops that give us access to other people across the world.
Is the Metaverse a place?
Some people think that the Metaverse is a place. It’s not a place. It’s a moment in time. This is the time when our virtual lives become more important to us than our physical lives. This is nothing new and it’s been happening progressively over the past 30 years.
Think about it. The pandemic has made work from home become a norm. Our work has become virtual, from Zoom meetings to Office documents. Our friends and family have become virtual. We socialise with them on social media more than we meet them in person. Crime has become virtual. Every day people lose millions to hackers. Money has become virtual. Blockchain technology verifies every transaction of our cryptocurrency. Sports and games have become virtual. Esports players compete with others from around the world, never meeting them in real life, but only knowing them through their Gamertags in virtual space.
And soon, physical wars will become less important and will be replaced by Metaverse wars. If that is the case, what are we fighting for?
Creating value in the Metaverse
Many people are already earning in the Metaverse thru play-to-earn games. Play-to-earn games are a new phenomenon where users can earn cryptocurrencies for playing games and doing various tasks. It combines the real world with the Metaverse and it makes sure that you can earn in both worlds. The earned cryptocurrency can be converted to fiat currency or other cryptocurrencies.
Axie Infinity is a play-to-earn game that provided financial relief to players during a global pandemic
There are many reasons why these games are becoming popular. Firstly, they are built off blockchain technology and provide an easy way to earn cryptocurrencies. Players only need to play the game for a certain period of time before they can earn the in-game cryptocurrency.
Secondly, players get to buy and own NFTs (non-fungible tokens) in a form of game characters, weapons, power-ups and others. This enables the player to exercise true ownership of the digital assets, as well as being able to sell and trade them on open markets to generate profits.
Lastly, play-to-earn games can be played by anyone around the world regardless of age, gender and nationality.
In some countries, play-to-earn games have become a full-time job where they would earn more than their previous jobs.
The future of war
In traditional warfare, two nations go to war over something tangible and valuable. Play-to-earn games have economic value in the Metaverse as well as in the real world. This new way of gaming could replace physical wars where nations can battle in a virtual environment.
As a result, this could force real loss onto players when they could “die” and lose all their cryptocurrencies and NFT assets. If something valuable can be taken away, then there is something worth fighting for.
What could go wrong?
Implementing games as a replacement for physical warfare is without negative consequences. This could alter the balance of global superpowers. This means that a nation’s status would no longer be determined by its resources and manpower, but by the gaming abilities of its people. Today’s professional esports players could be tomorrow’s cyber soldiers.
Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash
In the worst-case scenario, if there is no governing control mechanism or rules of control created over Metaverse wars, it could lead to an economic war where the only physical casualties are those people who are starving because once they logged out of the virtual world, they no longer could afford food or necessities after losing all their virtual assets. This may also encourage cyber-terrorists to exist, where they would hack and infiltrate systems to steal resources.
Conclusion
It’ll be difficult to put this idea into practice or make it a reality. The first obstacle is probably the lack of international consensus. However, this can change once we look at the massive and catastrophic events in history such as World War II. After the war, large and small nations from different parts of the world gathered to create world peace and stability. Perhaps a mutual desire for international peace can be established to eliminate violence through virtualised warfare.
Photo by Fábio Silva on Unsplash
Currently, war-oriented video games are in use by the modern army to recruit new hires, train existing soldiers and treat postwar veterans with intellectual disabilities. So why not use games to completely replace physical wars?
Considering battling in a virtual environment as an alternative may sound like a far-fetched idea but if we could save lives and battle without hurting others, then this idea could someday become a reality. Given the rapid development of science and technology, what seemed impossible yesterday will be the norm tomorrow.
I see the Metaverse wars as a new way of giving us infinite courage and glory, without taking any lives or hurting others. Do you think that one day we will be having wars in the Metaverse?
