Unity's John Riccitiello is a strong believer in the metaverse

As the second most-used games engine in the industry, Unity will help define gaming's new metaverse concept and usher in a new era of 3D gaming--at least that's what CEO John Riccitiello hopes.

Photo: Jon Radoff

The metaverse is on the horizon and has big potential for gaming. It's a nebulous term that combines modern technological trends under one interconnected ecosystem, similar to how the internet is the core for services, gaming, communication, monetization, and entertainment.

Unity's John Riccitiello is confident the company will help the metaverse coalesce from concept into reality through its game-making rendering tools and 3D services.

"As I've said before, we believe in the emergence of the metaverse and that Unity will be a major player in defining and help lead its creation and operation," Riccitiello said in a recent Unity Q2'21 earnings call.

"We believe the adoption of real-time 3D will change the way people interact with digital content and entertainment. Just as digital replaced analog, HD replaced standard definition, in the coming year, 5G will place 3G or 4G, and real-time 3D will replace linear and flat 2D digital content. We expect more of the world's content to be 3D, real-time and interactive. We believe this cycle will create an addressable market that presents us with decades of opportunity at Unity.

"Now for me, the word metaverse is plural. When I say this, I'm trying to make an important point. We don't think that one company will represent the metaverse as, say, for example, it was imagined in Ready Player One. We believe there's going to be hundreds of thousands of destinations in the metaverse.

"Games like Roblox; creation destinations from companies like NVIDIA, Unity and Adobe; social communication destinations from companies like Snap, Facebook and some new companies.

"At Unity, we believe in interoperability and in an open Internet, even as the Internet becomes more 3D, more real-time, more interactive and more like the metaverse we imagine. Unity's mission and world view centers on a belief that the world is a better place with more creators.

"At Unity, we intend to support and shape the metaverse. We will emphasize content creation, cross-platform access and narrowing the distance and reducing the friction between creators and consumers."