In the multitude of metaverses that exist there are infinite possibilities for inclusivity and creativity. As we revisit a talk that invites us to craft our own digital universes, Minecraft's game director Agnes Larsson shares how the experience of building and sharing metaverses can foster dialogue, friendship and trust — pointing to the meaningful impact virtual worlds can have on the real world. Following the talk, Sherrell explores how these safer metaverses have the power to spill beyond the digital realm and positively impact our entire society.
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[00:00:00] TED Audio Collective The first computer game I got my hands on came out of the box as a CD-ROM, SimCity 3000. That was back in 1999. Okay, I'm dating myself a little bit. But it was one of the first video games I ever loved.
[00:00:26] It allowed me to build an entire infrastructure of buildings and roads and an entire world I'd shaped with my imagination as the only limit. My goodness, it was a thrill to create my own virtual world. Virtual world building has since evolved from SimCity to Second Life to Minecraft
[00:00:48] all under the auspices of what we now call the metaverse. Though, as today's speaker will note, it's really the metaverses. I think I speak for many of us laypeople when I say that getting lost in the functionality of the metaverse
[00:01:04] has been easy to do over the last few years. Shopping in the metaverse for digital clothing or housing for your avatar, hosting worship services where you appear as an avatar in a church pew, or attending concerts from the comfort of your bathtub, it can all seem pretty wacky.
[00:01:22] But make no mistake, the metaverses are functional. There are even communities emerging sped up by the COVID-19 pandemic that prove this technology can change the way we interact with each other online and off. Take, for example, the popular tech conference AfroTech,
[00:01:41] which quickly pivoted its San Francisco-based conference to a metaverse format due to COVID and had its 5,000 attendees create avatars, pop into lectures, attend a career fair, and even boogie down at an after-party. All in the virtual world. I'm Sherelle Dorsey, and this is TED-TECH.
[00:02:07] Today on the show, we'll hear from Agnes Larson, the game director of Minecraft, about the unexpected benefits that the metaverse can offer. Let's get into it. Imagine This. In 2030, the CFO of a Fortune 100 company is a bot. I'm Paul Meikleman, and on Imagine This,
[00:02:34] we'll be exploring possible futures and the implications they hold for organizations. Joining me will be BCG's top experts, as well as my co-host, Gene, BCG's conversational gen-AI agent. Blending human creativity with AI innovation, this podcast promises an unmatched listening journey. Join us on Imagine This from BCG.
[00:02:57] There is this word that you might have heard a lot recently, like right now, metaverse. It's suddenly a huge thing, and for many people, it causes a lot of excitement. I think it also causes other feelings, like confusion and concern. And I think that's fair.
[00:03:16] And I've also felt confused. Metaverse is not really a new thing. Many massively multiplayer online games, for example, can be seen as metaverses. And I've certainly also felt concerned, especially when people talk about the metaverse. That assumes that there's only one owner of the metaverse,
[00:03:37] and this owner would get far too much power and data. It also risks being exclusive. It might not be accessible for everyone, and we risk to introduce many of the inequities we see in the real world in the metaverse. This sounds pretty sad to me.
[00:03:55] So then you might wonder, like, why am I here talking about the metaverse? That doesn't make sense. Well, the thing is, I'm not. I'm here to talk about metaverses and the vision of how they can provide a lot of delight
[00:04:10] to their communities and even make the real world a better place. And here, we can learn a lot from games. So what is even a metaverse? How do we create delightful, long-lasting metaverses? And how can metaverses make the real world a better place?
[00:04:29] And there are, of course, many answers to these questions. And I cannot give you the answer, but I can give you one answer. If instead of talking about the metaverse, we talked about thousands or millions of metaverses created by people from all around the world,
[00:04:48] it would be much more inclusive and less risk of toxic uses. To me, that sounds quite lovely. I know the power and beauty of this world because I have my own that's more than 10 years old. After many years of playing, developing, thinking, and even dreaming about Minecraft,
[00:05:12] I have gained some experience and learnings. Watching our community use the game in so many different ways made me realize how powerful metaverses can be. So, I would love to, with these learnings, paint a different picture of what metaverses can be if everyone could craft their own.
[00:05:33] And I hope it's a creative, fun, and inclusive picture. And Minecraft is one example of this. We give the players tools, an endless world, and an infinite amount of building blocks to have fun and tinker with. And with these, the players can craft their own unique metaverses.
[00:05:55] The metaverses therefore belong to the players. They do not belong to us making the game. And, like, it's so fascinating because the players are so very, very creative with the metaverses. Some use them to build big cities and castles or, like my five-year-old daughter's recent project,
[00:06:14] an underwater playground for fishes. And some players are engineers and build the most complex machines. It's very, very impressive. And some prefer to just have a lovely time with their friends. The possibilities are endless, and it's up to each player to set their own goals
[00:06:34] and decide if they want to create their own metaverse or join someone else's. And it's easier to be creative and connect with people when you have fun. Fun is important. And what's more fun than games? Within games, we've actually had metaverses for a really long time.
[00:06:54] Long-lasting games like World of Warcraft or EVE Online could be seen as metaverses. And this doesn't surprise me because when we humans spend time together, we want to do it in a fun and joyful way. And this is true when we spend time together virtually, too.
[00:07:13] Fun means different things for different individuals. I mean, maybe not all of you want to build fish playgrounds, even though that clearly is very, very fun. But this is another reason why there should be many different metaverses.
[00:07:28] My dream is that there will be a huge and diverse set of metaverses. Having millions of metaverses with different strengths and focuses enables everyone to find virtual places they love, feel welcoming, and just can have so much fun in. We live in a time
[00:07:46] where almost everything seems to depend on statics, metrics, and diagrams. And we can for sure learn a lot from this, but I feel there is a risk we forget the pure human side. These things excite us. These things make us passionate.
[00:08:00] I don't think Tolkien used metrics and stats when he wrote Lord of the Rings. He crafted a universe based on passion, vision, and delighting his readers. And that's what metaverse developers should do, too. We should bring smiles to our players. We should develop features that give this, like,
[00:08:19] excited butterfly in the stomach feeling. And I hope this is the case for anyone building metaverses. But I must confess, I am a bit worried that the main question people will ask when they build future metaverses will be, how can we profit from this? That's the wrong question.
[00:08:41] Instead, we should ask, how will our metaverses benefit the users? And of course, I know that money is important in this real world we live in. But the thing is, if players are super happy long term, that's very likely also will lead to money.
[00:08:59] So everyone can be happy. We must focus on taking care of our communities instead of taking from our communities. And that goes hand in hand with player trust and thinking long term. Because if you know that you can trust that your beloved metaverse will be around
[00:09:16] and be very much alive for a lifetime, you feel safe to spend all this time and all this love on it. As metaverse developers, we have a responsibility to keep people's memories and dreams safe. And there's one more thing.
[00:09:34] The virtual worlds can't reach their full potential on making the real world a better place if they don't represent and include everyone. Also, everyone deserves the joy and inspiration a lovely designed metaverse can give. Therefore, there need to be metaverses available and accessible for everyone.
[00:09:56] Each person that wants to, I will not force anyone, should be able to craft the metaverse of their dreams independent of their situation in the real world. The in-metaverse economy should not mirror the inequities we see in the real world. And it's much more delightful and inclusive
[00:10:17] if the resources in the metaverse are part of a fun and fair game system instead of a system introducing artificial scarcity. We also need a variety of metaverses, including ones that don't require expensive devices. So when we then have all these beautifully designed metaverses for everyone,
[00:10:39] on top of all the joy they will bring, we also get many more opportunities on making the real world a better place. And I have seen so many beautiful examples of how people do that with their metaverses.
[00:10:53] One that's very dear to me is the dad who created a Minecraft server to be a safe and welcoming place for his son and other children on the autism spectrum. This kind of community-created world is a great role model for future metaverses.
[00:11:09] It's a world that welcomes players that maybe don't always feel welcome in the real world, and it's a world that enables these players to express themselves in their own ways. Family members have witnessed how these amazing children use communication skills
[00:11:26] they learned in the metaverse in the real world. And metaverses can help charities reach new audiences and make it more fun and easy to participate in charity events. The World of Warcraft community, for example, raised more than $1 million to Doctors Without Borders
[00:11:44] to be able to make a difference in the global response to COVID-19. In metaverses, charities can meet people where they are. And metaverses can help us communicate in a common language, a language of play, creativity and fun.
[00:12:01] There is an organization called Games for Peace that uses games and their metaverses as a neutral playground to create dialogue, friendships and trust between young people in conflict zones. It wouldn't even be possible to bring these young people together if not for a metaverse they can meet in.
[00:12:21] And metaverses can help amplify voices. Kids in Kosovo used the metaverse to build their dream neighborhood area by giving the kids millions of virtual building blocks and endless space to build and collaborate in. They could explore and visualize their ideas in a fun and accessible way.
[00:12:42] Young people aren't typically involved in planning spaces, but this time it was the kids who were the experts. Just imagine all the joy, confidence and creative ideas that leads to. And the very lovely thing here is that their vision was built in the real world.
[00:13:02] Their ideas from the metaverse became a safe and open meeting area in their neighborhood. One of the kids summarized the joy and confidence this brought in such a lovely way when she said, being heard and listened to is one of the best feelings you can feel.
[00:13:28] Anytime we can include new voices in processes where they have typically been left out, we shift dynamics, which ultimately builds a better world. If we in the future have even more metaverses on different platforms, beautiful examples like these ones can happen even more.
[00:13:46] I hope and believe that these learnings from the game industry and from the metaverses the communities created truly can help us all make better metaverses in the future. A challenge for all of us that will define and build metaverses
[00:14:02] is to ensure that we use them for creativity, fun, inclusivity and ultimately to build a better real world. Thank you so much. Are the metaverses an opportunity to reimagine the world in society from scratch? Compared to other metaverse enthusiasts I've come across in the last few years,
[00:14:30] Larson does not avoid the fact that some of the social ills in real life can migrate into any metaverse. Things like racism and homophobia and other ways in which people have traditionally been harassed or bullied.
[00:14:44] Larson suggests that the metaverse can be a place that transcends the limitations of the existing world, where artificial scarcity is never introduced and beauty and justice reign supreme. I love this take as it extends small movements in developers and platforms goals to make digital spaces safer.
[00:15:06] A few years ago, I was invited by a major social media company, along with other high profile Black women with big platforms online to address the ways in which the company could work to protect Black women from online harassment.
[00:15:20] We talked about trolls, the inadequacy of existing tools to combat them, and what would be most helpful for reporting accounts, protecting privacy and blocking bots. A safer metaverse could also mean a longer lasting metaverse, as Larson points out,
[00:15:37] that prioritizes user trust, deeper relationships with products and other users, and opportunities for both creators and users to create new streams of commerce as platforms find new ways to monetize. Thanks to Larson for re-envisioning the future of the metaverse in a way that is safe, inclusive and fun.
[00:16:05] TEDx is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced by Isabel Carter, who also wrote it with me, Sherelle Dorsey. Our editor is Jimmy Gutierrez, and the show is fact checked by Danny Brower. Special thanks to Farrah DeGrunge for her support as a project manager.
[00:16:24] I'm Sherelle Dorsey. Let's keep digging into the future. Join me next week for more.