Habitat was an early place for living online.
Habitat was an early place for living online.
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Chip Morningstar interview: How the metaverse started with Habitat

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 18 min

The metaverse is all the rage today, and its lineage goes way back in gaming. The universe of connected virtual worlds might well become a reality worth trillions of dollars, and it might be good to think about where it all came from.

The ideas were fleshed out in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One. But games have played a big role in taking the idea of the metaverse from the realm of science fiction to everyday entertainment as well. It’s easy to think back to the influence of massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft or virtual worlds like Second Life.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.