Now about the Metaverse
Sam Englebardt, a managing partner of Galaxy Interactive, was planning to have a dinner ahead of our GamesBeat Summit to discuss investing topics with a couple of dozen attendees. That didn’t happen. But we did have a Zoom meeting with 35 people, all chatting together on video. Englebardt sent wine to some of the attendees so it would feel like we were all dining or drinking together. And we had a nice time connecting about how hard it is to connect with other people right now.
Englebardt loves the idea of the Metaverse, or a collection of connected virtual worlds where we can all live, work, and play in the future. I love that idea too. But I have to say that I’m having a really hard time with this idea that virtual is better than being there in person.
I believe strongly in face-to-face networking, and it was hard to fathom doing a GamesBeat Summit without being there in person. It is also hard for me to swallow that the face-to-face networking that I’ve done at events such as the Game Developers Conference, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Gamescom, or CES may not happen again for a long time. I have traveled the world and met the most interesting people in the video game industry, and I can’t do that anymore. I am one of the last people to say this online thing is a good substitute.
Yet I am questioning my past assumptions as well now. Is it worth risking my life so I can go meet a startup in person and get a better sense about whether it’s worthy of the media spotlight? Can I get just as good a story by talking to them in a Zoom call?
Whatever the answers are about whether physical is better than virtual or visa versa, I really want the industry to solve this problem of connecting more closely with people online.
And at the same time, I realize how lucky we all are just to be able to connect, whether it’s through a phone call, a Facetime video connection, a Google Meet, or a Zoom video call. Because so many other businesses just cannot even function anymore.
One of the things that came up often at our event was that at least the game industry is able to function while sheltered in place. So many other industries can’t do that, such as retailers like Neiman Marcus, which just declared bankruptcy, and Hollywood studios and theme parks owned by Disney, which saw a 90% drop in its earnings in the quarter.
We don’t have those problems, and so we are lucky, and we have time to come up with thoughtful answers during this very difficult time.