Microsoft Gaming CEO Talks About Metaverse: “It Has Already Been 30 Years!”

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer says gamers have already been around for 30 years. metaverse He said he believed they were in it, but now understands why some are hesitant about it.

“The Metaverse Has Already Been In Our Lives For Years”

Speaking to Bloomberg Studio 1.0, Spencer suggested that gamers “do not understand” the Metaverse because the technologies that Metaverse advocates claim are new are technologies they have experienced in games for years.

Spencer continued his statements as follows:

“It’s no surprise to me that players look at the Metaverse and think: I already have an avatar of my own, I can already enter a shared world, and I can already have voice conversations.”

Spencer also said he’s “skeptical” about certain trends, including play-to-win, because they create “a workforce of players to make money for certain players.”

Spencer previously worked on Blockchain and cryptocurrency had criticized its games for using play-to-earns and NFTs, and Microsoft had set the rules when it came to using their platform for “exploitative” projects.

Microsoft-owned Mojang Studios updated its community guidelines for Minecraft in July, blocking projects with NFTs using the platform. This decision was particularly a blow to NFT Worlds, the metaverse platform that had to stop using Minecraft as the basis for its virtual world.

However, Spencer stated that monetization among players already exists in web2 games:

“There have always been people who farm gold in games, so these are people who spend their time doing a trivial task in a game and save a currency that they can then sell to another rich player for real money so that person doesn’t have to waste their time…

But now you find games that are starting to incorporate that into the game’s own economy.”

*Not investment advice.