Moving Our Lives into the Metaverse with Timmu Tõke – Step into the Metaverse: EP03

Oct 14, 2022

👋 Hi, I am Mark. I am a strategic futurist and innovation keynote speaker. I advise governments and enterprises on emerging technologies such as AI or the metaverse. My subscribers receive a free daily newsletter on cutting-edge technology.

In this episode of the Step into the Metaverse Podcast, I had a chat with Timmu Tõke, the Co-Founder and CEO of Ready Player Me, a cross-game Metaverse Avatar platform that allows you to create a consistent virtual avatar to use to travel across virtual worlds or multiverses. Their goal is to become the default avatar system for the Metaverse. To achieve this, they work to facilitate avatar interoperability by providing developers with a scalable avatar creation system to allow them to focus on creating games faster. They offer SDKs for Unity and Unreal Web, and many other platforms, as well as support.

Timmu and I will dive into what it takes to create an avatar system, how avatars ensure self-sovereign identity, the important role digital fashion will play in the metaverse, what life in the metaverse will look like, why there needs to be a universal system for different worlds, identity validation in the metaverse, avatar interoperability (And why building open worlds over closed worlds is key), and so much more. Stay tuned and enjoy!

Highlights

[01:15] - Creating avatars that are used by more than 3500 companies.
[03:26] - An interactive 3D world that is connected.
[04:09] - Ensuring identity and repetition in the metaverse.
[07:46] - The main characteristics of an avatar and what they will look like in the future.
[14:35] - Looking good virtually: The importance of digital products in the metaverse.
[16:48] - How interoperability across platforms will be achieved in the metaverse.
[21:00] - Will identity theft happen in the metaverse?
[23:29] - What the retail industry will look like in a Direct-to-Avatar world.

Quotes

“Ideas are nice but execution matters more” - Timmu Tõke

“People in virtual worlds have endless possibilities” - Timmu Tõke

“People will think of their virtual representations like they think about themselves in the real world. Like having great fashion in the metaverse and things like that is going to be important” - Timmu Tõke

“The metaverse could be more disruptive for brands than social media or any other change that has happened before in tech” - Timmu Tõke

“There’s an opportunity for metaverse native brands to come up and be a big player in that space” - Timmu Tõke

Learn More About Timmu Tõke in the Links Below:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/timmutoke/
Website - https://readyplayer.me/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/timmutoke

If you are interested in learning more about the metaverse, you can order my book Step into the Metaverse here.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ready Player Me?

Ready Player Me is a cross-game Metaverse Avatar platform that lets people create a consistent virtual avatar to use across different virtual worlds or multiverses. It aims to become the default avatar system for the Metaverse by giving developers a scalable avatar creation system, including SDKs for Unity, Unreal, Web and other platforms, so they can focus on building games faster instead of creating avatar systems themselves.

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Why is avatar interoperability important in the metaverse?

Avatar interoperability allows a single avatar to travel across different virtual worlds instead of being locked into one closed platform. It ensures identity and consistency for users as they move between spaces, and supports building open worlds rather than closed ones, which is described as key to a connected, interactive 3D metaverse experience.

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Why will digital fashion matter in the metaverse?

Digital fashion matters because people will start thinking of their virtual representations the way they think about themselves in the real world, making it important to look good virtually. Having great fashion and digital products for avatars is expected to become a significant part of life in the metaverse, similar to how appearance and style matter in physical reality.

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How could the metaverse affect brands and retail?

The metaverse is expected to be more disruptive for brands than social media or any prior tech shift, reshaping retail into a Direct-to-Avatar model where products are sold for virtual representations. This disruption also creates an opportunity for entirely new, metaverse-native brands to emerge and become major players in this space.

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