The Evolution of Gaming in the Metaverse

This chapter explores the interdisciplinary convergence of innovative cutting-edge immersive technology, new narrative design innovation, and interactive user engagement in the metaverse. It zeroes in on how virtual reality and virtual worlds combine with computer gaming technology and narrative techniques to generate persistent, highly interactive virtual spaces that combine physical and virtual spaces. It then identifies how new narrative design innovations like procedural narrative generate highly interactive and personalised narratives. It then explores how community co-creation and user-generated content become ever more central to metaverse gaming and identifies this change in how players move centrally to become creating users who cooperate to create virtual spaces and generate a culture of participation. It then explores how metaverse gaming has social, cultural, and economic impacts in how new virtual communities and cultural practices become activated, and virtual economies and new business rules. By analysing these converging forces—the new technology applications, active user engagement, and new narrative strategies—this chapter demonstrates how these forces operate in harmony to generate new layers of immersive engagement and contribute to a continued evolution of an interactive, participatory metaverse.