Corporate giants JP Morgan, CBRE and Accenture have all established corporate outposts in the metaverse – but one of the sector’s biggest developers thinks virtual offices are a waste of time.
Janine Yorio, chief executive of metaverse developer and investment fund Everyrealm, told Financial News that most metaverse workspaces are part of “marketing ploys” and do not have “a clear path of utility”.
“When [companies] build an office in the metaverse… they don’t really know why people would come, but they feel like they ought to do it because the metaverse is a trending topic. There are a lot of offices sitting out there in various different metaverses and nobody visits them.”
“Lots of companies have done it,” she said. “The truth is, nobody cares.”
The Everyrealm boss believes metaverse real estate has significant potential, but that it is better suited to play, not work, with casinos and gaming environments taking centre stage.
Yorio said: “We can barely get people to come to the office in real life. Why would people want to spend time pretending to be there?”
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The metaverse is a collection of 24/7 worlds hosted online. In many of them, people use cryptocurrencies to buy and sell virtual land. Some use virtual reality headsets to allow people to interact with one another as if they are actually there.
Citi recently estimated that by the end of the decade the sector could represent a revenue opportunity of $13tn, with five billion people using it.
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, has invested heavily in the concept, and last year launched its Horizon Workrooms product, which allows people to hold business meetings in virtual reality office rooms.
Consulting giant Accenture also holds training sessions in a virtual reality workspace known as the Nth Floor, while real estate agency CBRE is also trialling a metaverse office.
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Everyrealm acts as the landlord. It buys and develops metaverse real estate, including the virtual plot in which JP Morgan established its first digital branch in 2021. The space features a spiral staircase, a live tiger, and an illuminated portrait of the bank’s crypto-sceptic CEO Jamie Dimon.
JP Morgan declined to comment on Yorio’s remarks.
Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz led a $60m Series A funding round into Everyrealm earlier this year.
Yorio’s comments come after crypto-enthusiast billionaire Mark Cuban told YouTube channel Altcoin Daily that buying virtual real estate is “the dumbest s**t ever”.
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