Metaverse in India: The challenge of buying land and painting houses

For the ’90s kid acquainted with The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, the metaverse might seem very familiar. In the American animated series, characters frequently enter a virtual reality (VR) space called “Questworld,” fight villains and neutralise threats to the real world. With its oddly plastic avatars, 3D environs and gamified token hunts, the metaverse is strangely reminiscent of the Questworld.

While we haven’t quite saved the world yet, the metaverse is fast moving beyond VR games.

Bengaluru-based Hyperreality Technologies, for instance, provides B2B services to property developers and architects. This lets them give prospective customers an experience of the property even before it is ready: letting them walk into a house and, say, paint the house, change wallpapers, sofas, and décor styles with a wave of their hand, with the decorator guiding them through the options.

Another Bengaluru-based start-up, xperie.nz helps e-commerce ventures visualise their metaverse – and have it built according to specifications, says Satyendra Sahani, its co-founder and head of product & growth. It’s like a ‘sample flat’ in the metaverse.

And SaaS (software as a service) platform KiksAR Technologies, also headquartered in Bengaluru, is customising jewelleries, clothing and accessories on the metaverse for 80 brands in 15 countries across fashion categories. These include Titan Eyeplus and US-based Signet Jewellers.

The company makes it possible for these brands to let people customise the products they want to buy through a gamified experience. The customers can not only own the physical copy of these personalised products but also convert and own these as NFTs, says Kavita Jha, CEO and co-founder, KiksAR.

Such NFTs are also applicable to food in the metaverse. Recently, Wow! Momo, a quick service restaurant (QSR) chain, launched its three brands in the metaverse. It will allow consumers to trade their NFTs and redeem them at Wow! Momo’s physical outlets. Massive Restaurants, owners of brands like Farzi Café, Papaya and Bo Tai, is also foraying into the metaverse with games and treasure hunts that will enable patrons to collect tokens online that can then be used offline or vice versa, says Zorawar Kalra, MD and CEO of Massive Restaurants.

It’s not a party yet

All this is very well, but what about the technology involved?

VR headsets are gradually becoming somewhat accessible, with an Oculus Go priced at Rs 22,000. Several start-up founders say they are also developing software for laptops and mobile devices.

KiksAR, xperie.nz and Hyperreality’s simulations can, for example, be accessed through web browsers, mobile apps and multi-platform webAR URLs. Sobin Thombra, founder of Hyperreality, does point out though that headsets provide the best experience. 

Besides the cost of the hardware, working in VR space involves the acquisition cost of VR-land. The cheapest parcels of land in public metaverses – like Ethereum Worlds, the Sandbox or Decentraland – range between $2,500 and $3,000. Some global brands like Gucci, Nike and Louis Vuitton have developed their own metaverse.

Mohit Ramani, founder of Gurugram-based event hosting firm ExpoSim, also points at the additional cost of event setup and content development on the bought land. “Companies hoping to host an event would spend upwards of $10,000,” he says.

ExpoSim is one of several start-ups specifically aiming for cost-effective metaverse solutions. Ramani explains, “Currently, hosting an event in any of the public metaverses requires organisers to buy/rent land and then create the event experience.” ExpoSim provides a single platform to rent space and host events across the multiple metaverses it owns without any tech development. “We let organisers use our land for their events along with customisation capabilities at about one-tenth the cost.”

And what about data requirements?

Immersive experiences with 360-degree video applications like metaverse events require a lot of data. A low to standard resolution (below or at 720p) experience, available with most VR head-mounted displays, requires at least 25 Mbps for streaming. For resolutions comparable to HD TV, the requirement jumps to 80 to 100 Mbps. And if the aim is a ‘retinal’ 360-degree video experience (as in a 4K TV), as much as 600 Mbps speed is required.

AirV Labs Co-founder and CEO Chinmay Sengupta believes they have found a solution. “Our modules are designed for low latency, addressing the internet bandwidth issues,” he says. 

AirV aims to introduce VR-based training modules for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare personnel in rural and remote areas. For this, the company employs digital twinning technology — the generation of a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object.

The metaverse’s tech issues are not limited to internet strength and availability of network. Litesh Gumber, founder of Cryptic Entertainments, which hosted India's first concert in the metaverse with Punjabi pop artist Singga in May this year, says, "I don't think the platforms are ready to cater to a large number of audiences. Many people wanted to join the concert but could not because of technological constraints."

Computing power of devices also falls short. If there are, say, 10 people already in the concert, the 11th person's device would have to process those 10 ‘objects’ that are already there. Similarly, for the 100th person to join, their device would need a very high computing power.

"There is a huge mismatch between the hype around the opportunity and the actual product that has been developed until now," Gumber added.

Maitri Cheriyan, a Delhi-based media professional, who recently spent close to Rs 75,000 on installing a fully top-range VR-enabled set-up at her home, says the metaverse experience was a disappointment. “I have attended virtual meetings and classrooms, and played games in the metaverse. The experience has been far from the seamless meanderings of virtual avatars one sees in promotional videos and ads.”

‘There is a huge mismatch between the hype and the actual product’