Over the last couple of years, the idea of Metaverse started picking up a lot of steam. Granted, not all of the news we heard from this rising sector were good and to an average reader, the first thing that may come to mind when hearing about this word may be one of the famous Zuckerberg’s blunders.
Be that as it may, the idea of the virtual reality space generated by corporate AI as well as other users as the new infrastructure for content consumption and performing business tasks sounds too big to fail. So, it shouldn’t really come off as a huge surprise that a growing number of companies are jumping on this speeding bandwagon and adding their blocks to the global Metaverse empire.
But, how much does this transition actually cost, and is developing a Metaverse platform viable for your organization, at least at this very moment? Well, that is something we need to take into very serious consideration.
Components of a Metaverse App
To properly understand this issue, we will first need to break down the Metaverse infrastructure and see what the idea of shared virtual reality consists of. So, let’s take a quick look at a couple of the most important Metaverse components:
- Virtual Reality – At the moment, VR presents the most important Metaverse access point and the asset you will probably focus most of your customer experience efforts around.
- Augmented Reality – If you are unfamiliar with the term, AR uses the visual representation of the real-life world and expands it with virtual elements thus providing additional context to the surrounding environment. This tech entails heavy use of IoT technology as well.
- Cloud processing and storage – Keeping in mind that Metaverse is designed for on-the-go consumption without any need for physical access points, the team that will be running this project will need to have experience with cloud apps and cloud computing.
- Artificial Intelligence – Metaverse apps entail handling massive sets of user-generated data and adjusting the virtual environment to them which isn’t possible without advanced AI and Machine Learning.
- Blockchain – Blockchain is a very safe, responsive, and versatile technology for conducting online transactions, storing user data, and data confirmation so it makes a perfect match for a fast-paced Metaverse environment.
We would like to point out that the metaverse apps are, despite their VR moniker, essentially social in nature. Therefore, using the services of an experienced social media agency to develop this vertical should also make it to the list of your considerations. Otherwise, your VR app may fall flat in the areas with the biggest impact on the overall user experience.
Other assets that are not absolutely critical but may be popping down the road include the following mentions:
- Smart contracts
- NFTs
- Cryptocurrencies
- Decentralised storage database
Additional factors affecting Metaverse development costs
The breakdown of these components can give you a pretty good idea about the costs you can expect. Looking for bundled solutions where developers will be able to tackle most if not all these challenges under the same roof will probably bring down the overall costs a notch or two.
But, even so, depending on your requirements (graphically intense apps naturally cost more) and various other factors, developing a Metaverse app can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $300,000. If you want to get a truly stellar experience, you will probably want to use a creative personal domain, you will need to add these factors into the mix as well.
But, let us take a look at a couple of factors that will have the biggest impact on the final cost of the project:
- Hardware – The traditional way of accessing the Metaverse apps comes in the form of VR headsets. Expanding this list to other devices and putting a higher emphasis on graphics (e.g., gaming apps) require a more robust development team.
- Metaverse features – The depth of the Metaverse experience you are going to offer is limited only by your imagination and budget. If you want to trim the development costs, you should reconsider the value of features like AR, IoT, cryptocurrency, and all other technologies that add new elements to the development cycle.
- Security – The online security of your users should never be compromised so your focus should always be on ensuring the safety of personal data and online transactions. Trimming down the list of features you are going to use and leveraging the inherently safe blockchain features should make this job much easier.
- Experience requirements – The main question that arises here is what you actually want to accomplish with your Metaverse app. Keeping the list of requirements short and focusing on the features relevant to your users can drastically cut the cost of project development. For instance, the real estate apps focusing on virtual property tours usually sit at around $15,000.
In conclusion
We hope this short breakdown gave you a better idea about what components make the Metaverse app development cycle and presented some of the options about how you can trim the development costs down. As we can see, although entering this arena will usually entail at least a five-figure sum, you still get a lot of leeway in deciding the final price tag. So, before you start making any plans, be sure to get a good understanding of what you want to achieve and what features are truly relevant to your organization.
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