Metaverse-Länderstrategien - globaler Überblick

The metaverse (or Virtual Worlds) is currently attracting a great deal of attention in business and society. At the center of the often-controversial discourse is the next development stage of the internet in three-dimensional space. The metaverse is currently associated with virtual environments with always-on 3D experiences that combine physical and virtual reality using various technologies. This enables social interactions and economic transactions. The impact on the economy and society is considered to be substantial: corporate consultancies forecast metaverse markets with volumes of up to USD 394 billion by 2025 (BCG) and USD 5 trillion by 2030 (McKinsey & Company). A metaverse study from 2023 by Ernst Young (EY) and NOKIA clearly shows (p. 28, Figure 5.1) that it will not only be the big tech companies (1st place) and existing metaverse platform (2nd place) that will drive future metaverse developments, but also industrial equipment suppliers (3rd place), manufacturers of enterprise software (4th place) and game developers (5th place). Such huge impact projections and various ways to contribute to and to benefit from the metaverse motivated a number of countries and the European Commission to work out respective metaverse strategies to position themselves. This paper compares these strategies, giving also an outlook on what to expect in the future.