i can sample shooting stuff in the vr version of blockbuster action franchise far cry. that was intense! with the headset and headphones on i am completely immersed in these virtual experiences. part of the reason we're hearing so much about the metaverse is because technology like this now exists. richard bartle was there at the very dawn of multiplayer experiences in 1978. he was one of the brains behind the world's first multiplayer virtual world, the text adventure multi—user dungeon, or mud. now a professor of computer game design at the university of essex, he believes there is a specific set of rules which define the idea of the metaverse. ok, so the metaverse is essentially a marketing concept. we have universes which are self—contained realities, then we have multi—verses, which are realities that you can move between,