Today’s read is ~6-8 minutes
Hi all,
Last month in an official press release, the Seoul Municipal Government (SMG) became the first major city to announce plans to fully embrace the metaverse and its underlying capabilities. Appropriately dubbing this effort “Metaverse Seoul” the move would have truly profound impacts on the city’s tourism, municipal administration, and economic activity.
Of course the metaverse itself has a ton of possible applications in pretty much every industry, but I started CityBits first and foremost to win her back to talk about cities, so that’s what we’ll be focusing on today. I’ll cover Seoul’s specific plans for metaverse adoption, why I’m hot/cold on their chances, and then speculate more broadly about how Metaverse Seoul could be a potential blueprint for other cities as well. Let’s dive in.
Explain the metaverse to me
First, what exactly is “the metaverse?”
The term comes from a 1992 sci-fi novel by Neal Stephenson, and refers to any interconnected environment where people can interact with one another, especially one using virtual or augmented reality (VR/AR) technology. Think The Matrix, Ready Player One, or that uncharacteristically pleasant episode of Black Mirror with Gugu Mbatha-Raw.1 The concept has been well-covered in science fiction media, and semi-immersive metaverse examples also already exist in the form of online games like Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, etc.
So, while not a brand new idea, the metaverse concept received an enormous publicity (and IMO, legitimacy) boost this past October when the company formerly known as Facebook changed their name to Meta and announced an all-in bet on developing their version of a fully immersive virtual world.
While Meta (née Facebook) is sure to be a major player, it’s important to note that like the internet, the metaverse is not owned by any single company. Instead it’s a broader term for any platform combining hardware and software that allows users to interact with one another. Therefore, different platforms aren’t all necessarily connected. Logging into Zuckerberg’s metaverse doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to immediately access Seoul’s and vice versa.
Now explain the metaverse to me like I’m 5 years old
There’s a magic world inside the computer, and the stuff you do there can affect things outside the computer as well. You can talk to people from around the world and give yourself cool costumes.
What specifically is Seoul doing?
So let’s talk about what they’re actually trying to do. Metaverse Seoul won’t just be a digital copy of the city that you can explore like a video game, the goal is to actually create a fully interactive platform that will allow both residents and tourists to access the city’s broad range of services and information.
In “Metaverse Seoul,”… residents would be able to make reservations for city-run facilities, ride city tour buses, visit re-creations of destroyed historical sites, file administrative complaints with city bureaucrats and more. Residents would also be able to visit cultural heritage sites throughout the city by accessing the metaverse on their cellphones. (source)
Metaverse Seoul is part of Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s broader “Seoul Vision 2030”, which aims to make the city a global economic leader, increase safety and “urban elegance,” and improve the mental health and dignity of its citizens.
And while it won’t be fully completed until 2026, there are already some promising South Korean applications appearing in both the public and private sectors:
A bicycle-safety campaign was piloted in Roblox (an online gaming platform popular with teenagers) this past month.
Consumer product retailers have begun offering factory tours through the metaverse.
South Korean retail giant Lotte announced plans to use their (IMO disturbingly realistic) virtual assistant Lucy as a customer service rep within the metaverse.
All in all, if done properly, Metaverse Seoul won’t just make life easier for residents, it will also put the city (literally) on the metaverse map for a brand new generation of tech-savvy tourists and consumers. And while it’s still too early to definitively say if this is just a PR gimmick or a truly revolutionary step in municipal management, I do think there is a good argument to be bullish on Seoul’s chances.
Why I’m optimistic
A major reason to be optimistic about Metaverse Seoul is that it makes more sense for Seoul to do this compared to other global cities.
High Digital Literacy
Firstly, South Korea as a whole, and especially Seoul in particular, consistently ranks extremely high in terms of digital literacy and internet connectivity/usage ability, increasing the possibility of widespread Metaverse Seoul adoption. Additionally, this past summer the city began rolling out digital literacy classes aimed at helping elderly residents learn things like how to use a smartphone, download Kakao Talk (the most popular Korean messaging app), and/or navigate Metaverse Seoul.
Precedent for successful technological adoption
South Koreans also have a history of quickly adopting new innovations. I’ve previously talked about South Korea’s Songdo International Business District, a “smart city” built from the ground up, and Seoul also has plans to launch their own cryptocurrency (dubbed “S-Coin”) in 2022. Obviously the metaverse is a whole different animal, but it’s reassuring to note that they already have a semi-proven track record of successfully adapting new technologies to government applications.
South Korean soft power and the metaverse demographic
When writing this piece I spent ~15 minutes trying to find a more eloquent way of saying this, but the last reason I’m optimistic about Metaverse Seoul’s success is this: people just fucking love South Korean culture.
They love their movies, with Parasite winning four Academy Awards in 2020 and being the first non-English film to win Best Picture.
They love their television shows, with Squid Game becoming Netflix’s most watched series ever and accounting for ~240,000 YEARS of total watch time.
They love their K-Pop music, with one study finding that in 2019 (pre-pandemic) roughly 800,000 people visited South Korea because of BTS, a prominent K-Pop boyband. This would account for ~7% of all tourists entering South Korea that year, and doesn’t even include the influences of other K-pop groups!
In particular, younger demographics especially seem to embrace any and all things to do with Korean soft power. They love their clothing styles, their food, even their language and their schools. Over the last 16 years the number of foreign students studying in South Korea has grown over 13x to ~160,000 in 2019, and that number was on track to grow even more before the big pandy-wandy caused tourism to drop 95% in Asia.
So why is this significant? Because these younger demographics who love Korean culture will also be the fastest and most widespread adopters of the metaverse. We can already see this happening in various ways:
Younger consumers are more willing to spend money on virtual products than any other generation.
Virtual concerts in Fortnite (an online video game) can attract over 12 million attendees at once.
In 2021 microtransactions (in-game sales for virtual goods) was a $34 billion USD market.
Even riding virtual public transit isn’t that far-fetched. Just ask the 250 million people worldwide who downloaded the Bus Simulator game in 2021.
So, what’s this all mean for Metaverse Seoul? Well we have now established that young people:
Are already embracing both the virtual economy and online experiences
Really love South Korean culture
With these two facts alone I would have bet Seoul would be a top destination for metaverse travel EVEN IF the city wasn’t making these additional, concentrated efforts in that space. So the added boost from the Metaverse Seoul project is sure to make it an even more appealing destination for virtual travel and commerce in the future.
Now maybe some of my older readers might find it stupid to “travel” in a virtual world or spend money on non-physical assets. But we live in a world where people are paying millions of dollars for monkey NFTs, so don’t be so quick to laugh this idea off. For meta or for worse,2 Gen Z has already demonstrated that the metaverse is here to stay.
Why I think it might fail
Overall I am optimistic about Metaverse Seoul. However, as with any new venture of this size and scale, there are some legitimate doubts to consider as well.
Cost and Infrastructure
The first is the difficulties associated with providing the necessary infrastructure, especially the cost. Even though the metaverse's main appeal is its virtual nature, it is still rooted in physical hardware. Much like cloud computing, digitizing and dispersing Seoul’s information, culture, and services throughout the metaverse will still require actual physical computing power, servers, etc.
Metaverse Seoul is projected to cost the city ~$34M USD over the next 5 years, with a minimum viable product (consisting mainly of admin/government services) rolled out by late 2022. But don’t forget that’s just the cost for the government to set it all up. If you’re an individual user who wants to get the full, immersive experience then the VR/AR equipment needed will run you around ~$300 USD (though you can access parts of it through your smartphone). That’s no small cost, especially if the goal is to improve accessibility to city services, not add another barrier for users. I know I personally wouldn’t want to spend all that extra money just to renew my driver’s license online or annul (another) marriage at town hall.
Technological barriers
This potential cost barrier leads directly into the other main hurdle I see with Metaverse Seoul, which is the technological access issue. While the opportunity to handle civil service business from home sounds convenient, keep in mind that the metaverse is a comparatively tech-heavy platform. It could be tougher for elderly, visually-impaired, or disabled users who may already struggle just using a phone/desktop, much less enter full on digital world with even less-familiar gear. Increased access to information and services sounds great, but only if your 85 year old grandmother knows how to put on a VR headset and fly her virtual avatar to the DMV.
Unknowns RE: metaverse privacy, security, and safety
The third hurdle is in regards to the potential privacy, safety, and security issues that could stem from a mass adoption of the metaverse. I’m not a digital security expert but whether it’s sophisticated crypto scams or Nigerian princes emailing you for help, new technology pretty much always comes with some asshole trying to steal your money/information. Sidewalk Lab’s Quayside in Toronto is a popular example of privacy concerns derailing urban projects, but really any initiative that promises extensive tracking and access, be it IoT, blockchain IDs, or even automatic speed traps are (rightly so) accompanied by these kinds of concerns.
What’s it mean for cities?
So that’s why I’m optimistic/pessimistic about Metaverse Seoul. But stepping back from the specific South Korean example, overall I think the metaverse has great potential to impact how cities are run, visited, and lived in. In the same way that the pandemic showed larges swathes of white collar workers that they could basically still do their job fully remote, I suspect that people will find that VR interactions can not only replace existing in-person interactions, but actually can also provide entirely new opportunities for travel, commerce, and collaboration.
There are near limitless urban applications surrounding:
Increased access to services and information for all
Improved ease of access for disabled or elderly users3 (but with the above caveats)
Increasing globalization and ease of travel, especially with integrated real time language translation technology
Online gatherings (NYC ball drop, ceremonial openings, concerts, etc.)
Among many, many others.
And I really do think that most people are still not grasping the full potential for immersive experiences. Zuckerberg talked about this in his Meta rebranding announcement, basically saying people are underestimating how much more real the metaverse meetings, hangouts, and other interactions will feel when you can actually move, gesture, and interact in real time.4
As I was researching and editing this update, I had to remove a few instances where I said the metaverse allows for a “digital representation” of the real world. Because the metaverse doesn’t just allow you to copy what you’d do in the real world, it allows for an entirely different, and arguably more broad range of possibilities.
In my opinion, the gap between video chats and VR isn’t like the gap between video chats and phone calls, it’s more like the gap between video chats and handwriting letters. Virtual cities have the potential to not just give us a digital facsimile of the real thing, they can entirely change how people visit, interact with, and live in them.
Conclusion
I’m not sure how Metaverse Seoul will actually play out. Maybe the city will successfully parlay their high digital literacy, proven tech adoption capabilities, and global enthusiasm for South Korean culture into a successful metaverse platform. Or perhaps high infrastructural costs, technological barriers, and hitherto unforeseen issues RE: security, safety, or privacy will doom Metaverse Seoul to just being an expensive publicity stunt.
I hope Metaverse Seoul gets fully funded, built, and deployed on schedule. Maybe with some kind of voucher, subsidy, or other way to decrease the financial and technological barriers. But regardless, even if Seoul doesn’t find the best way to use it, the potential for urban metaverse applications will continue to develop over the next few years and I’ll be eagerly following along to see how cities are best able to leverage it for cultural, economic, and civic gains.
That’s it for today, thanks again for reading and as always don’t forget to absolutely PULVERIZE that like button.
BTS 4 Lyfe,
-Max
One of my favorite newsletters, Strange Loop Canon, actually wrote a piece on exactly this a few weeks back about how sci-fi authors have had a surprisingly large impact on how technology evolves, even decades after their books are published.
I am truly sorry.
Though keep in mind that not all disabilities are the same and while VR might be a better path for the mobility-impaired, visually-impaired users might find the experience less convenient.
Of course, the internet being what it is, there’s also always potential for abuse, harassment, and trolling, but while precautions should be taken to help mitigate those negatives, it shouldn’t be a major deterrent to widespread adoption.