The visual elements have been the focus of many conversations around the "the metaverse". Audio is not mentioned. Voice is important when making a virtual environment come to life.
Sometimes, it is everything.
Ask Spike Jonze. The original voice actor in the title role of the film was replaced by a different one. Jonze felt that the original actress hadn't nailed the emotion required to create a three-dimensional persona.
Voice was important in creating a character that could absorb the viewer into the story and make it believable.
The Washington Post pointed out that many of the Meta vision of the metaverse already exist in video gaming. In the gaming universe, voice is playing an increasingly important role. Without a rich panoply of digital voices, the metaverse will be incomplete rather than inclusive.
The McGurk Effect research of the mid-1970s found that people who don't fully mesh with their virtual environment can lose their mind.
Expressing your true self.
The metaverse is a social environment where participants create unique personas in both home and workplace settings. Players can express themselves in a variety of ways, from being a human, alien, animal, vegetable, cartoon or other option. The way players try new looks is temporarily. The genders and species are not fixed.
Changing identity is difficult if people can't change how they sound. A personalized player identity is based on having your voice match the persona presented to other people. Many people are familiar with this situation from video games.
You would expect a knight in a game to have a strong voice and clank of armor. Non-player characters are carefully crafted by voice actors and audio specialists to provide anImmersive experience.
In future metaverse, where the knight is the representation of an actual person, you will have a vastly different experience. You might be startled to hear a high-pitched teenager with bad microphone quality instead of a mature voice. The experience is ruined by the incongruence between sound and vision. People can create full digital experiences with Metaverse avatars.
Providing cover.
Sonic identity technology can allow players to slip into true pseudonymity. They can become the person they want others to see, which is powerful protection from a sometimes hostile online environment. It can be used to disguise a geographical accent so the participant can more smoothly integrate a player community. It can be used to hide a physical impairment for people with vocal tics.
Voice changing technology can help to reduce online discrimination. A study published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction states that female gaming players avoid talking to each other to reduce unpleasant interactions. Voice changing technology can allow them to participate in fully pseudonymous conversations, free of a specified gender, in which they might feel more comfortable in expressing themselves.
In the journal Human-Computer Interaction, researchers concluded that voice changed the experience of online gaming, making virtual spaces more intensely social.
My company data shows that players who communicate with voice alter egos feel more engrossed in the game, engage it for longer periods of time and spend more money within the game as a result.
There are things missing in the metaverse.
A truly complete immersive experience requires a combination of 3D visuals and real-time audio to enable people to express themselves in the way they want to be heard. Participants want a sonic representation of themselves that is just as unique as their visual one, and they want the tools to modify their voice as meticulously as their appearance. There must be a harmonious marriage of augmented audio and 3D video to keep the player engaged.
Real-time audio makes audio the great equalizer of the metaverse because it shows how people can bring their own individuality to their content. The current voice experience is challenged to offer the type of immersive qualities that will live up to the promise of an all-encompassing metaverse.
Real-time audio personas are still restrictive despite experimentation. Sound quality is not yet match visual quality, and the tools to shape a person's voice are limited.
Recent advances in audio technology make it easier for players to create a unique sonic identity. New solutions available to platform and game developers enable writers, producers and audio engineers to incorporate voice modification technology within their games to produce natural-sounding and fantasy voices in real time.
It has the potential to generate new avenues for monetization by delivering an inclusive and immersive experience that entices players and keeps them fully focused and engaged in the experience rather than dropping away.
Powerful tools that enable people to shape the visual representation of themselves in a digital space are being invested in by companies. They need to not overlook the sonic identity for a matching social audio experience.
The metaverse will not be complete without it.
