Author: Zen, PANews

The "metaverse," which was repeatedly hyped two or three years ago, has become clearer in its true industry landscape as the narrative has receded. As 2025 approaches its end, the global metaverse industry presents a complex situation of "uneven heat."

After the boom in 2021 and the cooling in 2022, the metaverse ecosystem in 2025 has not entirely declined; instead, it has shown signs of recovery and breakthroughs in certain sectors.

However, at the same time, some areas still struggle with growth, creating a stark contrast. Some user bases and engagement levels have reached new highs, while others face declining activity and even user attrition. This differentiation in heat has become a core observation point for the metaverse industry in 2025.

Immersive Gaming Platforms: Over 100 Million Users Yet Want to "Remove the Metaverse" Label

The virtual worlds provided by immersive games are currently the most mature and active areas of the metaverse. In 2025, immersive UGC gaming platforms continue to grow, with leading platforms performing exceptionally well.

Among them, Roblox serves as an industry benchmark, achieving new highs in user scale and revenue: in the third quarter of 2025, Roblox's average daily active users reached 151.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 70%, with quarterly revenue growing 48% year-on-year to $1.36 billion. Its vast user base indicates that the UGC metaverse model, which integrates gaming and social interaction, still possesses strong stickiness and appeal.

However, Roblox has not emphasized the concept and narrative of the metaverse; it only articulated its vision for the metaverse during the peak hype in 2021. Now, Roblox prefers to frame its narrative around "global gaming market," "platform and creator ecosystem," and "virtual economy," without placing the "metaverse" label in a prominent position.

In contrast, Epic, the developer behind the game ecosystem Fortnite, which also boasts over 100 million monthly active users, still regards its platform as a key vehicle for an open metaverse and interoperable digital ecosystem. In November 2025, Epic Games announced a partnership with the cross-platform game engine Unity. Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney stated that companies need to collaborate like in the early days of the internet to build an open metaverse in an interoperable and fair manner. According to Sweeney, 40% of Fortnite's gameplay occurs in third-party content, which is the "metaversal" part.

Fortnite's music festival is an original game experience centered on music and rhythm, which this year collaborated with Hatsune Miku, "Craftsman" Sabrina Carpenter, "Mars Man" Bruno Mars, and BLACKPINK member LISA, bringing a virtual large-scale music festival experience to millions of players and fans. Additionally, Roblox has also collaborated with Icelandic-American musician Laufey and K-pop girl group aespa to perform in its official music venue, "The Block." Such events demonstrate that immersive platforms still have the potential to become a new "digital third space," hosting new forms of entertainment and social interaction.

Besides the above two, Minecraft was previously widely regarded as a metaverse gaming ecosystem giant. However, this gaming platform rarely packages itself as a metaverse ecosystem, focusing its core strategy on community and creation. More critically, Minecraft's previous support for immersive hardware like VR and MR has also come to an end this year. The official Bedrock update log states that support for VR/MR devices will no longer receive updates after March 2025, and users will only be able to continue playing in non-VR/MR modes after the final update.

Overall, in 2025, the field of immersive gaming platforms sees the "stronger remain strong," with leading platforms like Roblox continuing to expand their user base due to their vast ecosystems and creator communities, while smaller platforms face pressure from declining user activity or potential integration and elimination. The reduced promotion of the metaverse concept by leading ecosystems, or even strategic abandonment, undoubtedly weakens the public's recognition of the metaverse.

Metaverse Social: Old Bottles, New Wine Awaiting Growth

Compared to immersive games, metaverse-style virtual social interactions in 2025 have not shown much to commend, instead exploring new directions through reflection. Some early players have ceased operations, while others are struggling to transform.

As a leading platform waving the flag, Meta has gradually adjusted its strategy from 2023 to 2024, no longer developing VR social applications in isolation but attempting to integrate its metaverse social products with existing platforms like Facebook and Instagram that have massive user bases.

However, Meta's Horizon Worlds has struggled to develop, with its monthly active users still below 200,000, a minuscule figure compared to the hundreds of millions of Facebook users. At the end of 2024, Meta began opening Horizon Worlds to mobile and web platforms to lower barriers and expand its user base, claiming that mobile users grew fourfold within a year. Yet, as a platform primarily reliant on VR devices, Horizon still faces limitations in user adoption, far from explosive growth.

Meta's CTO admitted at the Connect 2025 conference that the company needs to prove that metaverse social can deliver sufficient user retention and profit models; otherwise, it will be difficult to sustain massive investments. To this end, Meta is enhancing Horizon's content by introducing AI creation and NPCs while emphasizing integration with real social networks to lower user acquisition costs.

Other new virtual space platforms positioned for social and entertainment are experiencing a stark divide. The established VR social platform VRChat has maintained steady growth driven by its core community, with user activity reaching new highs in 2025—during New Year's 2025, VRChat's peak concurrent users exceeded 130,000, reflecting its vitality as an open community platform. Additionally, user-generated content trends in markets like Japan have driven VRChat's user growth by over 30% between 2024 and 2025.

In contrast, Rec Room, a social VR platform once valued at $3.5 billion, has encountered growth bottlenecks and announced layoffs of more than half its staff in August 2025. Initially favored by capital for its cross-platform UGC gameplay and creator economy, Rec Room faced an influx of low-quality content as it expanded into mobile and console markets, leading to user retention and revenue falling short of expectations. The co-founder of Rec Room admitted that mobile and console users find it challenging to create engaging content, and efforts to bridge the gap, such as introducing AI creation tools, have not been effective.

In 2025, some explorations of new virtual social spaces are worth noting. For instance, AI technology has begun to enhance virtual social experiences, such as introducing AI-driven virtual characters to accompany users in VR chat rooms or using GPT models to generate personalized virtual spaces for users. These innovations are still in the experimental stage but showcase the evolutionary direction of metaverse social: smarter environments, more emotionally interactive virtual characters, and closer integration with real-world content.

Overall, metaverse social in 2025 is in a period of low tide and adjustment. The novelty of pure virtual social interactions has worn off for the general user base, and demand has returned to rationality: users will not linger in virtual spaces lacking quality content and real social value. This is evident from the situations of Horizon and Rec Room. Remaining practitioners are also clearer about their next steps: starting from improving content quality and community culture, they aim to find clever intersections with real social interactions.

Hardware and Spatial Computing: The Rise of AR Glasses, VR Under Pressure to Transform

2024 is viewed by the industry as one of the "years of spatial computing," with multiple heavyweight XR (extended reality) hardware products being released or gaining traction, reigniting this sector.

The most notable release in the first half of the year was Apple's Vision Pro—this high-end mixed reality headset was launched in limited quantities in the U.S. in early 2024 and is gradually being rolled out to more regions in 2025. Due to its high price of $3,499 and limited production capacity, Vision Pro's sales volume is constrained. Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted that Vision Pro is currently "not a product for the mass market," only catering to tech enthusiasts eager to try it. Nevertheless, Apple continues to invest in ecosystem development in 2025: launching visionOS system updates and rumored improvements to hardware, including upgraded M-series chips and improved headbands.

Outside the high-end market, Meta's Quest series continues to dominate the mainstream VR market. The Meta Quest 3, released at the end of 2023, has sold well during the 2024-2025 holiday seasons due to its improved performance and comfort. According to IDC data, Meta held approximately 60.6% of the global AR/VR headset and smart glasses market in the first half of 2025, far ahead of the second tier.

Sony's PlayStation VR2, launched in early 2023, underwent significant price reductions and market repositioning in 2025. With only a few million units sold in its first year, below expectations, Sony reduced the official price of the PS VR2 by about $150-200 to $399.99 starting in March 2025, hoping to boost sales with a more affordable price point. This pricing strategy led to a sales surge during the holiday season, with cumulative sales of the PS VR2 expected to approach around 3 million units by the end of 2025. However, compared to the wireless portability of the Quest, the PS VR2 remains constrained by its console platform, with its content ecosystem primarily limited to the core console gaming community.

Another highlight of XR hardware in 2025 is the rise of consumer-grade smart glasses. Meta's Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (second generation), developed in collaboration with Ray-Ban, were released this year, introducing integrated displays for basic AR functions for the first time. The shipment of these "lightweight AR glasses," which do not feature full immersive displays, surged this year. IDC reports that global shipments of AR/VR headsets and smart glasses are expected to reach 14.3 million units in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 39.2%.

Meta's Ray-Ban model, which resembles ordinary sunglasses and offers practical features like photography and AI, is particularly favored by urban young users. Overall, the XR hardware market in 2025 presents a "hot ends, cold middle" pattern: the ultra-high-end Vision Pro sparks innovation but has limited sales; the mid-to-low-end Quest and smart glasses are selling well, capturing a significant market share; while traditional PC VR, expensive HoloLens 2, Magic Leap 2, and other enterprise AR devices have relatively muted influence, primarily applied in small-scale industry settings.

At the Meta Connect 2025 conference, Meta emphasized the introduction of generative AI into XR, allowing users to generate virtual scenes and objects through voice commands. Apple is also exploring the integration of Vision Pro with AI assistants for more natural human-computer interactions. This indicates that AI+XR will become a new investment hotspot in 2026. Additionally, industry collaboration and standards are accelerating: for example, the OpenXR standard received broader support in 2025, with different brand headsets gradually becoming compatible in terms of content and accessories, and companies like Microsoft and Valve are also preparing to launch new devices in the market.

It is worth mentioning that the application of XR hardware beyond the industry is continuously expanding: in 2025, XR solutions in the medical and educational fields have seen significant growth, with more hospitals using VR for psychological therapy and schools employing AR for assisted teaching. These successful cases in specialized fields will, in turn, demonstrate the value of XR technology, laying the foundation for the long-term popularization of devices.

Digital Humans and Virtual Avatars: Technological Upgrades and Commercial Exploration

The field of digital identity and virtual avatars in the metaverse continues to develop in 2025, with multiple companies worldwide offering services for creating and managing virtual personas. Among them, South Korea's NAVER Z's ZEPETO and the European startup Ready Player Me (RPM) are typical representatives.

As of 2025, ZEPETO has surpassed 400 million registered users, with around 20 million monthly active users. Although this scale is not comparable to gaming platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, it is quite significant within the vertical communities of the metaverse. The user base of ZEPETO primarily consists of Generation Z, especially females, who use the platform to create personalized 3D avatars, change into virtual outfits, and socialize and take photos in various in-app scenes.

In 2025, ZEPETO continued to attract a large number of fashion and entertainment brands, including collaborations with luxury brands like GUCCI and Dior to launch limited-edition digital clothing, as well as hosting virtual fan meetings with multiple K-Pop idol groups. These activities have boosted platform engagement, helping ZEPETO stabilize after a wave of user decline post-pandemic. Official data from NAVER Z shows that its overall product line, including ZEPETO and sticker tools, has 49.4 million monthly active users, maintaining a growth trend in 2025.

Ready Player Me (RPM), a cross-platform avatar creation tool, attracted attention when it was acquired by Netflix at the end of 2025. Since its establishment in 2020, RPM has raised approximately $72 million, with investors including a16z. RPM allows users to create 3D avatars that can be used across multiple virtual worlds and has been integrated by numerous games and applications. Before the acquisition, RPM had over 6,500 developers adopting its SDK to support RPM avatars in various products.

After acquiring RPM, Netflix plans to utilize its team and technology for expanding its gaming business, allowing Netflix users to have a unified virtual avatar that can traverse various games. Additionally, RPM announced that it would shut down its independent avatar service for the public in early 2026 to focus on internal integration.

Meanwhile, Snapchat, an old player in the social media field with over 300 million daily active users, is also attempting to further enrich Bitmoji's metaverse features, such as testing generative AI applications on virtual avatars and launching a Bitmoji fashion store. Bitmoji is an application and service that allows users to create cartoon avatars of themselves to use as stickers, and most of Snap's users utilize it to customize their appearances.

Meta is also investing in building its own avatar system: in 2025, Meta introduced more realistic "Codec Avatars" in Quest and social applications, allowing cross-use on Facebook, Instagram, and Quest. It also launched a series of AI virtual avatars endorsed by celebrities to interact with users on Messenger, aiming to create a digital identity system that spans its social and VR platforms.

Industrial Metaverse: Most Realistic, Accelerating Value Realization

Compared to the previously mentioned consumer-oriented products like games and VR glasses, the industrial and enterprise-level metaverse, primarily targeting the B-end, has become the most realistic and growth-potential direction in the metaverse field in 2025. After the initial hype, industries such as manufacturing, engineering construction, and medical training have become early adopters of industrial metaverse technologies. According to market size research reports, the industrial metaverse market is projected to be around $48.2 billion in 2025, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 20.5% from 2025 to 2032, reaching a scale of $600 billion by 2032.

A typical representative in this industry is NVIDIA's Omniverse platform, which is widely used by large enterprises for digital twins and simulations in 2025. Reports indicate that manufacturing giants like Toyota, TSMC, and Foxconn are utilizing Omniverse to build digital twins of factories to optimize production line layouts and AI training. The extensive collaboration within the Omniverse ecosystem also reflects the investment from industrial giants—industrial software companies like Ansys, Siemens, and Cadence are deeply integrated with NVIDIA, streamlining data and visualization standards.

Traditional industrial software vendors like Siemens are also actively promoting the concept of the industrial metaverse in 2025. A joint survey by Siemens and S&P Global found that 81% of global enterprises are using, testing, or planning to implement industrial metaverse solutions. This indicates a high level of importance placed on technologies like digital twins, IoT + AI, and immersive training in the industrial sector.

In specific cases, in 2025, BMW expanded its virtual factory project, using digital twins to simulate the debugging of new model production lines, achieving a 30% reduction in new product launch time. Boeing utilized HoloLens and digital twin technology to design complex aerospace components, claiming to have reduced the design error rate of new models by nearly 40%. In the medical and training fields, VR/AR applications have also matured: several hospitals in the U.S. adopted VR therapies (such as the RelieVRx system) in 2025 to assist patient rehabilitation, with 84% of medical professionals believing that AR/VR will positively impact the industry.

Additionally, multinational energy companies have begun using VR for hazardous condition training, and logistics companies are using AR glasses to assist with warehouse picking, achieving good ROI. For example, a French nuclear power company reported that VR training reduced the accident rate of new employees by over 20%. This year, some government-supported urban digital twin projects have launched, such as Singapore upgrading its national 3D digital model for planning and Saudi Arabia establishing a large-scale metaverse sandbox for the NEOM city, all of which are tangible results in the industrial metaverse.

Therefore, the industrial metaverse has largely moved beyond hype and become a natural extension of digital transformation. However, its development also faces significant obstacles: different vendor solutions are incompatible, and data silos exist, causing some enterprises to adopt a wait-and-see attitude; during the process of connecting production systems and cloud simulations, data security and confidentiality are concerns for enterprises, and addressing these pain points will take time. Thus, despite a high application ratio, many projects remain at the PoC (proof of concept) or small-scale stage, far from widespread adoption across the industry.

Crypto and NFT Metaverse: Heavy Historical Burden, Difficult to Revive

After the bubble burst in 2022-2023, the speculative frenzy around NFT virtual land and blockchain games has subsided. However, the "core players" in this sector have not given up on exploration, and new projects and technologies are attempting to breathe new life into this space. Established decentralized virtual worlds like Decentraland and The Sandbox continue to operate, but user engagement is nowhere near its peak.

According to DappRadar data, in Q3 2025, the total NFT trading volume for all metaverse projects was only about $17 million, with Decentraland's quarterly land trading volume at just $416,000 and a total of 1,113 transactions. Compared to the peak in 2021, where single land sales reached millions of dollars, this has significantly shrunk. In terms of user activity, DappRadar data showed that Decentraland had fewer than 1,000 daily active users as early as 2022, with daily concurrent users ranging from a few hundred to several thousand, only reaching tens of thousands during major events.

This "ghost town" phenomenon also exists in The Sandbox. However, project teams are striving to maintain the community through DAOs and activities: Decentraland established a metaverse content fund in 2025, with the DAO allocating $8.2 million to support events like Art Week and Career Fair, aiming to attract creators and businesses back. The Sandbox has also established cooperative zones with Universal Pictures, launching virtual theme parks based on IPs like "The Walking Dead" to attract new users.

Moreover, the biggest event in the crypto metaverse in 2025 was the launch of Yuga Labs' Otherside. As the company behind BAYC, Yuga's Otherside virtual world, which was in preparation for three years, officially opened for web access in November 2025, not requiring NFTs for entry. On the first day of service, it attracted tens of thousands of players to the new area "Koda Nexus," creating a rare moment of high popularity in the Web3 metaverse. It is reported that Yuga has also integrated AI world generation tools into Otherside, allowing users to create 3D game scenes through dialogue, enhancing UGC richness.

Compared to other metaverse paths, the metaverse ecosystem that integrates cryptocurrencies and NFTs carries a heavier historical burden. During the last peak phase, excessive financialization and speculative narratives dominated product dissemination and user expectations, ultimately leading to significant financial losses for many participants.

As a result, the metaverse ecosystem based on crypto assets and NFTs faces more pronounced trust barriers in public perception. This sector struggles to shake off stereotypes of "asset speculation," "disconnection from real needs," and "poor experiences." Even though some teams are still attempting to return to a focus on content and experience, in the short term, it is nearly impossible to escape the current state of neglect and gain the trust and widespread participation of mainstream user groups.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。