As companies across the video game and tech industries begin building the metaverse, an expansive online social space where virtual worlds cross paths with the physical world, questions are emerging about how to build a metaverse that resonates with a diverse global audience. On Wednesday, January 26, 2022, ESA Foundation Executive Director Anastasia Staten led “Video Games and the Metaverse: How We Will Build it Together,” a GamesBeat Summit panel with leading industry members on “building this new reality to reflect our aspirations and diversity.”

Staten was joined in the discussion by Raffaella Camera, Head of Brands and Advertisers Solutions at Epic Games, Clorama Dorvilias, Product Manager at Meta/Oculus VR, Joanna Popper, Global Head of XR at HP and Jasmine Roberts, Software Engineer at Google.

“Realistically speaking, if the metaverse does parallel the real world, it needs to have the same demographics and same demographic considerations,” said Roberts.

“With the pandemic, we were accelerated into that futuristic world,” said Dorvilias on how the seeds of the metaverse have already been planted. “Over the last 20 years of the internet, we’ve become a global economy because these physical barriers have been reduced or broken down. We’re now interacting with people around the world in ways we wouldn’t have been able to, with so much more ease and access.”

GamesBeat has a full report on the panel conversation here.