- AR. Often thought of as an inferior niche of VR, because due to technical challenges, mainly awareness of your environment, it currently is. But once those hurdles are overcome, VR will become an inferior niche of AR. It’s already popular because of games like Pokemon Go, but we are barely scratching the surface of what it will be able to do, and how it will impact our lives. Apart from environment aware applications becoming truly viable, the other challenge is for people to become comfortable wearing the necessary hardware, but there appears to be a solution to that on the horizon: The World's First True Smart Contact Lens
- VR. It’s still a young technology, and the whole vision of the metaverse is hinging on making VR truly ubiquitous, which hasn’t happened yet. Also, when we can switch from VR to AR and back, easily, problems, like, being able to grab my coffee mug while playing a game will no longer get in the way. But right now, it still has teething problems. It’s way more advanced than AR because the technology is simpler, and closer to existing 3D environment’s we’ve been playing with on our PC’s for the last 30 years. VR and AR will grow together until the kinks have been ironed out and they can co-exist easily, and potentiate each other, but until they have the same reach as, say, Facebook, they will both remain experimental, expensive niches. Luckily ( I guess) Facebook, now Meta, are on the case. There are pro’s and cons to this, but I’m looking on the bright side.
- Metaverse. As we know it, It’s not underrated because of the obvious hype.
But it’s underrated because it’s actually been around for as long as 3D has been around. The 1983 BBC Micro game Elite was, technically, metaverse. The first forays into VR tech in the late 80’s and early 90’s were, technically metaverse, as well as the first generation first person shooters, like Doom, Quake and Unreal. But the first truly, interactive, 3D, internet enabled stab at a modern metaverse was Second Life. It was just ahead of its time. It’s really starting to take more shape with recent massively multiplayer, immersive 3D games like Skyrim, Eve Online and Elite Dangerous (that franchise is probably the most metaverse thing there is)
But yes, underrated, because it was there all along, and we just didn’t give it a name.
BBC - Apparently, it's the next big thing. What is the metaverse? - Games for purpose. Gaming is still an entertainment medium, mostly. We haven’t scratched the surface of what gaming can do when it’s actually used for something, though we’ve come a long way with simulations for training purposes, and more recently, using games for various forms of therapy. There’s a lot more to come though. Using the mechanics of enjoyable games for educational purposes still has a very long way to go, but the potential is huge, and yes, very underrated, IMO.
- NFT’s. Forget the hype, because the hype around NFT’s is similar to the hype around the internet circa 1999. This technology is being used for some ridiculous purposes, and the hype is turning it into a gold rush where people don’t know what colour the gold is. I really don’t think we’ve seen the killer app for NFT’s yet. The secure, unique, unforgeable, cheap, decentralised and totally programmable and customisable nature of this tech will find uses we haven’t dreamt of yet, and the known use is a long way from being fully taken advantage of, the verifiable ownership of both real, digital and abstract assets.
The fact that I can sell something, but write into the contract conditions for resale, so I can part with an asset at a very low price, but if one day it changes hands for a huge some of money, I am guaranteed a percentage. That one feature makes this a very exciting technology.
Those are the first five that come to mind.
I’ve also posted this answer here