In the 1935 science fiction novel Pygmalion glasses by Stanley Weinbaum, main character Dan Burke dons a pair of magical glasses and enters a virtual world where he interacts with other virtual characters and can taste, touch and smell what they do.

Fast-forward almost seven decades, the virtual world now has a name, in the 1992 novel snow crash by best-selling science fiction author Neal Stephenson. The main character, Hiro Protagonist, moves between Los Angeles and a place called the “metaverse”.“ to collect information about a dangerous drug.

While both Weinbaum and Stephenson were futurists describing virtual reality technology to come, the 21st century has yet to live up to expectations about what a virtual world or metaverse could be. Both…