Tech-savvy nation-states like South Korea, Japan and the United Arab Emirates they are vying to plant their flag in the metaverse, making investments in the technology to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

But how do you measure success in real life, the effectiveness of such a massive investment, in a world that hardly exists yet?

Dubai thinks it has an answer, announcing last week at its “Dubai Metaverse Assembly” that the emirate will now be tracking its “gross metaverse product.”

What, one might ask, will comprise that metric? The details are still fuzzy: One minister only said that Dubai “will be able to generate billions of dollars in returns from Dubai without people being physically in the emirate, but…