The future of digital space: Gaming, virtual reality, and metaversal thinking

Abstract

The accelerated post-Covid expansion of online worlds presents an unprecedented move of people into real-time interactive digital spaces. What does this change mean for the future of geography as a discipline? At this critical juncture, there is potential to rethink the position of the digital in geographical thought and praxis – to move beyond apparently common-sense categorizations of real and virtual, representation and reality. This commentary considers the implications of the contemporary push toward ‘metaversal’ thinking for geographical theory as well as the significance of virtual world-making for geographical theorizations of digital space and place. I suggest that key thinkers on space and media geographies must be re-evaluated and applied to this new wave of digital development. What is the significance of recent debates around emerging spaces like the metaverse, augmented reality, and virtual reality, understood not as happenings with distinct real and virtual counterparts, but as geographical – spatial – phenomena?