How to Create a Metaverse with Corporate Culture

13 min readApr 20, 2023

Lately, with the rise of inquiries and technology, we often hear the buzzword Metaverse. In this article I want to share the story of how we created our own using our foundation, the corporate culture.
DEVAR has been in the augmented reality industry since 2015. First, we created the world’s most successful commercial story using AR in the consumer products industry (AR books). After that, we wondered how to make AR accessible to everyone and released a no code MyWebAR platform for creating augmented reality without programming skills. And made it one of the three most popular webar platforms in the world today.

So what does this have to do with the metaverse, you may ask? And how can it be useful to you?
This article is about the story of inspiration and search, the reflection of ourselves through corporate values.
I don’t encourage everyone to create their own metaverse (although it will definitely come to that within a decade), but I hope that in this story you will see a way of searching that you can apply to your own business as well.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS A DREAM

When we first came up with the DEVAR brand, we were dreaming. Of course, we thought about possibilities, made plans and calculated profits. However, first and foremost, we were dreaming. We dreamed of something more than just technology. Something bigger than just business. We dreamed of freedom.

The freedom to design and create. The freedom to surprise and inspire. The freedom to make the world a better place.

When we first started working with augmented reality, this technology was in its beginning. There were no standards, no examples, no rules. There was nothing at all. We were pioneers. The Columbians of the world of immersive technologies, who ventured into the unknown, full of dangers and new discoveries. And aware that we might well take a wrong turn.

And we did. We have gone back, and we have made intricate zigzags where we now know we could and should have sailed directly.

However, we were driven by a dream and our belief that we were creating something amazing. Something we needed.

We wanted to give every 10 families in 200 countries the chance to touch magic with books and other augmented reality phygital products. And we did it!

Now our augmented reality books and toys are sold in 74 countries of the world and have been translated into 27 languages. The number of sold copies has already exceeded 13 000 000.

Now our dream is that all of our users would not just be able to touch magic, but would be able to create it themselves. They learned how to change the space around them, make things more useful and the world more comfortable. To create a whole new world! And all this with the Helpful Reality by DEVAR.

DEVAR IN THE DETAILS

Many people have probably heard the expression: “The devil is in the details”. This idiom implies that even though something may seem simple and understandable at first glance, the main thing is always hidden in the details. How the details are worked out affects a lot of things. And it can be as much a failure as a victory.

DEVAR has interpreted this idiom in its own way, looking at it from different angles.

We only want to create products that make our world more useful, convenient and amazing. Therefore, we are careful and reverent at all stages of our work, because the world is all about details.

We enjoy coming up with new ideas. However, even more we like to implement them, because the process for the sake of the process is not interesting. We are sure that every beautiful idea needs also beautiful realization, because the world is all about results.

We are looking for new opportunities everywhere. We want each of our steps to lead to improvement. That’s why we strive to be innovators and explorers, because the world is all about innovations.

We believe in ourselves and in each other. We are ready to work together and share all successes and failures. Together we are capable of great things, because the world is all about teams.

We are responsible for the impressions and emotions our users get. His enthusiasm and good mood are our most key values. And that’s why we want to be better for our users right now, because the world is all about users.

ON THE PATH OF RESEARCH

We wished to present the new DEVAR as a stylish and ultra-modern tool for self-expression and creativity, which allows you to change the world and go beyond the boundaries of reality, without leaving reality itself.

To this end, we collected a field of tags, that is, all the associations that could describe the new DEVAR.

After looking at what we had, we realized that many of the tags overlap in meaning. Moreover, all of them can be united by just two key words: “Freedom” and “Future”.

REMEMBER THE FUTURE

“What kind of nonsense is that? — you ask. — How can you remember the future if it hasn’t happened yet! Or has it?”

The fact is, the future isn’t coming. At all. Ever. That’s because it simply doesn’t exist. No matter how hard we try. After all, the very notion of the future is just a hypothetical stretch of time that hasn’t happened yet. It could happen. But it hasn’t happened. And that’s important. Because once it has happened, the amazing fairy-tale future — Bam! — and magically just shrinks down to another present. And that’s the trick.

Philosophers are constantly arguing about how the future is shaped, and what role humans play in this process. Some are convinced that people create their own future, others believe that everything is predetermined in advance. There are even those who believe that people create their own future, but that all their actions and decisions are predetermined. And there are those who believe that the future and the past are cyclical.

Debates go on, theories are born, but there is no consensus. This is because the concept of the future is a constant conflict of predestination and free will. After all, we all want to be free, but our brains desperately need predictions and forecasts.

Why? That’s how our brain works. Because an important part of its development is the development of cognitive abilities. Yes, yes, those very abilities that help a person… predict the future.

FUTURE = IMAGINATION + LOGIC + INDUCTION

Thus, the future exists only in our imagination. And this means that in matters of perception of the future, a person listens to himself first of all.

What does his imagination tell him? What does logic tell him? What images does what he has seen or witnessed around him tell him? What does the experience of previous generations teach him?

In other words, to what extent what he sees corresponds to what he expects to see. That is, in order to imagine the future, we must first remember it.

That is why in our search for images of the future we decided to turn not to abstract concepts, subjective in every particular case, but to concrete common images of the future, popularized in the environment of movies, computer games and literature.

Having analyzed many future scenarios, we have highlighted the aspects that unite them.

Development of AI and Immersive Technology (XR/AR/VR)
Technological singularity (superintelligence)
Bioengineering
Cyborgs
Space Exploration

It is amazing, but these very directions are actively developing right now. It means that we can not only predict the future, but also create it. To change it. Fill it with new ideas, values and meanings. To make it a better version of ourselves, again and again.

We can draw on the experience of previous generations. We can rethink other people’s ideas and recreate them anew. In fact, we can do anything.

This is what the new DEVAR tells the world — about the freedom of creativity and the dream of a future that has already arrived.

Remember the future. Feel the freedom.

AR FOR EVERYONE

Creativity, freedom, transformation.

We are discovering the amazing world of immersive technology, using it to improve ourselves, our products and everything around us. We continue to surprise and inspire, but now we create the tools and opportunities to do the same for everyone who wants to be involved.

The new DEVAR allows you to change the world and transcend its reality without leaving reality itself. Helps to unite people of different status, different professions, different geographies and nationalities.

We give emotions and impressions. And we here are not just the DEVAR team, but a whole community of like-minded and talented people, who do it together with us, using our technology, tools, ideas and expertise.

AR for business, brand and creators. AR for everyone.

TWICE AS FAST

But time is not standing still. The universe is expanding, the world is changing, and DEVAR is changing with it. After all, if you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that, don’t you?

Inspired by the most popular and mesmerizing universes created by mankind, we tried to rethink the style, philosophy and mood of our brand.

We were thinking about freedom and the future. We were looking for a way to turn a bright brand of augmented reality publishing and phygital products into an entire Real World Metaverse, as well as a simple and easy tool to create it.

We’ve been looking for a new DEVAR. And we found it.

DEVAR & METAMODERNISM

Is that strange? Yes. Is it relevant? Absolutely!

We chose the philosophy of metamodernism as one of the ideas for inspiration. Why? Because metamodernism is exactly what is happening to us now. Look around you! Are there limits to your imagination? Are there standards and limits to your perception? Can you love the future and yet be nostalgic for the past?

The answer is simple: you can do EVERYTHING.

But what is this mysterious metamodernism anyway? Is it just a style of art that has replaced the postmodern, or is it something much more? Let’s figure it out together.

At first there was modernism. And not just existed, it was an entire era. Modernist society was moving away from the influence of tradition in favor of rationality. People were becoming more mobile, more flexible, learning to adapt to new conditions. They realized that it was not necessary to live the way their fathers and grandfathers did, because the world was changing, and one must change with it.

Modernism moved people forward, toward development and growth in every sphere of their activity, but it also rigorously denied its predecessors. Modernism was tearing down structures and traditions, seeking new forms and ways of perceiving things.

Not surprisingly, to this rather rigid approach came an equally rigid response — postmodernism. An ironic and informal antithesis of modernism.

Umberto Eco said of postmodernism: “Postmodernism is the answer to modernism: since the past cannot be destroyed, because its destruction leads to dumbness, it must be rethought, ironically, without naivety.

But time passed and the culture continued to change. It was impossible to cling forever to the denial of something, because you cannot build something new on denial. This is how metamodernism was born and continues to develop.

The philosophy of metamodernism replaces the boundaries of the present with the infinity of the future. The boundaries of the familiar are replaced by the infinite.

Metamodernism teaches us consciousness and at the same time complete freedom of choice. We have the right to treat something the way we want and feel right now. And there are no rules about it.

If something existed, it existed. Why destroy or ironize it?

Information noise and new technologies are part and parcel of the new world. It is neither bad nor good. It is simply a fact. Technology will continue to advance even more than it is now. You can use them, fear them, or pretend they don’t exist at all.

Copying is a good thing, of course. But why repeat when you can reinterpret and add to it? Metamodernism is free to borrow, reinterpret, and eclectic.

New technologies, a huge, almost limitless flow of information, reinterpretation, irony, symbiosis of the mass and the elitist, but, at the same time, the ability to see, listen, contemplate, appreciate simple values and love beauty as it is — all this is metamodernism. And all of this is what is happening to us now.

Metamodernism is not just a philosophy or trend in art. It is not a constantly evolving process. It is a condition. Atmosphere. An opportunity.

The destiny of the man of metamodernism is to chase endlessly receding horizons. And in doing so, of course, run at least twice as fast as that, remember?

DEVAR knows how to do it like no one else.

DEVAR METAVERSE

The universe is thought to have begun nearly 13.8 billion years ago. Our universe is originating right now. And like any universe, the DEVAR Universe is also constantly expanding.

So far, we’ve filled it with worlds and populated it with the first characters. But what else will appear in this universe? And who will journey through its mysteries and endless uncharted expanses?

The main key figure for the hero of the DEVAR metaverse is the human being. After all, knowing the world through oneself is the most accurate and understandable.

We decided to divide the rest of the characters into five main groups. Each of these groups is related to such important things for any human being as the opportunity to contemplate and enjoy beauty, the opportunity to explore the world and get help, the opportunity to communicate, and the opportunity to play and have fun (everyone of us needs to please our inner child from time to time, right?).

Avatars are the protagonists and personalisation of the DEVAR Metaverse.

The Beautiful — those who decorate reality, are the embodiment of creativity and creativity, create atmosphere.

The Useful ones are the ones that help you learn and explore reality.

The Friendly — those who brighten up your leisure time can be friends, pets or companions.

The Funny ones are the ones who make you laugh, help you fool around, and do a little mischief.

To explore, create, generate, surprise and inspire. To fill the world with new meanings. Find new ways and solutions for creativity and self-expression. Thinking up unique concepts, developing bold business ideas. Focus on the future, but realize plans now. Run twice as fast. Be free.

All this is possible with Helpful Reality by DEVAR.

And remember that at the heart of every great idea is always a dream. Small or big, childishly naive or maturely ambitious. But it’s still very, very important. This dream is the first tiny brick with which the great journey begins.

We believe that together we are destined to change the world. And who knows, maybe it’s your dream that’s destined to start new, incredible journeys.

WHO WE ARE?

We are tech innovators fusing art and immersive technologies. We create products evoking emotions and experience. We are the ones who made that quiet revolution in industrial design by making AR an integral part of the product and brought its value to millions of users.

Now we have arrived at the stage of passing on all this knowledge to everyone who shares our desire to create and inspire, who lives with it as we do.

We’re about freedom and creativity, self-expression and emotions, art without borders and templates.

We are changing spaces, people and companies with immersive technologies (augmented reality in particular), breakthrough knowledge and achievements in a variety of fields of science, technology and art.

We create opportunities and platforms, tools for everyone who shares our passion to change the world, space, and ourselves.

DEVAR ― Remember the Future.