The Past, Present and Future of the Metaverse Research: A Bibliometric Review

Abstract

Since the word “Metaverse” was first coined by the novelist Neal Stephenson in 1992, it has immediately shown endless charm and attracted many scientists, engineers, and geeks from all over the world to become its “vassals”. In recent years, with the development of virtual reality, blockchain and smart wearable devices, the idea of Metaverse seemed to be touchable and became a popular topic in academic literature. This study aims to highlight the influential authors, sources, institutions, and countries in the research of Metaverse through bibliometric analysis. 665 related documents from 1995 to 2023 January were collected and analyzed from the Web of Science Core Collection database. The R-tool Bibliometrix 4.0.0, and the software VOSviewer 1.6.19 were used to analyzed research trends. The results showed that almost 80% of the relevant documents was published in the past year. Wang Feiyue is the most relevant author with 17 articles. Sustainability, IEEE Access, and Applied Sciences Basel are influential journals in this field. Chinese Academy of Sciences is the most productive institution, and China is as well as the most productive country, while the United Kingdom is the most cited country. Furthermore, our study identified five research streams, which not only summarized current academic activities, but also provided potential directions for the future study.