Why aren’t we building parks in the metaverse?
Nathan Williams · Leisure Studies · 2025
The metaverse offers many opportunities for leisure scholars and practitioners to engage with leisure users in research and facilitated experiences. Previous scholarship has examined metaverse platforms and communities in virtual tourism, sport, events and commercially available recreation, but scholars and practitioners are missing opportunities for more action-oriented work in this new space. Instead of solely observing the developments of virtual recreation driven by technology companies, leisure scholars need to be actively contributing to metaverse leisure development (rather than waiting for these possibilities to emerge). Similar to the creation of public parks as a respite from the societal ills of urbanisation and industrialisation in the late 19th century, leisure practitioners and scholars have opportunities to identify and create beneficial and inclusive leisure opportunities within metaverse platforms. Some examples of these opportunities include creation of virtual public recreation spaces in metaverse platforms; using digital twins to better teach recreation facilities management; and increasing cross-cultural education through virtual project-based learning.