The Effects of Metaverse Features on Antitrust Analysis of Market Power

Document Type : Scientific research

Authors

Seyed Mohammad Hadi Ghabooli Dorafshan ¹

Mostafa Bakhtiarvand ²

¹ Associate Professor, Department of Islamic Jurisprudence and Principles of Islamic Law, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

² Associate Professor, Department of Private Law and Intellectual Property Law, University of Qom, Qom, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/economlaw.2024.88296.1373

Abstract

Metaverse is a new market where digital platforms operate. In order to flourish, this market needs competition between existing platforms and the provision of conditions for the entry of new competitors. In the Metaverse market, it is probable that undertakings abuse their dominant economic position. Verification of this unilateral behavior, which is an example of anti-competitive practices, requires examining the market power of the platforms. The results of this article, written in a descriptive-analytical way, with the aim of investigating how the characteristics of Metaverse affect market power, show that the characteristics of Metaverse, as a digital market, influence market power in a way that makes it different from the market power in the traditional business environment and should be taken into consideration in the antitrust analysis of the behavior of the companies in the Metaverse. The characteristics affecting the market power in the Metaverse include network effects, being based on data, economies of scale, the market being two or multi-sided and the existence of digital ecosystems. These features give the dominant undertakings such market power that they can monopolize the market and prevent the entry of new competitors.

Keywords

Metaverse market

Market power

Network effects

Digital platforms

Digital ecosystems

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©2024 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

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