A metaverse is a collective virtual shared space, a virtual world altered, created and accessed by users typically using the Internet. It is usually a three-dimensional environment in which users have the ability to deploy and interact with useful or fun content, communicate with other users and participate in shared activities. The term was coined by science fiction writer Neil Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash, first published in 1992. It has been widely adopted in the gaming community to describe a virtual world, such as in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). It is also used to describe the collective social space of the Internet, such as digital forums, virtual reality (VR) systems, interactive spaces and other online communities.