Back in 1991, Apple President Michael Spindler was asked which computer company Apple feared most in the coming decade. He answered, “Nintendo.”

You can argue that there are other companies he should have worried about that decade, but there’s no doubt that Nintendo — a powerhouse in the video game space — has repeatedly earned its reputation not just as an innovator, but as a company that deeply understands what consumers want.

One example of this from the past decade was Nintendo’s acclaimed 2015 title Super Mario Maker. The game creation tool gave players the chance many had dreamed of for years: to create, play, and then share side-scrolling platform game levels in the styles of various games in the Super Mario Bros. franchise. Unsurprisingly, it proved immensely popular with fans.

The reason Super Mario Maker worked so well is because it allowed players the opportunity to create — but in a fashion already dictated by Nintendo. They couldn’t create any game they wanted; they could specifically create Mario games, complete with the gameplay mechanics Nintendo has honed over a number of years.

There’s a lesson to be learned from Super Mario Maker when it comes to the Metaverse.

To make Metaverse experiences interesting and compelling to mass users, it’s critical that creators define what spaces are intended to offer. The notion of sandbox worlds that let people do whatever they want without limitation can be baffling: too ill-defined, too random, too open. That may sound counterintuitive in many ways, but most users want a use case to be defined for them and, when they create, want to create according to set rules.

One of the parts of Super Mario Maker that works so well is that, within just a few minutes, players have a finished level they can share with friends and family. Creation platforms within the Metaverse need to be the same. Metaverse platforms need a “hook” that will convince people that they are worth exploring, and then worth sticking around in.

In Andrew Chen’s book The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects, the venture capitalist author talks about the challenge of building something out of nothing — or, rather, of creating technologies that will garner the kind of critical mass that will make them self-sustaining. That’s not easy to do. A social network none of your friends use isn’t likely to be interesting to you. Nor is an online auction website that doesn’t have anyone selling anything you’re interested in. And, in the world of the Metaverse, failing to offer an experience that people will understand and be able to get something out of quickly is doomed to fail — at least for the overwhelming majority of people.

That’s why the Nintendo model works. And why, rather than imagining that every example of the Metaverse in action should be all things to all people, entrepreneurs shouldn’t be afraid of specific use-cases.