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What are meta universes? What brands are in the meta-universe? How to invest in the meta-universe? In a new report, Newzoo has presented 10 major trends that are shaping the meta-universe, blockchain games and the NFT space.
1. Big Tech and brand Involvement
The time spent by users in virtual worlds is increasing, which is attracting the attention of brands. As a result, consumer-oriented companies are forced to develop a strategy in metaverse to remain accessible to customers.
There is no single «right» approach to the metaverse. This vision ranges from IP activation in virtual worlds and NFT acquisition to outright mergers and acquisitions.
2. Roblox: A peek into the future of virtual worlds
Games are moving toward a layered experience that includes browsing, the game itself, and socializing. Roblox has gained popularity among gamers and attracted players, brands, and developers to the ecosystem. By analyzing the success, you can learn lessons and better understand the direction in which virtual worlds of the future will evolve.
3. Music, entertainment & metaverse
Restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic forced artists to look for alternative sources of income. Therefore, last year saw high-profile music events in the virtual worlds of Fortnite and Roblox, which managed to attract millions of users and fans of the artists.
Music NFTs are an alternative source of income for artists. Most artists depend on record companies and streaming platforms, and NFT allows them to sell singles, EPs, or albums to their most loyal fans.
4. Fashion
Spending time in virtual worlds is increasing, opening the way for both traditional and digital brands in the fashion industry. The idea is to have game skins for the virtual character and promote a direct access business model to change the avatar. This also has implications for the future of e-commerce.
As the shift to digital accelerates, consumers will shop in immersive online environments that provide photorealistic images of physical clothing, again increasing incentives to invest in digital environments for fashion brands.
5. Play-to-Earn and Blockchain Gaming
The blockchain game market is overflowing with products with unsophisticated gameplay and a lack of robust economics. This is natural since it takes time to develop complex processes. Perhaps blockchain games will challenge traditional AAA games in terms of technical complexity and player base size in the future.
6. P2E guilds and the future of work
Play-to-earn has grown dramatically in popularity over the past year. P2E guilds are organizations associated with acquiring stakes in select games with blockchain in the form of crypto-tokens. The assets are then lent to other gamers who want to play but don’t allow themselves to because of the high entry threshold.
The future of the virtual realm goes beyond games. Artificial worlds and digital avatar technology are getting better every day, so in the future, there will be jobs in the metaverse that will support our alternative digital lives.
7. The Rush for Digital Real Estate
During the past 12 months, Samsung, Adidas, and Gucci have all purchased land as NFTs. Buying digital real estate is a bet on virtual worlds and a surefire way to assure customers that companies will be there if it becomes a widespread phenomenon.
8. NFT Collections
2021 was the year of the NFT. Users were buying collections because of increased social status and perceived financial prospects. Despite the current market pullback, NFTs will be the only elements of digital identity in metaverses.
9. The Transition from NFT Collections to Global IP
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is an NFT collection of 10,000 cartoon monkeys. Since its launch, it has generated interest from celebrities and dignitaries, becoming the first NFT brand to penetrate mainstream culture through music, events, partnerships, and a network of individuals. This has prompted other NFT projects to expand into transmedia IPs that span more than one area.
10. Crypto and merging
The most popular NFT collections are built on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum 2.0 includes a move to a consensus mechanism with a shared metric and will mitigate current problems and limits in the future.
Merging is a hot topic regarding the future of metaverse and blockchain games. This applies to games and the crypto-ecosystem. The Polkadot or Cosmos projects create a decentralized network based on separate chains of interacting blocks. With the merger of the two companies, the brands’ assets may no longer be limited to the most popular virtual worlds and games. Owners of intellectual property will cooperate with those who offer a favourable price.
You can download the whole report by the link below
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