Metaverse are here and they are not as new as many people tend to think. Many companies are still developing their metaverse, constantly dropping breadcrumps of information to keep their customers hooked. Metaverse Marketing is a topic of its own though, as many huge tech companies like “Meta” seem to have trouble with it.
Meta and Metaverse Marketing
Ever since Facebook rebranded their whole company, in order to create and maintain a metaverse, the new concept became widely known. While people were excited at first, many of the previews Meta released over time became the targets of jokes. The metaverse capabilities that the company has developed up to now are obviously not focused on its graphics. While videogame studios have been working hard on improving their products over the years, metaverses can’t hold up and in Meta’s case even resemble the Wii, which released in 2006.
Metaverse and Videogames
The biggest challenge metaverse face, is to keep up with the graphic quality that videogames have reached and users are accustomed to. The main difference, that people focus on, is that metaverses tend to go for a VR-Experience. Virtual Reality games usually have much less evolved graphics and focus on interactive experiences close to the player. It comes as no surprise, that a multitude of game companies are trying to enter the metaverse space, since they have always been ahead of social media platforms. While they do have to develop the social aspects, their worlds have already been built or at least give them a footing.
Fortnite
The game by Epic Games, the developers of Unreal Engine, is their flagship since its release. After its release it quickly became very popular and had a huge playerbase. While the game itself has lost players since years and is not nearly as successful as it used to be, Epic Games plans are intense. They use their platform to not only host a game, but online concerts, events and even gave players the chance to watch episodes of some shows.
While to most users, the events and cosmetics that Fortnite released, seemed like ways for users to spend their V-Bucks (the currency players have to buy with money), Epic Games explains it as a way to create an extensive media experience.
Our approach since the start, or our goal, has been how do we create truly mass-scale, broad-based entertainment. And I always think that the way to do that is through narrative conceit. “
Epic CCO Donal Mustard
VR-Chat
The platform is one of the first successful metaverse out there. It uses VR as its name already suggests and basically is a chatroom. Through the use of avatars, users can walk around, communicate and play mini games or watch movies with their friends. While VR-Chat has been around for a long time, they have barely done any marketing for their game. They used the platform Steam, which hosts games, to make their game available for free. They did release a VR-Chat Plus feature recently, which gives users the opportunity to support the game.
Their Metaverse Marketing campaign consists of building a playerbase first and then asking for their support to further develop the free social platform. Many of the games they offer are created by users as well and are of various graphical quality. VR-Chat’s big advantage in the metaverse game is, that their users are already accustomed to the graphics they use.
Roblox
As a game, Roblox was first released as a learning while playing experience for children, but quickly evolved into one of the biggest gaming platform for children. The developers of the game are evolving their platform to be a mix between online game and metaverse though. Cooperation with companies like Gucci broaden their offer range and appeal to an older age group.
As for marketing solutions, Roblox uses a mix of their platform with children and user created assets. The game allows users to create levels and subgames, that they can advertise as much as they please. Creators can even buy supported ads directly from their website, not only giving Roblox reach but also funds.
Lego
The danish company not only created one of the most famous toys in the world, they already released a multitude of videogames, movies and amusement parks. With the growing popularity of metaverse, LEGO does not hesitate to partake in the creation of a metaverse, expanding their entertainment offer. Epic Games and LEGO already announced a possible partnership, once more emphasizing the impact metaverse will have in the future.
Why do metaverse need better marketing
With the creation of the term “Metaverse” it was heavily implied, that these metaverse will exist in a virtual reality. The idea of a metaverse is, to create a world, in which users can walk around and interact with people and objects as if they were there in real. Over time the idea of a digital world developed as did the interface that connects its users to it. Metaverse Marketing needs to adapt to the needs of its potential users if they want to give them a sense of reality. One idea of metaverse is, to offer digital products, which are connected to an existing counterpart. Users can try them on and use them on their avatars. This is why they need to be of a quality that users can build a connection to their items.
Are metaverse the future?
Metaverse are an evolution of social media and as that they will exists in the future without a doubt. It is curious to see how the lines between game and metaverse slowly start to shift. As of now many games might be more successful with creating metaverse, as they already have worlds to build up on. It proves to be easier to create a social media platform, than to actually build a high end digital world.
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