Metaverse Memo: Virtual real estate sells for millions, Epic releases 'Party Worlds'
General News
As interest in the metaverse spikes, so have the prices of digital real estate, reaching never-before-seen highs. A plot of land in the popular play-to-earn video game, Axie Infinity, recently sold for $2.3 million. The following week, virtual real estate developer, Republic Realm, said it had purchased a piece of property in The Sandbox for $4.3 million (Fortune 12/3)
Epic Games has announced “Party Worlds,” new spaces coming to Fortnite which are designed to focus on socializing. It will include experiences that are built as places for players to hang out, play fun mini-games and make new friends, and will not be centered on combat. This move directly ties into Epic’s plans to create a metaverse (TheVerge 12/1)
Epic Games has announced its latest acquisition: Harmonix, the studio behind iconic music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Epic’s objective is to bring musical gaming experiences, or “musical journeys,” to the metaverse (The Verge 11/23)
Meta’s (Facebook’s) Reality Labs is rolling out a software update for the Quest and Quest 2, which will enable users to record themselves while inside a game or app. Before this, a user would need special equipment to capture footage from the mixed reality perspective. Now, they can use their phone (requires an iPhone) instead (Engadget 11/30)
Microsoft is making a metaverse play for productivity with the launch of 3D avatars for Teams meetings (accessible via VR headset or a HoloLens). The avatars combine the company’s platform for powering shared experiences in VR & AR, Teams, and its productivity tools (TechCrunch 11/24)
Microsoft has created an Xbox metaverse museum where you can roam around and discover the history of Xbox consoles. It’s designed to celebrate 20 years of Xbox, where users can explore a total of 132 moments in Xbox history throughout the metaverse museum (The Verge 11/23)
Roblox has partnered with the Fashion Awards to create an “immersive red carpet” event, transporting users to a digitally rendered Royal Albert Hall, where they can walk the red carpet, explore nominees’ displays, and try/purchase virtual fashions from designers such as Gucci (Dazed 11/29)
Nike has partnered with Epic Games to introduce the new Air Jordan IX Cool Grey shoe line/other Jordan wearables to Fortnite. An additional Nike promotion within Epic’s gaming, The Jumpman Zone, allows players to hone their trickshots to win Jordan-branded skins (GQ 12/3)
Adidas has teased that it is entering the metaverse, but the company is cryptic about what this will entail. NFTs might play a prominent role, as Adidas appears to be in collaboration with Bored Ape Yacht Club, gmoney NFT, and PUNKS Comic. The company is encouraging users to grab its Confirmed app to "discover more," and is taking email signups as well (Engagdet 12/2)
The NFL has opened a virtual store at Roblox, initially offering official virtual helmets for all 32 teams, with the hope to take advantage of rising consumer demand for digital items that can be used in the metaverse (EconoTimes 11/30)
Playboy CEO Ben Kohn has plans to build a global digital Playboy Mansion in the metaverse where people can drink, socialize and have fun with others from the comfort of their own homes. This will include live performances from major musicians, artists, and playmates. Playboy plans to sell different tiers of membership in this virtual world, and it’s newly acquired property, centerfold.com, will be a prominent part of it (Forbes 11/29)
Balenciaga CEO Cédric Charbit confirmed that it has big plans for the metaverse. It is creating a dedicated business to explore marketing and commerce in the metaverse, with over 100 developers working on the new venture (Highnobiety 12/3)
Match Group outlined its long-term vision for Tinder, expanding to include exclusive, shared and live experiences and a virtual goods-based economy, supported by Tinder’s new in-app currency. It also plans for a dating “metaverse” and for avatar-based virtual experiences (TechCrunch 11/30)
John Terzian and Brian Toll, the duo behind H.wood Group, have teamed up with Alex Shultz (Looks Rare Studio and Sounds Rare Studio) to envision what might be the most exclusive place in the entire metaverse: its first nightclub, Bootsy Bellows. Access to the virtual club will initially be limited to clubgoers who hold H.wood Group NFTs (THR 12/3)
Web3
Several metaverse-related cryptocurrencies are up 37,000% this year. The data was based on the gains of five coins: Axie Infinity, Decentraland, Sandbox, Enjin Coin, and GALA, which rallied 20% over the past seven days alone (Markets Insider 12/3)
The Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF has seen its inflows surge more than six-fold since June 2021, reaching $823M in assets. Consequently, a number of crypto and Web3 ETFs have since debuted this year, with the latest being a new exchange-traded fund from Defiance (called NFTZ) which is investing in companies exposed to NFTs, crypto, and the metaverse (Markets Insider 12/2)
Frosty Floki, one of the most hyped community projects based on NFT gaming, announced a mega metaverse project: virtual reality hardware support and games for the next leg of the project. Project anticipation is due to the fact that the last project from the developers rose by 640x (Yahoo! Finance 12/3)
SolaVerse is a new metaverse built on play-to-earn games, based in outer space, where blockchain, gaming and rewards collide. It will be comprised of 2,000 NFTs (Forbes 12/3)
Together Labs, announced VCORE, an ERC-20 token that rewards active, international players, creators and earners across the metaverse, is set to launch in 2022. VCORE will give its users access to a new type of economy where every player can participate in the future of the metaverse (GlobalNewsWire 12/2)
BlockchainSpace, a metaverse platform building tools that empower play-to-earn gaming communities to increase their performance, access capital, grow their earnings and live up to their full potential, announced a $2.4M strategic funding round (CryptoPotato 12/1)
MetaMundo announced it raised over $2.7M in seed funding to build a marketplace for 3D NFTs (launching in 2022). Animoca Brands, an NFT game firm and investment company in Hong Kong, led the round (Venture Beat 11/30)
Holoride, the Audi-backed startup that’s creating an in-vehicle virtual reality entertainment system designed for passengers, has begun publicly selling its Ride cryptocurrency token (the currency of its in-car metaverse). Vehicle passengers can play VR games using Ride utility tokens to make purchases (TechCrunch 11/30)
Fold, a reward and payments app, partnered with Niantic to create the Fold AR beta app, which overlays Bitcoin prizes over the real world. Using Niantic’s real-world mapping tech and Fold’s feature for earning Bitcoin rewards, Fold calls this a step into the real-world metaverse (Venture Beat 11/23)
Funding News
Niantic, the augmented reality platform that’s developing games like Pokémon GO, raised $300M from Coatue, valuing the company at $9B. The SF-based startup, which initially spun out of Google, will use this money to build what it calls the “real-world metaverse” (TechCrunch 11/22)
SoftBank invests $150M in South Korean metaverse platform Zepeto. Zepeto, a fashion metaverse ecosystem developed by South Korea’s Naver Corp, boasts a strong base of young female users, now putting the platform’s value at north of $1B (TB 11/30)
Play Ventures announced a new $75M fund for blockchain gaming investments: The Play Future Fund. The Fund has made three commitments already, and is focused on the intersection of web3, gaming, and the metaverse (VentureBeat 11/30)
Peer, a metaverse company, is launching out of stealth mode with a vision for bridging the gap between physical and virtual worlds. Since its launch earlier this year, Peer has raised $12M+ to develop hardware and software to help realize its metaverse (DR 12/2)
Three Arrows leads $4.3M round for Solana-based metaverse project, Solice. Solice will bring VR to the mix in a bid to compete with Decentraland and The Sandbox. The project will feature a native currency, as well as game assets backed by NFTs (CoinDesk 12/2)
Off raised $3.5M in seed funding for its social avatar “microverse” platform, Myty. Off seeks to create an open ecosystem for avatar-based “microverses;” the investment will be used to develop the platform, create more NFT avatars, and add more social utilities to avatars (Venture Beat 11/30)
Talewind raised $3.41M to fund its Breezy Bay casual game and partner with Roblox game developers. Talewind is part of the Roblox Accelerator program, and it is on a quest to better the metaverse with games that are fresh, fun, and full of adventure (Venture Beat 12/1)
Transactions for properties in digital realms are jumping. Over the last few months, Tokens.com has acquired 50% of Metaverse Group (one of the world’s first virtual real estate companies) for $1.7M and closed an even larger land deal in Decentraland’s fashion district for ~$2.5M (NYT 11/30)
Thoughts Pieces
How the metaverse could enable the transition to post-pandemic work (Forbes 12/3)
3 ways that businesses can find real customers in virtual worlds (Fortune 12/3)
In the coming ‘metaverse’, there certainly will be legal issues (JDSupra 12/3)
Why Snap’s VP of Partnerships is not keen on the metaverse (TheInformation 12/2)
How the metaverse could change the way people work and live (Quartz 12/3)
Why is fashion so obsessed with the metaverse? (GQ 12/2)
Why we need 'meta jurisdiction' for the metaverse (The Hill 12/2)
The metaverse is coming, and the world is not ready for it (NYT 12/2)
Is Decentraland the next Roblox? (TMF 12/2)
Why the metaverse is more than Mark Zuckerberg’s dream (The Verge 12/2)
Metaverses emerge as a promising yet uncertain new world for investors (WSJ 12/2)
What will art look like in the metaverse? (NYT 12/1)
Why the metaverse is a massive opportunity for crypto (BusinessInsider 11/30)
Why you should care about Facebook’s big push into the metaverse (Re/Code 11/24)
Editor’s Notes
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