28 October 2021 marked the day that renown social media platform, Facebook,
rebranded into what is now known as Meta. Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerburg
announced that the company would be shifting its attention to the metaverse, going
beyond its ambition of social media to create a virtual world.
Ever since then, many companies have pivoted to begin development into the
metaverse. In December, Adidas Originals led the charge in a collaboration with Bored
Ape Yacht Club, Gmoney and Punks Comics. The non-fungible token (NFT) collection
also gave selected users who were a part of Adidas Confirmed, the sportswear giant’s
app for attaining exclusive drops, a proof of attendance protocol (POAP) status badge.
Only 8,000 of these badges were issued which identified users that would eventually
become eligible for early access in the platform’s upcoming NFT drops. Adidas has also
bought plots of virtual land on the popular Ethereum based NFT gaming platform, The
Sandbox.
Following this hype, it was revealed on CNBC that Walmart had taken up an interest in
the metaverse with plans to create its own cryptocurrency and collection of NFTs.
Walmart had filed several new trademarks that indicated its interest in making and
selling virtual goods.
One other company that had taken the spotlight was Microsoft and the news of its
acquisition of Activision Blizzard. On the 18 th of January, Microsoft announced that it
would be acquiring Activision Blizzard for a total of $68.7 billion. The acquisition
includes iconic franchises such as “Warcraft”, “Diablo” and “Call of Duty”. Satya Nadella,
chairman and CEO of Microsoft said “gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category
in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of
metaverse platforms.” With the purchase of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft also hopes to
expand their Game Pass to include more titles and to attract more gamers to their
subscription model. The Game Pass has been a successful hit during the Covid
pandemic as more people shift to a work from home stance and are willing to pay more
for games.
To round things up for the month of January, Nike announced its partnership with online
platform Roblox. What is Roblox? Roblox is a platform where users can go to create
and play custom games made by members of its community. It encourages its users to
get creative and share their creations with other members to enjoy as creators can
monetize their creations through the website’s program known as the Developer
Exchange. Nikeland was created as a result of the partnership and with it came many
exciting developments for fans of Nike and Roblox. The virtual world of Nikeland
includes Nike buildings, sporting arenas and fields for users to create their custom
games all while players adorn their favorite Nike apparel that can be purchased in the
online platform’s store. Gamers will also be able to power up their online play by using
devices that have accelerometers to translate movements in the real world into that of
the virtual world.
