Forget the metaverse, focus on gaming

The fact that only a handful of people turned up to the EU’s gala party for its ‘global gateway’ metaverse launch this week suggests that marketers would do better to address immersive worlds existing in the here and now – and that means gaming, according to Wavemaker’s Growth Trends 2023 report.

Why it matters 

Gaming has been doing “metaverse” things for years. Remember Second Life? That first came out in 2003 and still has a daily active user base larger than many of the metaverse platforms being touted as the next big thing. 

The worlds of music and fashion are already present on gaming platforms which are “carving out an ever-growing sphere of influence in the cultural zeitgeist”. Brands need to be thinking about how they show up in an increasingly diverse gaming ecosystem today, not in an as-yet-unrealised virtual world.

Takeaways

• Marketers need to ditch any preconceptions of gamers, who are both older and less male-skewed than commonly assumed. 
• High-end fashion brands are using gaming platforms to launch new collections and are providing exclusive ranges of character skins for players to buy. 
• Musicians and DJs are playing gigs in virtual gaming spaces, from Fortnite to Minecraft, and attracting huge numbers of viewers.
• Brands such as Nike and Hellman’s have built their own spaces and activations within games like Roblox and Island Crossing. 
• Ad formats within games have significantly higher view times and increase ad recall. 

Sourced from Wavemaker, The Times