Why Metaverse Property is such a Big Deal to Companies
Metaverse property is basically an NFT. We cover what NFTs are in greater detail here, but essentially, they are unique, blockchain verified lines of code that represent a person’s ownership of something in a given blockchain. Most commonly, the Ethereum blockchain.
Behind the inflammatory headlines, exclamation marks, and the open mouth face clutching YouTube thumbnails, what is the deal with Metaverse property and virtual real-estate? In Layman’s terms, the Metaverse is a collection of different 3D worlds with limited quantities of plots and different functionalities.
Currently, there is no solid method of appraising the value of virtual land in any of the metaverse platforms. However, the rules of real-world real estate still apply, in addition to virtual and digital traffic best practices that influence the value of a piece of virtual land or website.
As in the physical world, location and scarcity are two very essential factors for land value. Couple that with the number one most valuable thing in the virtual sphere, human attention and time spent, and you can understand why virtual real-estate is top among meta trends.
It is always the platform owners that take in the real cash. Freelance and e-commerce platforms take fees from their users’ dealing, websites and social media platforms seek to keep their users as engaged as possible in order to sell advertising space. Take those principles and apply them to the metaverse property.
The reason one might want to buy virtual land in the metaverse depends on your future plans and investment style. Companies or particularly wealthy individuals might spend more money developing the land, incorporating 3D environments and structures, as well as game mechanics or other utilities to make the property more valuable, appealing, grabbing attention, and monetizing it.
Meta investors will either seek to maintain a brand presence or entertain players for as long as possible to show them ads for real work or digital products for which they will gladly pull out their crypto wallets.
Other investors might buy land only to lease it out to those who want to make something fun out of it, like a casino, arcade, paintball fields, galleries, and more. Anything that people can actually enjoy and spend time doing is then monetizable.
Many modern brands view the purchase of visual land are placing their flag in the new world, where the next generation of consumers will be spending their time, money, and attention. And gamers tend to spend a lot on virtual goods. Just look at Roblox’s “skin” sales. Players spend their spare funds dressing their characters in different apparel to show off to the friends they meet within the virtual space itself.
People seem to care what they look like virtually almost as much as they do in the real world, and so companies can not only sell virtual goods but advertise real ones as more and more people willingly spend their time online. No different from what we see today on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, except the Metaverse promises a much greater level of interactivity.
There is a caveat to all this, of course. If and only if that metaverse world in question grows in popularity, whether it be Roblox, Decentraland, Sandbox, will investors benefit. If the platform loses, so do all its inhabitants. That is why investors are trying to gather a healthily diversified portfolio, trying to keep one foot in every train, so to speak.
Artists, programmers, and people from all sorts of backgrounds will undoubtedly attempt to build their livelihoods along the river of attention just as agricultural societies of old made their farms along rivers and next to natural resources.
The virtual age is only doubling down on itself, and seeing the unprecedented success of the gaming industry, seek to merge both the real work and the virtual for an even deeper, more robust meta-experience. Welcome to the modern world, Player 1.