Up until two years ago, more than half of Roblox\u2019s users were under the age of 13. Even as the online gaming platform has seen gains in the older teen and YA segment, it\u2019s still reaching an awful lot of children. Roblox had some 45 million daily active users in 2021\u2014so if you\u2019re not looking at Roblox, you don\u2019t really know what more than 20 million kids worldwide are doing with a decent chunk of their time.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver 50 percent of U.S. 9- to 12-year-olds play on Roblox at least weekly, and they\u2019re spending their money there right now,\u201d says David Kleeman, senior VP of global trends at research and strategy consultancy and digital studio Dubit.<\/p>\n
And if you want to get a sense of how the metaverse is developing, Roblox is your best starting point. \u201cYou can play any or all of the games on the platform with just one download,\u201d Kleeman says. \u201cYou can attend special events. We\u2019re producing concerts in the metaverse. It\u2019s a place to hang out with friends. You can customize gear, your avatar, do a lot of self-expression and earn and spend in-game currency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kleeman calls the popular platform an \u201cemerging metaverse\u201d because, as he notes, \u201cThere is as yet no real metaverse. There are little pieces of it. You may have heard the expression that the future is here; it\u2019s just not equally distributed. Well, the metaverse is here, but it\u2019s in pieces, and we need to put it together. The great thing about that is that we can envision the metaverse that we want, not just take one handed by the big companies or anyone like that. We can [create] a metaverse that is great for kids, building on the brand equity that we as tele\u00advision executives have built over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
ALWAYS ON<\/strong> For Mattel, exploring ways to engage with kids on Web3 platforms via NFTs and metaverse experiences was a logical extension of its business. \u201cThe metaverse is yet another avenue in which our customers can experience our iconic IP,\u201d says Mike DeLaet, the global head of digital gaming at the toy giant. \u201cAs with other platforms, we strive to create best-in-class, interactive entertainment experiences that will delight our fans. The metaverse opens up a significant domain for brands like ours, which have built-in communities with passionate fan bases.\u201d<\/p>\n FAN-DOM<\/strong> For IP owners, it\u2019s a balancing act. \u201cI think people are still trying to figure out how to tell stories in the metaverse because so much interactivity happens,\u201d according to Anne Loi, executive VP for M&A and chief commercial officer at WildBrain.<\/p>\n Given its treasure trove of beloved IP, WildBrain has done several deals in this space, including bringing Tele<\/em>tubbies<\/em> into the metaverses of the online Habbo<\/em> and Hotel Hideaway<\/em> games and rolling out the Bake with Strawberry Shortcake<\/em> Roblox game, coinciding with the relaunch of the Strawberry Shortcake brand.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that different from back when we were making mobile games or online web games,\u201d Loi says. \u201cThere\u2019s always that challenge of, when you hand control over to the player, how do you create the world where they can tell the story their own way? A lot of our content development people tend to look at that as one form of telling, not the only form of telling stories.\u201d<\/p>\n FULL IMMERSION<\/strong> DeLaet at Mattel says that the focus is always on creating \u201can amazing experience for fans\u201d via metaverse platforms. \u201cStaying true to our brands is critical for us, and we maintain strict processes to ensure that the quality bar is met with everything we do,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe perform extensive research on what our consumers want and how we can extend our mission in this area, which is to create innovative products and experiences that inspire and entertain through play.\u201d<\/p>\n The immersive experiences being developed on Roblox \u201clend themselves well to our IP,\u201d DeLaet adds.<\/p>\n Of course, being found on Roblox isn\u2019t easy, given the sheer volume of games and experiences for users to access. \u201cDiscoverability will be an issue,\u201d WildBrain\u2019s Loi says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very democratized platform. If your game is not good, people just simply won\u2019t come. You don\u2019t need anybody else to tell you that you have to do better. We love that, but it\u2019s challenging as a company wanting to take risks on these things. Six to eight months ago, our thinking was that an individual stand-alone game is the way to do it. Now we\u2019ve evolved. If you are looking for your brand itself to get noticed, we see a lot of success with in-game collaboration with another very well-known game. We will create experiences as part of that bigger game, but that\u2019s very brand specific. We\u2019re doing testing with kids who have played it\u2014before and after. Do they have a higher awareness level of that brand? Our thinking has shifted back and forth on where you actually want to create a stand-alone experience. There has to be some pretty special reason to do that. [You can] collaborate with where the big eyeballs already are and try to take advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n While established IP is already resonating on metaverse platforms, those with brand-new ideas can\u2019t afford to ignore this space either, Kleeman notes. \u201cAs a television company, you need to be thinking about how kids are going to discover you: through a game or the TV? And this is a generation that considers authenticity and connection with their favorite brands to be really important. They need to sense that you\u2019re listening to them. And an immersive space in the metaverse is a really good way to have that two-way exchange with your fans.\u201d<\/p>\n Zarka notes that NFTs and other metaverse opportunities can be used as a source of funding for new content. \u201cWe can build brand experiences by creating communities.\u201d<\/p>\n IP owners with limited budgets should not despair about the level of investment required, Kleeman notes. \u201cYou don\u2019t need to build a really big, deep, always-on, long-term game to be present in the metaverse. We\u2019re doing a lot of short-term activations. Or you can integrate with an existing game.\u201d<\/p>\n And thinking about the metaverse can begin at any time in an IP\u2019s lifecycle, Kleeman states. \u201cIf you are in the creative development phase, you can create playable concept testing that\u2019s going to be much less expensive than producing a pilot. You can watch how your fans play with your characters, play with your settings, what they like, what they don\u2019t like, and use that in your development. We had an experience with a brand-new television IP where we launched a very small Roblox experience\u2014you could live in the setting of the program\u2014and spent about \u00a31,000 to promote it. We got tens of thousands of views in the first weekend at an acquisition cost of about $0.04 per user. Now compare that to the App Store, where it\u2019s multiple dollars per user. Some fans made videos because no one had seen this IP before. Free promotion via the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n INTANGIBLE APPEAL<\/strong> \u201cThe thing about the metaverse is, if you don\u2019t find what you want, create it,\u201d Kleeman says. \u201cToday\u2019s young people are creators on these platforms. There are millions and millions of Roblox games, and substantially, they are made by the users themselves. And with the metaverse, because it\u2019s not here yet, we hope to create it from the start as a safe, engaging, fun place for kids where they can do what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Heralded as the next great trend to watch in the intersection of technology and content, the metaverse is presenting a wave of storytelling, marketing and revenue opportunities for creators and IP owners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":24839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,21],"tags":[2314,878,6527,6528,271,7471,1763,1156],"class_list":["post-24838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-features","category-top-stories","tag-anne-loi","tag-bruno-zarka","tag-david-kleeman","tag-dubit","tag-mattel","tag-mike-delaet","tag-toonz-media-group","tag-wildbrain","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nAt its most basic definition, the metaverse describes \u201cimmersive, virtual, global, always-on spaces,\u201d Kleeman explains. \u201cThe real idea is that it lowers frustration barriers to people doing the things they want to do. You can be a gamer\u2014you can play a game or make a game. You can tell stories. You can be part of somebody else\u2019s stories. You can learn. You can teach. We mostly find people are using it right now for socializing, communicating, gameplay, and they\u2019re becoming creators. Shopping is emerging in it. It\u2019s more about brand awareness and affinity than about actual shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIt is all about the fans, Kleeman says, or as he describes it, \u201cfanatomy,\u201d a strategy that might require IP owners to be a little less controlling over how their brand appears in the metaverse. \u201cYou serve up your IP the way you want it to be, and fans come back to you and say, Yeah, but wouldn\u2019t it be cool if? If you respond to that, even if you don\u2019t do what they suggest, if you just show that you\u2019re listening, you deepen that fan\u2019s experience, and you make them want to go and share it with their friends, and you make them think, This is a place for me because they listen to me. Fanatomy, in the case of the metaverse, is going to mean letting go of your brand a little bit. It\u2019s the hardest thing for IP owners to do, but we\u2019re seeing some compelling reasons for doing it. Young people chase their favorite brands across all the platforms that they use. If they love something, they will pursue it in toys, products, clothes and games, on television, or wherever they can find it. And they now expect it to be multiplatform. They want to be creators. They want to share their way of thinking about their favorite content, and they deeply want that authenticity\u2014that idea that a brand is speaking to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nToonz Media Group set up an NFT design lab last year as part of its efforts to position itself as a leader in this space. \u201cBe it the immersive storytelling experience providing deeper engagement for the viewers or gamification to ensure increased engagement time, adoption of the metaverse fits with our larger strategy to provide quality content to kids and families,\u201d says Bruno Zarka, president of distribution and the feature films division at Toonz.<\/p>\n
\nRoblox and other gaming communities are presenting the greatest opportunities for content owners, but several companies are also playing in the NFT space. \u201cNFTs with utility factor into all types of gaming experiences,\u201d DeLaet says. \u201cThe metaverse is no different in that sense. Players want true ownership of their digital assets. We think about this space in the long term, determined to shape the future of play by continuously stretching and scaling our brands to find the bridges between traditional toys and what\u2019s next: Web3 (NFTs), the metaverse, traditional gaming and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n