Metaverse, which means a virtual world, is becoming an online playground for Generation Z (a generation born after 1997). The virtual world craze, which started as a playground for Generation Z, has formed a virtual world community, and new metaverse symbols such as virtual collection cards and virtual earth appear in a row.
The representative playground is’ZEPETO’, an AR-based 3D avatar app developed by Naver’s subsidiary Naver Jet. In the aftermath of the Corona 19 pandemic, ZEPETO is aiming at the metaverse market as the importance of a virtual space that can communicate anywhere in the world without having to meet in person is growing. Since its launch in 2018, the number of Gepetto subscribers as of February this year has exceeded 200 million. In particular, by region, 90% of all users of the Zepeto service are overseas users, and by age group, 80% of all users are in their teens.
When ZEPETO was first released in 2018, it was a doll play level where avatars were created and dressed. Afterwards, it was upgraded in 2019 and turned into a social media personality. In the upgraded version, it attracted user participation by making friends with avatars, taking photos, and making videos and sharing them. Moreover, ZEPETO is characterized by being able to create an avatar that resembles himself using Naver’s AR technology, and supports over 1000 facial expressions. It was made so that avatars can express the emotions they really feel in abundance, and aimed at the desire of teenagers to freely reveal themselves.
After that, ZEPETO began to introduce various services available in real life directly into the virtual space. It allows users to take photos with the star or visit the star’s room in the ZEPETO virtual world, ZEPETO WORLD. ZEPETO also built a 3D map of the’Ice Cream’ music video stage when Black Pink released their new song’Ice Cream’ in September last year, so that characters can visit and take certification shots. More than 46 million users went to the virtual fan signing event held by Black Pink at ZEPETO.
In addition, ZEPETO is also used as a place for global fashion brands to introduce fashion items that utilize their intellectual property rights (IP). The partnership with luxury brand Gucci is representative. The virtual collection that Gucci first unveiled has exceeded 3 million views. An official from ZEPETO said, “At ZEPETO, various IPs have been used to collaborate, and collaboration with Gucci is expected to continue. “The issues have increased, such as the use of space by companies for marketing and the creation of space for public relations by public institutions.” Excluding ZEPETO, a representative metaverse example is’Party Royal’, a 3D social space of’Fortnite’ developed and serviced by US game company Epic Games. Party Royal is not a space where users play games. It is a space where you can enjoy concerts and movies with other users with avatars.
Epic Games held concerts with famous rappers such as Travis Scott and DJ Marshmallow in this space in 2020. 12.3 million people were simultaneously connected to the Travis Scott performance. The sales of virtual performances alone reached $20 million (about 22.6 billion won), and the virtual performances have since led to sales in the offline world. The use of music sources in the real world has also increased by 25%. The choreography of BTS’ new song’Dynamite’ was also released for the first time in the world at Party Royal.
The US game platform’Roblox’, which was recently listed on the New York Stock Exchange and succeeded in box office success, is also creating a strong presence in the metaverse industry. Immediately after listing on the New York Stock Exchange on the 16th, a 54% increase from the standard price confirmed the public’s interest in the metaverse market.
Karina, a member of SM’s new idol group Espa, and Aikarina, her avatar.Roblox, founded in 2014, is a game platform where users become avatars directly like Gepetto and are active in the virtual world. It has begun to become popular among elementary school students in the United States who were unable to attend school due to Corona 19. Played by 150 million people around the world, the game is used by one-third of the youth under the age of 16 in the United States. According to data from app analytics company Sensor Tower, in 2020, US teens connected to Roblox every day at 156 minutes. It is a level that greatly pushes YouTube for 54 minutes and Instagram for 35 minutes.
Roblox is called a kind of’Youtube in the game world’, and people who connect to Roblox create games themselves, and when other people enjoy their games and purchase items, virtual currency in the game accumulates. The accumulated currency can be withdrawn as real cash. Currently, more than 40 million games such as adventure, role play, and action shooting can be enjoyed at Roblox.
Unlike ZEPETO, which creates an avatar based on a picture of one’s own face, Roblox’s avatar has a lego shape. A game with a similar Lego-like avatar is Korea’s’Minecraft’, and in May of last year, the’Blue House Lanson Special Invitation for Children’s Day’ event was implemented in Minecraft to commemorate Children’s Day at the Blue House. The Blue House, the President, and the First Lady were directly implemented in Minecraft to lower the psychological distance of teenage children.
The entertainment industry is also predicting the possibilities by starting a fresh metaverse experiment. SM Entertainment girl group’SPA’, which debuted in November last year, consists of four members and their avatars. The four members are active in the real world, but the avatar created after the members’ appearance is active in the virtual world. Espa works by going back and forth between reality and virtuality. The debut song’Black Mamba’ recorded 100 million views on YouTube after 51 days of release.
The four ESPA members’ avatars planned by SM build a grand worldview unique to this girl group and create their own IP. SM Entertainment Executive Producer Lee Soo-man said at the 1st World Culture Forum at the end of last year, “SPA is a completely new and innovative concept group that transcends the boundaries between the real world and the virtual world by projecting the future world centered on celebrities and avatars. “We plan to unfold in various and unconventional ways of showing collaboration between the real world and the virtual world at the same time, both online and offline, but each in different ways.” As the metaverse market grows, the movement to popularize VR-AR mixed reality-related tools that grant access to the metaverse world is also accelerating. Facebook is a representative company that is making a living in the mixed reality (XR) market. Facebook released VR headsets such as’Oculus Quest 2’at a reasonable price ($299) last year, and plans to release’Aria’, an AR glass that allows you to work with computers regardless of location within this year. Market research firm Strategy Analytics (SA) predicted that the metaverse-related industry, which is currently estimated at 21.4 trillion won (approximately 190 billion dollars), will reach 316 trillion won (approximately 280 billion dollars) by 2025.
In the virtual world ‘3D Geppetto World Map’, you can try on the product yourself at’Gucci Villa’ in Florence, Italy, where Gucci headquarters is located, and meet and communicate with other users.▶The value of online art works… The price of 10 digital paintings is 6.5 billion won!
The bid price for Twitter’s first post put on the auction market by Jack Dorothy’s CEO (CEO) has risen to $2.5 million (approximately 3.1 billion won). The post, “just setting up my twttr,” was first posted on his Twitter account by the city’s CEO in March 2006. In particular, this post is attracting attention for being presented in an online auction as an irreplaceable token,’NFT’ transaction method.
NFT (Non-Fungible Token) is simply a blockchain-based genuine guarantee. Buyers can trade digital art, video ownership, and game items in the form of digital tokens. NFT has stability and scarcity at the same time. This is because each token to which NFT is applied has a unique value. A unique token value is created by combining’metadata’ containing information about the product and’timestamp’ to prevent illegal copying.
For cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, there is a separate address for individual wallets that store currency on the exchange, but they are priced at the same value as other bitcoins. However, it is easy to understand when you see NFT as a kind of’virtual collection card’. Each collection card has a different value. The price varies widely depending on what content is created with NFT, such as the Twitter CEO’s first Twitter post, a digital picture with songs, and a video highlighting the LeBron James game.
The NFT, which was outside the public’s radar, was well known thanks to the recent payments for digital paintings from Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s wife, Grimes. Grimes sold 10 digital paintings with NFT technology for 5.8 million dollars (about 6.5 billion won). It took 20 minutes for the work to be sold out. The title of the 10 digital painting collections that Grimes put up for an online auction was’War Nymph’. The published work includes a picture of a winged baby angel orbiting the planet, along with a picture of Grimes’ song in the background. Grimes explained that the baby angel in his work is’the goddess of the new Genesis’.
‘NBA Topshot’, an NFT platform that sells basketball-themed collectibles by the American Professional Basketball (NBA), is the most active place in the NFT market. Recently, the highlight video of basketball star LeBron James’ game was sold for 208,000 dollars (about 235 million won). According to Dapp Radar, NBA Topshot accounted for 65% of the total NFT market sold in February, and sales alone exceeded $225 million (about 254 billion won).
Roblox occupies an unrivaled position among metaverse-like games. There are 150 million monthly users, of which one-third are youth under the age of 16.In addition, the 10-second video clip NFT, created by digital artist’Beeple’ (real name Michael Vinkelman), was sold for $6.6 million (about 7.4 billion won) on the NFT exchange in February. The initial sales price was about 67,000 dollars (about 75.6 million won).
The NFT market is growing steadily thanks to interest in metaverse and virtual assets. According to a report published by NFT analysis site Nonfungible.com, the amount of NFT traded in US dollars exploded nearly four times from $6.28 million in 2019 (approx. Increased. In particular, the NFT market is rapidly rising this year. Among the currently launched NFTs, the sales of the top three tokens in February amounted to a whopping 342 million dollars (approximately 3861 billion won). This is a 43-fold increase from 71 million dollars (about 8.8 billion won) in January.
Regarding the growing NFT market, an industry insider said, “To get attention from the metaverse community that trades NFT, you have to buy NFT at a high price and show it off, so that you can be evaluated as a more special person. Only those who understand this sensibility will trade NFTs at high prices.”
▶Invest in a virtual district… Virtual district “I bought the Gangnam land for 80,000 won”
Following the virtual avatar world, virtual currency, and virtual collection card, a virtual space that replicated the earth as it was appeared. ‘Earth2.io’ is a’virtual earth’ implemented in an online space. The earth is divided into 10m wide tiles and sold to people. Here, you can purchase famous cities and representative historic sites around the world.
You can purchase land in North America such as Washington and New York, Europe such as Paris and Rome, and global regions such as Seoul in Korea, and famous regions have already increased their prices several dozen times compared to the end of last year.
Kim Min-gyu, who bought the land, said, “Reminiscent of the days when cryptocurrency exchanges were just appearing in the early days, it makes no sense to trade coins that you do not know well online. But now it costs more than 50 million won per bitcoin,” he said. “In the future, I invested in the idea that the price of land in this virtual district could also skyrocket.” In fact, a domestic user purchased all the surrounding lands, including Banpo Acro River Park, for 80,000 won in December 2020, and the value of the current purchase is reported to be close to 4 million won.
However, there are many advice that you should be wary of investing in a virtual earth, unlike virtual currency based on blockchain technology. An industry insider explained, “Earth2 transactions are made through the platform, and investment assets may not be guaranteed even if the platform is suddenly closed.”
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