A scene from Warner Bros.’ “Enter the Afterlife” Roblox world.
This month: Virtual box office, the metaverse gets a new name and a retailer’s incoming avatar drop
To promote its horror-comedy “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Warner Bros. launched a virtual world in Roblox where visitors can purchase tickets to view the movie in real life. This is the first Roblox experience to include a ticket tie-in.
A scene from Warner Bros.’ “Enter the Afterlife” Roblox world.
“Escape the Afterlife,” developed with studio Sawhorse, features environments and characters from the movie, and games that Warner Bros. will use to deepen engagement around the film’s IP. But the heart of the activation is the virtual box office, integrated with the help of Fandango. The real-world offering is the latest example of how Roblox is allowing real-world dimensions to be built into branded virtual worlds, mostly around e-commerce opportunities. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” hits theaters Sept. 6.
In 2022, author Matthew Ball published “The Metaverse: And How it Will Revolutionize Everything,” which some considered to be the definitive guide for the emerging space. But this month, Ball re-issued the work with a new and far less evangelical title that indicates how interest in the metaverse has soured: “The Metaverse: Building the Spatial Internet.”
The retitle reflects how things have deeply changed since Ball wrote his book at the height of the metaverse moment, when NFTs were all the rage and The Sandbox was still onboarding numerous traditional brands. As those halcyon days have evaporated, the ambitious hopes for the space have also vanished. Ball still sees the metaverse as an indispensable technology that will change the internet, according to his book’s webpage. But the title adjustment is a telling rebrand and sheds light on how attitudes continue to shift around the space.
Several tech giants that aren’t named Apple or Meta appear to be gearing up to make significant entrances into the mixed reality headset space. ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, was recently approved by a South Korean regulator to sell its Pico 4S device, which looks similar to the Meta Quest headset and its handheld controllers. Purported images of the headset were recently published by Android Headlines.
Microsoft, with the help of Samsung, is recruiting micro OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display panels for its own mixed reality device, according to a report from Korean tech outlet The Elec cited by Road to VR. Microsoft’s headset may be more so a competitor to Apple’s Vision Pro, as it will be intended for immersive entertainment. Of course, the tech giant has been eyeing the mixed reality space for a while, but late last year it canceled a project around a headset that was tied to its Windows operating system.
Speaking of Big Tech and mixed reality, Meta’s embattled Reality Labs division is taking a hit. The department that specializes in headsets and the metaverse vision will cut costs by 20% between this year and 2026, according to The Information. This marks the most direct effort by Meta to shorten the leash on Reality Labs, following rounds of layoffs and a restructuring earlier this summer that split the division into a metaverse team and a wearables team.
The decision to cut spending comes as Reality Labs continues to hemorrhage money. Meta reported a $4.5 billion loss for the division in the second quarter, pushing its total losses to over $50 billion since late 2020, according to CNBC. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been seen as largely responsible for the division’s failure after steering Meta in the direction of the metaverse several years ago. But while investors have continually questioned the executive’s plans, Zuckberberg has stayed adamant that he isn’t yet ready to give up. Whether this most recent directive is just another concession or the beginning of the end, remains unclear.
Adidas is revving up to commensurate the drop of its much-anticipated NFT avatars, Alts. These characters are meant to anchor an individual’s identity across Web3 and Web3 platforms, and are tied to Adidas’ own brand identity around sports and fashion. The drop is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of this year, soon after the third chapter in the project’s storyline is released, according to a thread posted to X earlier this month by the project’s official account.
Alts marks one of Adidas’ grandest Web3 efforts yet—notable not only because of its size (20,000 holders) but also because of its continued commitment to the space. Many other brands that dabbled in NFTs a couple years ago have ceased all activity around Web3. But Adidas is looking to build a character-driven universe around its Web3 IP, similar to the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Otherside metaverse.
Meanwhile, Adidas has been focused on gaining credibility in the NFT space. The retailer, through Alts, recently partnered with the Doodles NFT brand on a collection of digital wearables, as well as the move-to-earn NFT platform STEPN.
