Top 5 metaverse moments you need to know right now

This month: Good news for Roblox, bad news for Roblox, bad news for NFTs. No. 5: Roblox’s branded virtual world Let’s start with the good news for Roblox: the gaming platform held its developer conference last month, introducing advertisers to a host of new features, including its own world to explore. The experience, developed by Roblox with studio Sawhorse, employs many of the same strategies that brands use in their branded realms, such as portal ads and challenges. For Roblox, the purpose of giving a world to brands is to showcase what is possible on its platform. The experience includes three case studies from Walmart, Universal Pictures and Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, as well as a quiz that is meant to test marketers on their knowledge of the platform’s ad offerings. Roblox still has room to improve its value proposition for advertisers, said Catherine D. Henry, a Gen Z brand consultant. This point is even more relevant given the report about Roblox that came out this week, but more on that later. Also read: How AI showed up at Advertising New York No. 4: Nike ditches NFTs Nike was one of the last brands holding onto NFTs as a marketing ploy, often combining them with phygital sneakers, but the shoe seller has finally decided to let the tokens go. In a blog post for its dotSwoosh loyalty program last month, Nike said that it “won’t be launching any more NFT collections for now” and gave members instructions for how to transfer their tokens into their own crypto wallets for personal custody. In place of Web3, dotSwoosh is leaning more heavily into gaming, per the blog post. This change in direction will include in-game wearables, new gaming experiences and corresponding physical merchandise. (The bio for dotSwoosh’s X account has been updated to “Nike’s home for all things gaming.”) No. 3: Hyundai ditches NFTs in a fun way Speaking of aborted NFT efforts, Hyundai spun up a fun, self-deprecating promotion based on the tokens it released in 2021. The first person to prove to Hyundai that they owned one of the 10 Santa Cruz NFTs it dropped three years ago could trade the token in for a real Santa Cruz vehicle, or cash equivalent, which is around $28,000. Hyundai marketed the promotion on social media, with plenty of humor owning up to the fact that, in hindsight, an NFT collection may not have been the best use of time and energy. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hyundai Motor America (@hyundaiusa) The marketing fail-turned-marketing win is a stark contrast to how numerous other brands, including fellow auto manufacturers, have quietly sidelined their NFT efforts from several years ago. No. 2: Meta showcases new AR products Meta brought the goods to its annual Connect conference last month, including several updates to its mixed reality product line. Firstly, the Ray-Ban smart glasses received an AI tune-up, now with more advanced assistant capabilities such as live language translation, memory and multimodal video AI, which can process visual information and respond with voice. The updates reveal Meta’s strategy to draw interest in its mixed reality products with the help of attractive AI. Indeed, the second generation of the smart glasses, Ray-Bans, which was the first pair to come implemented with AI, has sold over 700,000 pairs since September 2023, according to market research firm IDC—more than twice as many as the first generation sold in a year and a half. Meta also teased a new pair of glasses called Orion, which will allow for true augmented experiences as a result of its holographic lenses, in which digital displays can be superimposed onto reality. This device will come with Meta AI functionality, as well, and is being billed as “Orion AI glasses,” per its webpage. No. 1: Roblox takes heat from new report This week, a research firm took the wind out of Roblox’s sails after publishing a report that accuses the platform of inflating its user numbers and harboring a “pedophile hellscape” for children. Hindenburg Research claims that Roblox “intentionally conflates” people with daily active users, the latter of which totals nearly 80 million. Roblox often touts its ever-climbing number of users as evidence of its continued popularity, but Hindenburg says that many of these could be bots or alt accounts. In total, the platform has overstated this metric by between 25% and 42%, according to the report. Hindenburg also claims that Roblox is rife with harmful content for children. The firm says that it encountered groups trading child pornography, users attempting to groom younger users, widely available sex-themed games, violent content and abusive speech. The report comes one week after a financial newsletter, The Bear Cave, made similar claims about Roblox. Hindenburg is an activist firm that short-sells companies’ stock after publishing damning reports on them. It is transparent about this approach and has previously found success through publishing reports on companies like Nikola and Block, Inc. In response to Hindenburg’s allegations, Roblox drew attention to the firm’s short-selling position as evidence that its claims cannot be trusted. “We totally reject the claims made in the report,” a spokesperson said. “The financial claims made by Hindenburg Research are simply misleading. The authors are, admittedly short sellers and have an agenda irrespective of the substance of Roblox’ business model and results.”

Top 5 metaverse moments you need to know right now

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