Metaverse, VirtualReality, AugmentedReality, DigitalTransformation, BusinessOpportunities, RevenueGeneration, ImmersiveTechnology, VirtualEvents,

Metaverse Business Opportunities and Revenue Generation Strategies

Metaverse Business Opportunities and Revenue Generation Strategies

The Metaverse, with its massive potential for businesses, is projected to be a trillion-dollar industry. But how can leaders set their foot in this virtual space?

The world is trading on Metaverse’s capabilities of consistently elevating business opportunities and substantially boosting revenue. Globally acclaimed brands are fine-tuning their strategies to incorporate their business in this virtual space. They know their consumers are enticed by this virtual world’s scope and waiting to reap it all. From improved customer experiences, enhanced learning opportunities to research and development, Metaverse’s platform has the potential to create alternative revenue generation opportunities. Moreover, the neck-to-neck competition between businesses to offer something better to their consumers is positively contributing to innovation across verticals and fuelling brainstorming.  

While enterprises, individuals, and entrepreneurs have already embarked upon a rewarding journey and massively cashing in, we delve into this parallel and virtual Universe and discover business opportunities and revenue-generation strategies in this article. 

What Exactly is the Metaverse? What are its elements and popular platforms?

Metaverse can be defined as a 3D virtual environment offering an immersive experience with the ability to conjure up a realistic world. This decentralized virtual world is far more significant than just to some gamers who wear gadgets and don avatars. It has successfully created a parallel plane of existence, enticed its audience with larger-than-life perceptions, and opened doors to multi-trillion-dollar business opportunities and revenue-generating capabilities that we discuss subsequently. 

Primary segments of the Metaverse

Metaverse establishes itself on a few popular technologies or concepts:

· Artificial Intelligence

· Blockchain 

· Cryptocurrencies, digital tokens like NFTs, digital wallets

· Extended Reality (Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality & Mixed Reality)

· VR headsets, AR glasses, VR controllers, Haptic devices transmitting tactile information to the senses

Metaverse’s leading platforms in vogue:

Metaverse is a lucrative virtual place luring global conglomerates and celebrities with investment opportunities. 

Some of the metaverse platforms that are in vogue with their current number of active users:

Decentraland: Monthly active user base: 300000

Decentraland encourages users to buy, own, and sell virtual real estate spaces. Users play games, exchange collectibles, and attend virtual concerts. This platform has its unique currency termed MANA, serving as its crypto-currency. 

The Sandbox: Monthly active user base: 201,000

This platform’s users monetize their virtual worlds using NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. 

Roblox: Monthly active user base: 214 million

Roblox has more to it than being primarily an American video game company, as it encourages players to sell their created assets and has its own currency termed Robux. 

NVIDIA’s Omniverse: 200 million

NVIDIA’s Omniverse platform, with a thriving user base encourages artists and creators to share their unique content.   

Exploring metaverse business opportunities for revenue generation

Metaverse has a profound effect on businesses as it is immersive and decentralized with a limitless scope for creativity. Enterprises want to benefit from it as it facilitates fresher methods to engage consumers, transforms sectors like manufacturing and healthcare, and eases training and learning without disturbing the real-world infrastructure and systems. A McKenzie report predicts Metaverse’s capability to generate revenue up to $5 trillion by 2030, and therefore, it is imperative to gauge how various segments are leveraging it. 

Learning & Development

By blurring the realms of physical and virtual worlds, Metaverse eases the concept of learning and development. By mitigating the need for investing in infrastructure and commute, metaverse comes across as an innovative, cost-effective, and result-oriented option helping bridge the gap between trainees and trainers. The immersive environment facilitates trainees to interact with peers, enjoy a novice learning experience and develop skills. 

Healthcare

Metaverse is gradually transforming healthcare with advanced Augmented Reality (AR) devices and simulators. Johns Hopkins surgeons use AR devices for spinal surgeries that show the internal anatomy and help surgeons place implants precisely. Telemedicine for several physical and mental health conditions helps mitigate geographical barriers and promotes a safe space with enhanced privacy levels.

Manufacturing

Global conglomerates like Amazon, Siemens, and BMW have invested massively in digital twin technology that helps create a virtual R&D space for safer and more efficient manufacturing processes. BMW’s virtual EV manufacturing factory in NVIDIA’s Omniverse has helped them save millions by deploying simulation technology in 3D models.

Gaming & Entertainment

The Gaming and Entertainment sector are the pioneers of Metaverse, and cannot be ignored as their million-dollar revenue generation capacity has a global userbase. Games maintain a robust monetization strategy by encouraging players to make in-game purchases and subscriptions. Moreover, game developers earn a handsome payout for designing and coding skills. Roblox game developers registered on Roblox’s Developer Exchange Program earned over $600 million annually in 2022.  

Virtual Events and concerts

By purchasing their own land in the Metaverse, many celebrities catered to their fans’ demands for virtual concerts. Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Daler Mehendi are some of the few artists who performed at virtual concerts on Metaverse platforms like Wave and Fortnite, and their admirers did not resist buying high-priced tickets to attend these virtual concerts.

Military Aviation & Defence

Military Aviation and the Defence segment are not far behind from harnessing Metaverse’s potential to mitigate and control hazards and overcome pressing challenges. With the help of AR devices, military planes empowered with Lockheed Martin technology can digitally map wildfires below with the help of the Cognitive Mission Manager. This technology helps predict wildfire behavior and enables decision-makers to design an appropriate plan of action to suppress those. 

Metaverse-related devices market

The devices key to partake in the Metaverse platforms have a global market growing by leaps and bounds. For example, the AR/VR market is predicted to generate revenue worth US$32.1bn in 2023 and grow at a CAGR of 12.60% by 2028. One of the Metaverse gloves prototypes, the Haptic gloves, is predicted to sweep through a market of $2 billion by 2027. Having said that, many globally reputed companies have been investing in Metaverse-related devices as there is a mass market for the products. 

Takeaway

Metaverse is open to consistent innovation in the fields of entertainment, healthcare, manufacturing, military, and gaming and transforming the market dynamics globally. While the world is under this wave of immersive, innovative, and altered reality- technology, every business has a choice. They can get swept by the wave, underperform, embrace mediocrity, or harness the power of Metaverse and open the doors to newer opportunities. If by 2030, all key enterprises are anticipated to go the Metaverse fashion, it is about time to see where this technology fits the scheme of things for every business, small, medium, or large. The decentralized parallel universe is not a mirage anymore, it is right around the corner, waiting to be explored deeply. 

They say it is the “successor state to today’s internet” and this clearly indicates a paradigm shift of the global audience base who want to perceive a more seamless connectivity and experience. The thriving multiverse, as it is called, with amplified revenue-generating capacity is here, waiting to be explored, improvised, digitized, and leveraged, and we as a generation are here to witness what it beholds. 

Extended-Reality-Exploring-the-Future-of-Immersive-Technologies-(-Main-Website)

Extended Reality: Exploring the Future of Immersive Technologies

Extended Reality: Exploring the Future of Immersive Technologies

Extended Reality is rapidly transforming the market dynamics. How are companies capitalizing on its potential as a billion-dollar industry?

As Industry 4.0 overtakes the world, technology opens endless possibilities for enterprises in research and innovation. Speaking about immersive experiences, Extended Reality (XR) encompasses the realms of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) and is the cornerstone of the Metaverse. This new frontier in the Universe of altered reality is revolutionizing how the world acts, functions, and socializes. A real-world filled with real people seems to be enthralled by a mimic world of extended reality, and businesses are generously leveraging immersive technologies to capture a global audience.

The global market for Extended Reality (XR) is expected to grow from $40.1 billion in 2023 to $111.5 billion by 2028 because of the enhanced experience it offers to brands. 

Understanding the difference between Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR)

Simply put, XR fortifies itself on the technology landscape on the three key pillars: VR, AR, and MR.

Virtual Reality (VR):

Broadly speaking, Virtual Reality is where you get transported into a completely virtual world, with no touch with the real tangible world. It is fully enclosed, and synthetic and is possible through standalone, tethered, or mobile VR headsets that offer varied levels of resolution and immersive experience. The VR market is predicted to exceed $12 billion by the year 2024, and that is a splendid number to behold.

Augmented Reality (AR):

Augmented Reality is an amalgamation of virtual experiences and the real world. Adding digital elements on top of the real world is possible through smartphones, glasses, projections, gesture devices, or gloves. Currently, AR devices are being used globally by a substantial number of users who cherish immersive experiences.

Mixed Reality (MR):

While in AR, you are a mere spectator of the virtual objects, MR allows you to interact and manipulate both the physical and virtual environment. MR can be experienced through devices like Magic Leap One and Hololens for applications in remote assistance, gaming, architectural design, and more.

How does Extended Reality foster the new-age marketing strategy?

Many global conglomerates harnessed the power of XR in their products and created impactful ads that successfully amassed consumers who found them enthralling. Deploying such technologies and creating impressive ads have empowered companies to boost their revenue manifold.

Thomas Cook, the leading travel and tourism company, launched the “Try before you Fly” campaign, and their YouTube ad focussed on its abilities to help travelers virtually experience destinations and vacations. They also developed their VR headsets for this immersive experience. 

The world’s favorite furniture brand IKEA, leveraged Augmented Reality technology to help customers see how a particular piece of furniture would fit in their living or bedrooms. The idea was to place the furniture from their catalog virtually in a real environment using their app.

Lowe’s Innovation Labs and their out-of-the-box ideas conjured the Holoroom concept, where consumers could wear VR headsets, hold a VR device, and virtually tile a shower to see how it looks. Through A/B testing, Lowes arrived at a welcome conclusion that this Mixed-Reality feature had a 36% better traction of purchases when compared to marketing only through YouTube ads.

People have always watched sci-fi movies and wondered and sighed, for the real world is never the way depicted in motion pictures. When they finally experience these through these leading brands, they are enthralled beyond expectation, positively boosting the brand image and leading to a better conversion.

Industries that have leveraged XR’s offerings to scale amplified revenue and growth.

Immersive technology has catapulted growth and success by manifolds across verticals and paved the way for unparalleled innovation. This section highlights how this game-changer has revolutionized education, real estate, entertainment, and infotainment. 

Education

Leveraging XR has transformed how students learn and experiment and has propelled education to become 10x engaging. Forget boring labs and history classes, VR devices like Microsoft HoloLens help students seamlessly interact with virtual models and explore places.

Gaming

Games like Pokémon Go, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, and Beat Saber, to name a few, create a mixed reality environment for gamers. The world of gaming has reached heightened levels with this technology offering.

Healthcare

Incorporating Extended Reality technology in Healthcare, like simulating surgeries and procedures during training, has improved how trainees gauge the subject. Also, complicated psycho-somatic conditions can be treated, through XR and telemedicine effectively.

Manufacturing

Visualizing product designs through XR has helped manufacturers achieve better accuracy and make necessary changes in the production and innovation phase. Technologies such as these also facilitate cost-cutting and considerably enhance safety measures.

Retail

Virtual showrooms and trial rooms for apparel and cosmetics are massive advancements in the Retail sector by the power of XR technology, and brands like Tommy Hilfiger, Topshop, and FaceCake are generously capitalizing on the same. Balenciaga, the renowned fashion label, conducted a virtual fashion show showcasing their Fall 2021 collection, and the online event had a global viewership.

Real Estate

Forget brochures of homes under construction, home-owners can now experience their virtual homes before they even step into those in the future. Virtual walk-throughs help prospects trust the construction process even more.

How is XR being a solution-provider to decade-old challenges?

Though XR technology has advanced at a robust pace, and levied by many brands and industries, it faces severe challenges in the current state of affairs.

The Challenges

In the developing stages, XR technology faces some thriving challenges, like limited accessibility due to huge costs, privacy concerns and data threats, lack of content portability across platforms and devices, and low-end devices’ inability to justify the visual appeal created by it. To add to the woes, a disconnected existence by people globally can expedite the rise of psychological issues like social awkwardness and disorientation and further lack of humanness.

Conclusion

The global market keeps its eyes wide open at the most enthralling experiences and gauges every new technology release with hawk eyes. Top-notch businesses invest a lavish amount in these technologies, and rightfully so, to earn solid patronage from this consumer base ever-starving for experiences. The result is that technology is advancing exponentially.

Whatever the fad may be, whether rejoicing in a tech-rich experience to enhance shopping, learning, innovation, or staying connected with fellow humans virtually yet realistically to mitigate geographical disconnect, the scope of XR is enticing. With technology progressing steadfastly, XR is predicted to revolutionize every industry or product that relies on user experience.

Today, not all enterprises can afford to leverage XR’s capabilities, but soon, as the demand for technology on budget increases and competitors developing XR software strive for consumer attention, this game-changer will be easily accessible and deployed across verticals and brands. This technology is seamlessly blurring the boundaries between the real world and an imaginary world, and when used cautiously, it can elevate the way nations progress.