According to a report from Cointelegraph, the metaverse which was once regarded as the “new social media” seems to have lost its luster for users residing in the United States, but it's quite the contrary in the East. The industry is alive, well and still garnering much support and interest throughout Asia, according to The Sandbox’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Sebastien Borget.
While speaking to Cointelegraph at the Asian Blockchain Gaming Alliance’s Web3 Summit in Singapore on September 12th, Borget stated that over the last year, approximately 50% of Sandbox’s business has come from several countries in Asia.
“If you don't focus on Asia, you will think the metaverse is dead from the North American and the Western side,” said Borget.
“But it’s so hot in Asia. Hong Kong and Korea are the top two markets, followed by Japan.”
Borget made mention that he is soon to make known the launch of Lion City on stage at Token 2049 in Singapore, a new neighborhood of 512 virtual land plots in the Sandbox metaverse, that seeks to exhibit Singapore’s culture through a partnership with various global brands.
Borget expressed how The Sandbox had recently finalized a significant virtual land sale in Turkey, where the metaverse has what he described as a “big ecosystem.”
“The Sandbox ecosystem has grown to well over 400 brands, 700 partners around the world and 200 verified agencies that are building on Sandbox,” he added.
In spite of the downturn in participation in the metaverse in the West, Borget referred to a number of new developments in the Web3 and virtual reality sector more broadly with a perspective of confidence.
The first noteworthy development was the introduction of dynamic NFTs, which grant creators the ability to alter the metadata and modify the appearance and features of a given asset.
“I feel like every NFT has to become truly unique, not just in appearance, but in all the metadata attributes.”
“We often do this comparison with the real world, where it's like: if I buy a tennis racket — is it the same if I buy it, and it has been used by Pete Sampras, before or after?” Borget joked.
In addition, Borget mentioned the release of Apple’s Augmented Reality Vision Pro headset as a significant step for the metaverse industry, with the extended-reality features allowing for digital assets in physical environments to appear just as real as real ones.
“This leads to digital assets becoming even closer to you. Instead of just sitting in a wallet that you have to open in a certain browser or application page, but in your surrounding environment,” Borget explained.
“Now that you can see your content close up, you can interact with it even more.”
In closing, Borget concluded that there’s no right or wrong way for the metaverse sector to foster widespread Web3 adoption.
“There’s a good position of the traditional gaming industry that believes Web3 adoption will only come if you provide games that provide the same level of
quality as Web2 games where blockchain
is a feature.”
While Borget acknowledged that might be a strong use case for many gaming companies in the space, he explained that metaverses like The Sandbox assist in the creation of new experiences for users that are distinguishable from the world of traditional gaming.
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