Why I bought stuff in the MetaVerse
A couple of years ago, my oldest son wanted virtual money to buy virtual products for his birthday. I grew up in a time of buying and playing with lego’s. I also grew up on the first gaming consoles. I could understand buying a video game, software. But the game my son was playing was a free game: Fortnite. And in this free to play game, you could buy virtual things: skins, weapons, dance moves, gliders. None of these things you can buy in Fortnite makes your character stronger. You cannot buy to win. The only thing it does is make you look cool, give you social status in the game. Most of the players you play against are unknown. People from all over the world play the game and so the people who play against you, see your skin and might think you are cool but you don’t even know these people. And if you stop playing the game, all the stuff you bought in the game is useless. You cannot sell it or take it with you to another game. I did not understand why people would want to buy virtual stuff in games that did nothing but make you look cool. But I wanted to understand this. I wanted to dive into the world my kids were spending a part of their life in. I work in digital innovation, so I also saw it as my job to understand this. This is the future and I need to get it in order to help my clients navigate the digital world.
Virtual clothes
So I asked my kids why they wanted to buy virtual clothes. They wanted it to but they didn’t really know why. What’s new? Do we know why we want the things we want? Most of the things we want is because marketing made us believe we want it. Same here. The marketing apparatus of games like Fortnite is state of the art. Not just by their own doing but there is a huge community. I spent hours watching random dudes I don’t know playing Fortnite in a live stream on YouTube with my kids. Like watching a football game. But it’s just one dude playing and commenting on his own game play. I wanted to understand why anyone would do that. After some time, I started to get into it. I started to see why this was just like watching a Formula One race or a soccer match. This was e-sports. There are dudes making a living by just playing Fortnite and live streaming it. It’s a job. It’s entertainment. And these dudes (and dudettes) create the need, the need to play but also the need to buy. Kids want a Messi shirt because they saw him on TV. Kids want to play soccer because they saw Messi on TV. People want to play because they see a superstar YouTube celebrity play Fortnite. And the visual beauty of this world and the products you can buy in it is so amazing. Such beautiful design. Top class. The world’s best designers are working on this stuff. They tap into pop culture and create their own culture.
I believe Fotnite is one of the most successful games in the world right now when it comes to how much money they make. It’s a free game. But they make more money then any paid game. This formula of free to play and play to get social status is pure genius. But I am getting ahead of myself.
To truly understand how this virtual product buying works, how the marketing, how the business models, how this stuff works, I had to get into it. So after I asked my kids about their experience and needs, after I watched e-sports, after I bought them virtual gifts for their birthdays, I needed to get in myself. I started small in BrawlStars. Same principle as Fornite but smaller and simpler. In BrawlStars, you can also buy stuff. You can also earn stuff. You can buy a BrawlPass that will gift you skins and other artefacts if you play and win. I had spent money for my kids in the virtual world but never for myself. Now I did. To understand the value for the money I was spending, I had to buy stuff. So after that, I switched to Fortnite. Next level. 15 to 20 euro’s just for a skin for your character. 7 euro’s just for a dance move. Stuff like that. What am I buying if I spent 20 euro’s on an Obi Wan Kenobi skin in Fortnite? You don’t know until you try.
Reasons to buy
What I found it that you basically buy the same social status and connection to a group of people you buy un the real world when you buy clothes. A skin in Fortnite basically has the same social status value as a Balenciaga t-shirt in the real world. People know how much money you have spent. People see to what group you belong. If you buy a branded t-shirt, you buy fabric and design energy but also status. The same in the virtual world. You buy bits and design energy and status. The status in Fortnite is not just the cost of the skin but also the rarity. Skins are only available for a limited amount of time. And the people in the game know you have been playing a long time, if you are an OG, if you own a skin that was in the store years ago. This skins usually don’t come back. Digital products are infinitely replicable so they need to find a way to create scarcity. Scarcity allows you to charge more. Same in the real world as in the digital world. My kids tell me people don’t respect me if I wear a standard skin. People I don’t even know. Why would I care if people I don’t know and who don’t even use their real name don’t respect me? Same reason we care about this shit in the real world. If I walk around the city in my designer clothes, I feel good because I think the other people in the street respect me or something. If I wear a certain style, people will know I belong to a specific group, to a specific class. It’s all in our heads. But the same stuff that is in our heads in the real world, are in our heads in the virtual world. Social status. Scarcity. We want to be respected and that is why we wear certain clothes, why we wear skins in Fortnite.
It can also be a strategy. If you wear a really rare skin that hasn’t been in the store for years, people know you have been playing a long time. If you wear a skin that you can only win if you score a certain number of points, people will know you are good. People will respect you. Be afraid of you. If you are a master and wear a standard skin, people will think you are a noob and underestimate you. Same shit as in the real world. Dress to impress.
When I enter the store in Fortnite, I feel the same desire to buy as when I walk into a store in the real world. The same psychological principles are in play. We want to be seen. We want to be respected. We want to look cool for people we don’t know. We also want to look cool for our friends. We want to dress in a way that shows our friends we belong to the same tribe. So spending money in Fortnite is the same as spending money in the real world. Same goals, same principles.
The MetaVerse
Fortnite is the MetaVerse. MineCraft is the MetaVerse. The MetaVerse is a computer generated virtual world that is populated by the same principles as the real world. When we enter the MetaVerse, we are the same people. We do not carry our physical bodies with us. We don’t carry our identities with us. We can take on a skin. We can take on an identity. We can take on a new name. We can build a world. We can interact. We can socialize. We can have fun. We can be sad. We can buy stuff. We can sell stuff. We can have experiences. We can connect to people. You can meet your real life friends and you can make new ones.
The two nicest books I have read about the MetaVerse are Snow Crash and Ready Player One (based on which Steven Spielberg made a great movie with the same name). This was a good start for me to get into understanding the MetaVerse. Getting into the virtual worlds myself and buying stuff took me one step further. For me this has been wonderful. Not just do I get to learn about this new world but I also get to dive deep into the world of my kids. I personally love this stuff. Maybe I am just a big kid. But I see value creation, marketing, events, experiences, selling and buying things happening in the MetaVerse. I believe companies are right to explore this space. What is exiting is that it is a new space and the only way to learn about this world is to go in, experiment and learn. The rules are not set. Big brands are entering this space to sell stuff, to do marketing, to meet people, to learn. Artists are organizing concerts in the MetaVerse. I remember when my son first wanted to go to a Marshmello concert, in Fortnite. Exiting times ahead. The gaming industry is already bigger than the movie industry. Open worlds are coming that will become platforms that people can build upon. This will impact business, design, marketing, all of that.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you enjoyed it. If you clap for this essay, I will know I connected with you. I will dive deeper into the topics around Design Leadership in upcoming articles. If you follow me here on Medium, you will see them pop up on your Medium homepage. You can also subscribe to an email service here on Medium which will drop new essays right into your inbox. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to see new articles in your timeline or talk to my bot at dennishambeukers.com :) You can also find me on Instagram. When I am not blogging about Design Leadership, I work as a design strategist and project manager at Zuiderlicht.
