The budding relationship between the metaverse and gaming

The metaverse may be in Gartner’s “trough of disillusionment” with the hype dying down, but the gaming sector has the potential to be the metaverse’s biggest cheerleader.

Nick Abrahams, global co-leader digital transformation practice at Norton Rose Fulbright told Digital Nation the real opportunity the metaverse has within the gaming industry.

He explained that gaming platforms like Roblox and Fortnite represent a “fantastic” opportunity for brands to get involved in the metaverse.

This is because the metaverse-focused platforms are not receiving that much engagement, Abrahams said.  

“In terms of the other standalone metaverse platforms, there's less interest in those because I don't think they're driving that much traffic,” he said.

Abrahams said the metaverse will continue to grow out of gaming.

“Gaming now is very different to gaming five years ago, gaming is a social network. Facebook/Meta made the big play in space because they've seen that these gaming platforms are in fact social networks, people spend time on it in a social context,” he said.

“With the clients that I'm talking to, my advice would be to look at what are those immersive experiences, where they can guarantee you traffic numbers, and then have a go in those experiences.”

Abraham explained that through gaming, the metaverse will become more immersive as gamers represent a bigger demographic.

“If you look at Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, they've got hundreds of millions of daily active users who are on for several hours, so that as a concept is still growing strong,” he said.

“Do a collaboration much like Tennis Australia has done with Roblox. Do that collaboration, see what your numbers look like, and see how their engagement works. If you are trying to set up an office and one of the pure play metaverses, you will see no foot traffic there at all."