Presented by Scuti
The past few years have seen the conversation around the metaverse heat up, with the pandemic sparking an enormous upswing in gaming, across every age group, for an array of reasons. There was the near-universal search for community in a quarantined world, through social media, video conferencing and of course, games…and that need has not subsided.
Games provided players the ability to leave the real world and dive into a new virtual one — one where you have far more agency and far more power. And there’s the growing ability to earn or buy almost anything you want at your fingertips to make you better, stronger, and faster at your game.
The metaverse offers the promise of all of these. And maybe that’s why it’s captured the enthusiasm and imagination of gamers in a more significant way than ever before — to the extent where brands are starting to sit up, take notice, and figure out how they can get in there with an audience that historically has been hard to reach, and their attention difficult to maintain.
“We are at a turning point in history where gaming, virtual reality, and commerce will meet for the very first time,” says Nicholas Longano, founder and CEO of Scuti. “The metaverse promises to blur consumers’ digital and physical lives forever. It will become a fundamental part of day-to-day social life and personal identity — and an evergreen revenue goldmine for brands, retail, and game developers.”
Players are ready for an overlap of their physical and virtual worlds, for better play experiences, socialization, productivity, entertainment, and shopping all in the same space.
The value proposition for brands
“What is so powerful about the coexistence of physical and virtual living is that players will put equal or more time, effort, and spending into their virtual lives as they do in the physical world,” Longano says. “Surveys are already showing that 41% of players view their avatar as part of their identity, and 65% say it is as essential to look good in video games as it is to be attractive in real life.”
There’s a tremendous opportunity for brands here, he says.
Players are already open to discovering new brands while playing video games: 33% of gamers find new brands while playing, 56% are more likely to buy from a brand featured in their favorite game, and over half would buy real-world items from within their games.
In games, players already spend substantial amounts on loot boxes, skins, collectibles, as well as avatar apparel, pets, apartments, furniture, and more to express their identity and status. Brands do that work in the real world, giving consumers ways to express their personal identity in everything from the clothing and jewelry we wear to the cars we drive and the cards we carry. The same will hold true in the virtual one, with brands to signal status and provide utility in the digital life of players.
Longano envisions a metaverse where a player’s digital identity acts as a passport or fingerprint, carrying information they voluntarily share, such as their play history, demographics, shopping profiles, reputation, and more, allowing marketers to curate the best offers and products, and rewarding players in both the virtual and physical world. Consumers are already comfortable with exchanging their information for value in their online lives.
“Tapping into the gamers’ digital identities is a crucial point of leverage,” he says. “It will revolutionize how brands connect with consumers, present their products, and create the experiences needed for players to live their brands in the metaverse.”
How brands and game makers can collaborate now
The convergence of the real world and the virtual is already upon us, Longano says. That includes brand placement in video games and virtual experiences to drive brand awareness and engagement. And that awareness and engagement will open pocketbooks like never before when it can also convert sales through a direct marketplace. In other words, conversion through games commerce, or gCommerce.
“For any game-maker, driving in-app purchases is difficult — especially for free-to-play games where less than 5% of players actually purchase in-app items. But everyone shops,” he says. “gCommerce allows game makers to tap into a completely new revenue stream — one that is 26 times the size of the entire gaming industry — and offer players value on the products they are looking to buy.”
GCommerce is the here-and-now way to add a and accretive revenue stream to a game for all game makers. Players are especially excited about products that they find from their game, bringing their online and offline worlds together in ways that are fulfilling to player and brand alike.
And gCommerce is the first monetization solution that also increases player engagement and retention, Longano adds. It allows gamers to directly connect with and live the brands they love, and Gen Z and millennials will lead the way. Right now, 80% of these groups play video games, spending close to $3T a year on ecommerce.
“Brands are in an ongoing battle to modernize and future-proof their business, and those that develop a gCommerce strategy will reap an enormous advantage in games today and the Metaverse tomorrow,” says Marc Fonzetti, CRO & CMO at Scuti, and former senior executive of media at Verizon.
But the brand and video game relationship must be seamless so as not intrude on the player.
“Too many advertisements drive the player out of the game, breaking the immersion, and opening up new browser windows,”Longano says. “The game maker gets nothing on that transaction, and the disruption to the player is enormous. That will never work in the metaverse.”
That’s where Scuti comes in, he says.
Making gCommerce a win-win-win
Scuti is an in-game retail and rewards marketplace that allows brands to sell curated products directly to game players, who are rewarded with every purchase. The Scuti marketplace functions across all of its partners’ games, allowing players to access their accounts and earn Scutis, the universal meta-currency and exchange, across all those games. Scuti is working with developers to allow players to earn both Scutis and physical world offers through their games.
“Scuti is at the forefront of a blue ocean worth over $4.9T, and we are allowing every game maker to tap into this new market,” Longano says.
The first Scuti partnership went live last year, with mobile game Rock Out. 20 Below Games CEO Tony Shiff pointed out the win for his players and his company alike in ditching the ad spam without a drop in revenue and no player complaints. They’re finding that players are spending time every day to peruse curated products, with impressive conversions, and collect their daily Scuti rewards.
For brands, the win is a tangible ROI and conversion with players. While savvy brands have been engaging with gamers for years natively in games, even the most successful brands have struggled to connect the dots in a concrete way through actual sales.
Because Scuti adds a direct-to-player commerce solution that doesn’t interrupt gameplay, players can engage seamlessly and then convert to purchase physical goods in the real world – whether that be a pair of slick sneakers or a fast-food coupon. Players can even purchase the real-world product and wear the digital version, tied to an NFT, on their avatar in game. Scuti enables all of this.
Scuti also aims to improve player retention by incentivizing players to log in to build a rewards wallet. The rewards are subsidized by brands and can be exchanged for in-game credits and NFTs. Even the most frugal players see Scutis as free money and are enticed to spend, Longano says. With each purchase, players receive more bespoke product suggestions, and enter a self-feeding loop of spending.
“The current reality of in-game monetization is that developers need income, but most strategies are not optimized to support this, and many won’t work or scale in the metaverse” says Longano. “We built Scuti to support game developers and brands by improving the players’ experience. Scuti’s unintrusive universal monetization and rewards system keeps players, brands and game publishers happy.”
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