How Luxury Entered Gaming Through Blockchain
The global gaming market was valued at over $162 billion last year and is expected to rise to $295 billion by 2026. According to the 2021 Google for Games Global Insights Report, global game downloads increased by 75% from 2019 to 2020, and watch time for gaming live streams increased by 45%. As part of the pandemic, the industry saw an increase in the number of people creating and maintaining connections through games — the report noted that gaming saw its most significant growth as a “socially connected experience.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic altering people’s everyday lives, the gaming industry needed to adapt to the changing needs and habits of its users.
One of the biggest changes that happened as a result of the pandemic was the decrease in social interactions, fueled by global stay-at-home orders and lockdowns. With nowhere to go and a limited number of people to interact with, a lot of young people found themselves with a surplus of cash and no ideas on how to spend it.
Quick to adopt new technologies, it took little time for gamers to turn to cryptocurrencies and NFTs, both as a way to connect socially and spend excess cash.
Luxury Brands and Gaming are a Match Made in Heaven
Some luxury brands have already dipped their feet into the world of gaming before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but most of the efforts failed to reach mainstream audiences and make headlines. It wasn’t until last year that big brands put two and two together and realized the potential the gaming industry has.
At the same time, the blockchain industry was seeing its own revolution, this time in the form of NFTs. While non-fungible tokens have been around for a while, their potential only began to shine in mid-2020. The new asset class offers a way to create unique, easy-to-trade digital items whose authenticity can be easily proved.
When combined with the fact that NFTs retain value and can be backed with real-world assets, this made them a perfect addition to the booming gaming metaverses.
This is something luxury brands quickly realized and rushed to capitalize on, as more people spent more time inside than ever immersed in virtual universes.
Louis Vuitton recently launched a video game geared towards selling NFTs. Called “Louis: The Game,” the visually striking video game comes with 30 embedded NFTs users can purchase and trade. At the same time, Burberry struck a partnership with Mythical Games to introduce an NFT collection to its Blankos Block Party game. Players can purchase, upgrade, and sell limited-edition Burberry-branded characters, with the company saying it plans on launching more branded in-game NFT accessories.
Burberry said that its collaboration with the gaming company was a result of a shift in the way customers connect with brands and redefine community spaces. The venture will enable it to generate value by targeting new customers — those that previously couldn’t or wouldn’t buy Burberry.
Louis Vuitton’s chairman and chief executive officer Michael Burke said that the best way to engage customers is through the medium they like, revealing that the company was looking to target a younger and more tech-savvy audience.
Easy to buy, easy to trade, and a fantastic way to show off in a purely digital world, luxury asset NFTs are a perfect addition to games.
Harvesting the potential of NFTs in the gaming industry
While it might seem like NFTs are soon to reach their peak, the new asset class is actually yet to see its heyday. The potential NFTs have in revolutionizing both the gaming industry and the luxury asset industry is something that hasn’t gone unnoticed and DeFi companies are working hard to harvest that potential and put it to good use.
LuxFi is currently working on providing more use cases for luxury asset NFTs in gaming. The company is looking into establishing partnerships with gaming platforms to enable its users with NFTs issued on LuxFi.
The company will keep a close eye on any new trends that emerge in both industries and make sure it includes them in future development plans to benefit both its users and the wider gaming community.
About LuxFi
LuxFi is the world’s first asset-backed NFT marketplace for luxury assets, where people can buy, sell and invest in luxury assets using cryptocurrencies and traditional payments. We eliminate counterfeiting while minting an NFT on a multi-chain blockchain network, with a focus on luxury assets that hold value well and have a high resale value. Leveraging our big data intelligence system and unique algorithm for automated data collecting and data processing, the value of each NFT on our platform is backed by real-world data.
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