While we as a company solely focus on raw land throughout the United States, we are quite well versed on upcoming trends when it comes anything "land". We have been watching vitual land for some time and figured it may be of interest to at least learn about it.
Virtual land sounds absolutely crazy to most people but the value and use could surprise you, especially the return on investment. While investors should take caution in this new emerging tech, it may at least interesting to learn about it should we see the MetaVerse take hold over the next ten or so years.
MetaVerse Land Explained, Should You Invest?
What is MetaVerse Land?
The MetaVerse in general, is the expectation that users will socialize and meet virtually as a new norm in the future. Things like games, tutorials, office meetings, art galleries, exploring monuments and much more are all being built by several companies. Augmented reality and Virtual Reality are expected to be one of the biggest forms of emerging tech for the next 20 years.
MetaVerse Land, in basic terms, are digital plots of land, similar to parcels we have with normal land. These virtual plots of land are often found within larger full production games or online platforms, they are buildable and can be monetized in several ways.
The overall goal for a game or MetaVerse that offers virtual land is to gain a large community of players in the virtual world. Those that own the land in this virtual world build on the land, essentially helping shape the future of the game with attractions.
The whole use case of this is to capitalize on the gaming and virtual market early. This gives individual investors the opportunity to build, make passive income, or flip their parcel to other investors should the game grow in popularity.
When Did Virtual Land Become Popular?
Around 2017 some companies started development of virtual land in the form of NFTs, which is tied to Blockchain. This alone is a complicated subject which we will get into next. It should be noted that its full potential is still in very early development, the future is unknown.
Overall, the real hype came when large investment companies started getting involved. Ever since Facebook announced their name change to Meta and literally changed the whole focus of their business, the prices of virtual land skyrocketed.
Likewise, companies and people like Adidas, Nike, Gucci, Steve Aoki and even Snoop Dog purchased virtual land in a virtual world called SandBox. While each person and company may have different goals with their land, there is no doubt, they collectively see a future in the MetaVerse and want a part of it.
What Use does Virtual Land Have?
Most will look at virtual land and just see a picture online in the form of an NFT, aka a Non-Fungible Token which is tied to crypto currency blockchain. Think of them as a virtual baseball cards if you haven't seen one yet. These are traded on platforms like OpenSea for crypto or even dollars. Aside from the NFT, they are more like verification of ownership and give access to your land within the game. The NFT is mainly just an easy way to buy and sell the land on the open market using a single blockchain tied image.
These NFT's connect to a much bigger picture within a developing MetaVerse. The bigger picture being ownership to build within a gaming platform as of now. The gaming industry is a $180 billion dollar industry and these virtual land platforms along with the companies that invest, have their eyes on this as the future. In fact, it's not just land, many gaming companies are shifting focus on blockchain linked games of all types. This new technology will allow users to buy and sell in game items or tokens, thus giving the companies a percentage of sales and allowing players to earn actual money.
Many of these games being built are expected to be very popular with players, with hopes of taking over the current market share of games like Minecraft and Roblox. Currently, the most expected successful game that will be utilizing these NFT virtual worlds is SandBox. Although it's expected we will see quite a few of these type of games coming to the market over the next few years.
Large retail companies want to be involved in games, it's estimated that there are around 3.1 billion gamers in the world. This is a juicy figure for brands to be involved for advertising and brand building with this large community.
Virtual land offers these companies a unique opportunity to be involved in a huge game without building their own full game, which would probably flop. With a plot of land in the game, they can build within the game that already has a user base built in. Just like plots of land in real life, they can build just about anything on these parcels and get as extravagant as they want. Here are just a few of the things being developed now
- Brands Buildings Theme Parks (Attracts visitors and engagement)
- Casinos (Uses virtual in game currency that can be exchanged to local currency )
- Concert Venues (real bands playing virtually)
- Games within the Game (Allows players to win in game currency or have fun)
- Billboards (Free advertising to gamers within the game)
The list goes on here, it's also expected users will be able to shop within these games. Even Walmart is working on VR shopping with its own platform, you can shop the store from your home and fill up your cart using VR, later the items will be shipped to your home. When it comes to the virtual land, starting a unique business or attraction on the land is the goal. Essentially monetizing the land for income.
Isn't There Unlimited Virtual Land?
With real raw land, we know there is only so much of it, a limited supply. This creates an inventory price adjustment overtime, land will increase in value throughout the years as homes are built and less land exists. With Virtual land, it can be made from thin air by developers. However, the games cap the amount of available land, thus creating the same supply shock.
There are a little over 166k plots of land in SandBox and that figure is unlikely to change, so that's quite a low supply considering 7 billion people are in the world. Other games have even less land, but overall the success of the land value is very dependent on the popularity of the game. Just because new games with land come out, that doesn't mean they will be a big hit.
Those that had faith in the SandBox project early bought land for for as low as $40 dollars. The smallest plots in the game are now around $10k to $15k and the largest sale to date was 4.3 Million. Large companies, even Real Estate Investment Trusts have been accumulating land and are holding them in a long term portfolio. Some investor groups have created a DAO fund, basically a voting focused community wallet for building and monetizing these lands for shared passive income.
Why Would Gamers Play These Virtual Land Games?
While the select few that own the land can build on it and earn money, the average gamer is attracted to the game for what's called play to earn. This means players can do quests, play with friends, earn prizes, earn in game currency, buy and sell avatars or toys, attend concerts, events and much more. The perk though is they can sell these for actual cash, creating a play to earn incentive.
Players will earn an in game currency, for example $SAND is the currency of SandBox, it's currently worth around $2.80 per token at the time of this article. This currency is actually tradable to other currencies like Ether, which can then be traded to local currency and go into your bank account.
All players can earn this $SAND token just playing the game and trading goods they get in the game. You can also trade $SAND without ever touching the game as many do, crypto investors outside of gaming play these like stocks, it also adds liquidity between real cash and the in game currency.
Sandbox looks a bit like Roblox, which is a massively popular game, they are a publicly traded company and have around 200 million monthly players. When players learn they can earn money having fun with the same type of game, there may be a big shift over to games like SandBox.
Could you imagine paying rent just playing video games, well it's possible and has it has already been proven. Many of these play to earn games are big in counties like the Philippines, they can support their family playing these games if they came in early. One of the most popular play to earn games is Axie Infinity, a massively successful game. Seriously, you would be shocked how much some of these players make.
How can Virtual Land Be Monetized?
Virtual Land is considered an investment by those who understand web3, blockchain and gaming. While speculative, gaming is here to stay and is taking a transformative turn using blockchain. As we talked about before, all sorts of things can be built on these virtual plots. There are many ways to monetize virtual land and it's still a mystery what these major companies are building behind the scenes with their land.
These companies understand games have unique opportunities for exposure and advertising to younger generations. They are always looking for new ways to get youthful users acquainted with their brand. Likewise, for your average person, there are many creative ways for them to earn money on their land as well. You want players to come to your land for starts, anything from puzzles, shooting games, concerts, casinos and more will have players spending time and in game currency on your land. As the owner, you can earn passive income with this strategy.
In game currencies aren't worthless when it comes to this style of blockchain play to earn games. These in game currencies can be swapped for common crypto currencies like Bitcoin and Either, then swapped to cash and put in your bank. The games even go as far as something called staking, which basically means a user can put their virtual currency in the virtual bank to earn interest. Sometimes this interest can be as much as a 1000% return, much better than a bank and after a certain time frame these gains can be cashed out.
Blockchain & NFTs
In order to be involved in Virtual Land you would have to become well versed in Crypto Currencies and trading.
There isn't enough space in the article to go through the process of trading and learning about Crypto. We would suggest doing a lot of research before getting involved in crypto. When it comes to virtual land, getting acquainted with NFTs first and foremost is important before investing. You can learn more about NFT's from this article Here
A Warning: This is a very new space and great caution should be exercised before investing in Virtual Land. Crypto and especially NFT's are full of scams, there is a lot to learn to avoid scams before buying Crypto or NFTs. Some gaming projects can even cease to exist down the line causing you to lose your whole investment.
Top MetaVerse Games
- SandBox
- Decentraland
- NFT Worlds
- Big Time
- Worldwide Webb Land
- TreeVerse Plots
There are more games containing virtual land but these are quite popular now. Checking a platform like OpenSea can be a good way to find new and upcoming projects.
We understand this article isn't for everyone, especially your average real estate investor. We see normal raw land as a very stable investment but still find virtual land interesting. It's hard to tell where this whole MetaVerse will take us, it may be a fad, or the next big thing. Time will tell.
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