Entering the MetaVerse
It's difficult to stay current in today's technology without paying some attention to the virtual world. It remains to be seen if NFTs and digital art will have any longevity as far as value and investment is concerned. What I have noticed is that the fundamental core of any product driven business continues to be the successful efforts of community building. The rise of overnight social media stars tends to paint a false narrative of realistic expectations. Any good business model should focus on identifying a core audience of consumers, then finding a way to not only engage these consumers, but to create a sense of community based on similar interests and experiences. This should be followed by a strategy to convert this interest into a revenue generating situation.
Social media platforms are the simplest way to connect with an audience. An artist can speak to the consumers long before a record label comes into the picture. The challenge now is how to use online communities to your advantage. Fortnite has done an incredible job paving the way by hosting virtual concerts inside its world of millions of users. If your audience lives predominately in a virtual world of gaming, how do you reach them. How do you take your “real” artist persona and make it virtual. We have just begun to explore all its possibilities, but it's clear this is an avenue that cannot be ignored.
We started to experiment with some possibilities. We put Rey Sparta in a 3D augmented reality, and recorded a particular song of his. Then we were able to essentially place this 3D render into any environment we chose. Below is an example of us experimenting. This was done in very little time, using equipment available to anyone, to show us what all could and could not be done.
3D tracking of Rey Sparta
Another creative experiment we tried was putting one of Rey Sparta's songs into an Oculus VR headset game called Beat Sabre. The game is probably best described as a guitar hero type simulation, where you use your controllers to hit moving objects to the beat of a particular song. You physically have to program the entire song to play the game, but when finished you get to play your own song, which would be the record we were currently promoting at the time. How many new artists do you know that have their song in a playable video game.
The beauty of this technology is that it is still in the early phases and there really is no roadmap of how to utilize it in a consistent revenue generating fashion. It is, however, a platform that should not be overlooked when strategizing new ways to reach a particular audience and engage accordingly. I will continue to share our journey through the VR world.