What is a metaverse? §

A metaverse is an online, digital world. Unlike other types of MMOs, a metaverse MMO is open-ended and allows for full immersion. Players can customize their own avatars and interact with other players through chat or by visiting their virtual home space. Residents of the metaverse can engage in many activities, including travel, working, shopping, attending events and exploring. As you can see, a metaverse is a kind of digital recreation of the actual world, but without its limitations. However, it can also get connected to the real one.

The current metaverse trend in gaming §

A metaverse as a concept isn’t something new, but currently it grows in popularity. Games like Fortnite, Roblox or even League of Legends are outstanding examples of games, which implement metaverse concepts to make themselves more appealing:

Example implementations: §

• Virtual concerts → Travis Scott, Marshmello

• Movie (preview) events → Star Wars, Avengers

• Collaborations with brands/games → God of War, Halo

• Game world changing (live) events → Fortnite seasons

• Game characters/elements entering the real world → K/DA

• Long-term social media events → Seraphine Twitter account

But why? §

You might ask yourself: But why is this important?

Adopting metaverse components makes a game much more than it would be without it. If Fortnite wasn’t building up a metaverse, it would be dead in the water already: Events like concerts or collaborations bring a lot of public attention and new players to the game. But even more importantly, it provides a feeling of “this matters” when playing the game. Playing feels like participating in something meaningful, this is what players nowadays crave more than anything else. Players like this, and the big investors do so, too: https://venturebeat.com/2021/04/13/epic-games-raises-1-billlion-to-fund-long-term-metaverse-plans/ (2 days ago)

How can Growtopia become a metaverse? §

Growtopia is the perfect fit for adopting metaverse components, arguably even better than Fortnite. The current Grow4Good event is a good step in the right direction: Collaborating with a brand (charity in this case) links Growtopia to the actual world and creates meaning. Here are some other suggestions:

Virtual concerts and movies §

Yes, I get it: Fortnite is more popular than Growtopia. But that doesn’t mean Growtopia can’t host a concert or a movie: They don’t have to get Travis Scott on board, a lesser known artist would do just fine for a start. What’s more important is that the concert is well implemented, using the strengths of Growtopia: Creative freedom, social interactions and community.

Example for a Growtopia concert: §

Event gets announced a few days earlier

Concert tickets:

• consumable, available in store for gems

• ticket use → teleport to a concert world (option to join a friend’s world, too)

**Concert world: **

• Stage with artist, new blocks and items (special set for artist)

• during the performance items are given to players

• maybe the artist even gives away his special set?

Collaborations §

The Rayman set (ignoring its op effect) was a cool idea back when Ubisoft just took over Growtopia. Integrating popular (Ubisoft) brands into Growtopia is a simple way to make players form a personal connection to the new items and therefore Growtopia.

Example collaborations: §

• Far Cry survival pack

• Rabbids set

• Official Avengers items

• Batman set

• Gucci Sandals (lol)

LIVE events §

The Growtopia live stream is pretty cool, but it’s not a real live event. A live event could be a concert (as mentioned earlier), something like the Grow4Good event or a huge evil npc, who has to be fought by all Growtopians (idk just came to my mind). The key aspects are that it is LIVE and announced earlier so players can prepare. These events will create huge hype in the community and large amounts of social media interactions (Live streams, videos, etc.). A live event can be held as a game-world-changing event, combining two metaverse concepts into one:

Example live event: §

Before the event:

• announced a week in advance

• Weather changes a few hours before the event starts

On event start:

• two colossal figures appear on the event weather

• they fight, crazy stuff happens

• (world changes, e.g. toxic waste spawning in every world with players)

After event ends:

• all players who watched get some items (can be recipe ingredients etc.)

• cliff hanger for next live event?

Long-term social media events §

Since Ubisoft took over, social media events have become much more frequent, which is great (gj community managers!). The type of social media event I am talking about, however, is the next big step. It is about creating new personas, who players can interact with whenever they are not playing the game itself.

Example: §

Dr. Destructo

• New social media account(s) only made for him

• Occasionally get’s featured on the official channels so players know it’s an official account

• Makes posts/clips of doing various things in-game or elsewhere

• posts his opinions

• heavily interacts with the community on social media

Goal:

• build up a persona out of the game over weeks (or months)

• should feel like an actual person, although he’s just a Growtopian npc

Why:

• more Growtopia social media presence

• players can interact with Growtopia even if they are not in-game

• makes Growtopia content “real”

• future live event or in-game featuring the character (players will be very hyped)

• example: League of Legends Seraphine Twitter account (https://twitter.com/seradotwav)

Conclusion §

These are just a few examples for how to expand Growtopia to become a metaverse. Possible issues could be technical limitations as well as different, conflicting plans for the future, which can not be changed. Thanks for reading this wall of text, if you have further ideas please post them down below. This is just the tip of the iceberg, the goal of this post is to make players and more importantly the Ubisoft team aware of this trend and possibly inspire them to shift the direction of Growtopia into this new, very promising direction. Maybe I will also make a video on this on my YouTube channel GenieYT.