Cartoon: Virtually challenged
“Virtually challenged” by Iantoons
This new cartoon illustrates the opportunities and pitfalls of building in the metaverse.
The term ‘metaverse’ originated in a science fiction novel and is known as the virtual reality space where users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.
There have been many false dawns for this technology. Perhaps the most recent one was Facebook renaming itself “Meta” and seeing a more than $200 billion drop in value after a poor earnings result (representing the largest drop in value in US stock market history).
In the adult world, attempts at creating virtual worlds have fizzled out (e.g. SecondLife and Hopin) as consumers coming out of Covid want more in-person events (e.g. Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour), but in the world of kids and games, the market is really booming. For example, the virtual world of Roblox, which has 70 million daily active users, of which 75% are under 25, made $800 million in Q1 2024.
Recent market research found that 75% of Roblox users are more likely to notice brands advertising in the Roblox metaverse compared to other platforms. IKEA has jumped on this bandwagon and is now launching ‘The Co-worker Game’ on Roblox, which lets players experience working in a virtual IKEA store.
You can find more Iantoons cartoons here.
