The latest venture by the iconic footwear brand, Nike, is a metaverse play called Swoosh, a Web3-enabled platform where customers can purchase the company’s virtual products. It is essentially a marketplace, which makes sense given that commerce will continue to rule both the anticipated future internet and the current one.
For registered members, Swoosh will be an experimental digital space on the “.nike” domain. It is currently in beta, and joining registration starts on November 18.
The platform’s initial emphasis will be on fostering community, giving users challenges to gauge their preferences. The company’s first virtual line of footwear, clothing and accessories will debut on Swoosh in January 2023 and be influenced by interactive voting and other processes. Following that, members can acquire and exchange these virtual products. The platform will not use cryptocurrency but cash (USD), though all transactions will be recorded on the Polygon chain.
Virtual apparel from brands is nothing new, but Nike hinted that Swoosh’s community challenges would expand the following year to include competitions where participants could win the chance to co-design virtual Nike products with the brand’s designers and receive a percentage of royalties.
Nike states that its domain exists to “ensure it is a safe, trusted space” where members can collect virtual creations, “such as virtual shoes or jerseys.”
The brand’s goal is for the digital products released on Swoosh to become wearable on and off the platform, even though there won’t be any avatars at launch.
It goes without saying that since Nike acquired the NFT studio RTFKT in December 2021, the transfer of ‘co-designed’ virtual clothing to the platform is hardly astounding. There are no additional specifics regarding how Swoosh items will work with other platforms or metaverses.
Additionally, users can purchase and wear virtual goods in Nikeland, a Nike metaverse space on Roblox, using in-game currency rather than real money or cryptocurrency. According to Roblox, the branded virtual world, introduced in November 2021, has welcomed over 26 million visitors.
Nike may build its own virtual world by releasing Swoosh, eliminating the need for external platforms. Swoosh and Nikeland might merge, but interoperability will undoubtedly need to take center stage for that to work.
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