FIFA Hopes World Cup Fans Want To Buy Metaverse Merch (bloomberg.com) 43
In the real world, the construction of the World Cup infrastructure in Qatar has been marred by extreme temperatures and migrant worker deaths. In the metaverse, however, a digital replica of Lusail Stadium in Doha has none of that baggage -- and the virtual property can be raffled off as a prize for a lucky soccer fan. From a report: FIFA's virtual universe is part of the soccer organization's penchant for embracing the latest tech buzzword. In 2010, some matches were broadcast in 3-D. In 2018, it offered a virtual-reality experience. Now it's the metaverse.
While some superfans may fly to Qatar and shell out for a ticket to cheer alongside 80,000 other people during a game, metaverse-inclined fans can head to a virtual airport, wait several hours while they "fly" to Doha, visit a digital version of the stadium and enter nearby shops in the FIFA World Cup-branded village to buy digital merchandise such as scarves and flags, which they can later use to adorn their virtual houses to express their team spirit. That digital journey is thanks to Upland, a metaverse platform based in Mountain View, California, which is partnering with FIFA to provide a blockchain-based metaverse experience during the tournament. Upland isn't FIFA's only partner to provide immersive soccer-themed digital environments tied to the World Cup, which begins Nov. 20 and is the most-watched athletic event across the globe. Roblox has also built out a technicolor world where fans can play a game that's a mix of soccer and bowling.
While some superfans may fly to Qatar and shell out for a ticket to cheer alongside 80,000 other people during a game, metaverse-inclined fans can head to a virtual airport, wait several hours while they "fly" to Doha, visit a digital version of the stadium and enter nearby shops in the FIFA World Cup-branded village to buy digital merchandise such as scarves and flags, which they can later use to adorn their virtual houses to express their team spirit. That digital journey is thanks to Upland, a metaverse platform based in Mountain View, California, which is partnering with FIFA to provide a blockchain-based metaverse experience during the tournament. Upland isn't FIFA's only partner to provide immersive soccer-themed digital environments tied to the World Cup, which begins Nov. 20 and is the most-watched athletic event across the globe. Roblox has also built out a technicolor world where fans can play a game that's a mix of soccer and bowling.
Wow, just wow (Score:1)
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Wow, tell us more about you, and how much you don't care!
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If the spectators go virtual, how will they get trampled?
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How can you not know what it is, every World Cup news item is some spectator ....
Never read a sports page or site and its easy, I don't follow sports, sometimes I make fun of it with friends. Mostly its the announcers droning on and on about minuatea that leaves me barfing, gotta trun off the sound to watch.
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I've never really ever come across a "World Cut" news item before in my daily life.
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I'm a pretty religious reader of Slashdot and I honestly do not recall seeing any of those linked articles.
I don't generally read on the weekends...perhaps they were published on the weekends mostly?
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How detached from reality are those directives to believe people are doing that?
Well, if you're motivated to watch a bunch of millionaire rapists kick a ball around a field for a couple of hours and pay for the privilege then you might want to do it in 3D; who knows?
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another bloomberg link? (Score:4, Informative)
Show of hands, who trusts these incompetent dildos to run javascript on your PC?
here is an article that is better in every way [theguardian.com], judging by the first two paragraphs of the bloomberg shitshow anyway
heh heh (Score:3)
I like this story [kotaku.com] even more, subtitled What losing EA's blockbuster series does to a motherfucker
In the metaverse it has none of that baggage (Score:2)
I wonder if its reception had been better had they advertised KZ Manager with that tagline in the 90s.
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No baggage in metaverse? I think the body count announced earlier today was 11,000
I will USA with real money at +15000 (Score:2)
I will USA with real money at +15000
I would have to use that to start (Score:2)
That's an interesting challenge... (Score:3, Funny)
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Sounds like a sequel to the horror video game, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" titled "I have no Legs, and I Must Play Soccer"
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Sounds like a sequel to the horror video game, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" titled "I have no Legs, and I Must Play Soccer"
I had forgotten they made a game of that (great) story. Was it any good?
I nearly choked on my coffee... (Score:5, Insightful)
...when I read:
"digital merchandise such as scarves and flags, [...] to adorn their virtual houses to express their team spirit.",
"blockchain-based metaverse experience",
"immersive soccer-themed digital environments"...
Are the people that come up with this shit even real?
Re:I nearly choked on my coffee... (Score:4, Interesting)
Are the people that come up with this shit even real?
Yes. Unfortunately not only are these people real, but so are the idiots who will spend money on it.
Fortunately though when you combine a pool of idiots with a niche the damage is limited. It's quite easy to convince a horde of morons to buy an NFT. It's quite another to get them to buy a VR headset, join the Metaverse, and then sell them an NFT they can only use within the Metaverse.
I don't see this going anywhere, despite the number of idiots in the world.
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It's not right to give FIFA any business anyway. Qatar should never have been given the World Cup in the first place, between their exploitation of foreign labour and barbaric, outdated attitudes towards LGBTQ people.
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Agree, but you focus too much on Qatar. FIFA has been corrupt for a long time. Be it receiving $10m in cash in a suitcase in an expensive hotel room from South Africa, or the 14 people from FIFA who were indicted by the FBI on corruption charges in 2015, or the FIFA president being elected in a landslide despite allegations of corruption against him in 2008...
At this point being corrupt and having a history of accepting bribes is the minimum job requirements in the FIFA presidential resume. But you have to
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What mattered was simply that Qatar paid the highest kickbacks.
Black Desert (Score:2)
If something this egregious is successful, then FIFA has a shot.
https://www.shamusyoung.com/tw... [shamusyoung.com]
I see all the default clothes are bland and I need to pay real money for a cool outfit. Aesthetics are important to me. (Which is why I spend so much time on sculpting my character.) So I really don’t want to spend the rest of my time looking at these blando outfits. Sigh. Fine. What’s a pretend suit of armor cost these days? Three bucks? Five bucks?
FORTY SIX AMERICAN DOLLARS? ARE YOU TRYING TO START A FIGHT?
The cheap outfits can be had for $22. They also offer ladies underwear sets for just $7, if you want to run around in your underpants. (I don’t, thanks.)
(They also offer similar options for male characters. I was tempted to get the outfit that would let my kung-fu guy go shirtless, because he’s a kung-fu dude. But all of the choices looked like modern-day boxers. You can’t just wear baggy pants with no shirt.)
Would you like to dye that super-expensive outfit you just bought? Or any other outfit? That will set you back another $10. And that’s somehow a rental. Your ten bucks gets you a month of being allowed to have dyed clothes. After the month is up, your clothes revert to their original colors and you gotta fork over another $10.
Do you enjoy wheeling and dealing at the auction house in other games, but the egregious 35% tax on all your sales is making it impossible for you to have fun or turn a profit? Pay fifteen real-world dollars and the tax will go down to the normal 5%. (For one month.)
Everything is exorbitantly priced like this. It’s so outrageously expensive that I get immediately pissed off. It’s not even about the money, it’s about the sheer audacity of the seller to ask this much[2] for what should be trivial virtual goods. Even if you’re a millionaire, you’re still likely to get offended if someone tries to sell you a stick of ordinary gum for five bucks.
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They're fully buzzword-compliant at least.
Soccer in the Metaverse? (Score:3)
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This isn't the Meta(tm)verse, this is Roblox, avatars have legs there.
On the other hand, the game delivered isn't even footy, it's bowling with a soccer-textured ball. So you don't need legs anyway.
On the gripping hand, it's all crap, and Roblox is for kids. So it's all kiddie crap.
I gotta "fly"?! (Score:3)
metaverse-inclined fans can head to a virtual airport, wait several hours while they "fly" to Doha,
Are they serious, they want me to sit in my chair at home with a VR headset on while sitting in a virtual chair for several hours so I can virtual fly to the virtual venue and buy virtual crap to wave around virtually at a game while I sit in my virtual house to watch on my virtual tv?
I get setting up a long mission in KSP and letting in run in the background, the background music is unobtrusive enough to fill the dead air space and helps me focus, but this is insane - and they expect me to pay for the "experience". Who the hell looks at stuff like this and thinks "Oh, that'll be fun for the end user and make us a crap tonne of money!"
Doomed (Score:3)
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I could see some redemption if people laugh this out of the internet and turn the whole crap into a huge meme to crack jokes over rather than taking this bullshit serious.
It has to be said.... (Score:3)
FIFA is the worst.
That could be what's needed for the metaverse (Score:2)
To end it, I mean.
I dare say that the intersection between soccer fans, VR enthusiasts and people willing, able and stupid enough to blow money on imaginary property is fairly small. Small enough that they probably will even have a hard time raffling off that stadium.