Nike has just presented its new platform with the name Swoosh in which it plans to sell virtual clothing and shoes of the brand to be used in the Metaverse.
At the end of 2021, Nike left us a small starter of what it wants to achieve little by little in the direction of the metaverse. He announced the acquisition of RTFKT Studios, a company that in his own words “harnesses cutting-edge innovation to deliver next-generation collectibles that meld culture and gaming”. And they do it with NFTs which have already allowed them to earn a lot of money.
Well, now the novelty comes in the form of a new platform by Nike: Swoosh. And it is that, the sports giant is developing a Web3-independent strategy designed to appeal to traditional fans of the brand.
The platform will be a place for people to buy, display and trade virtual products, unlock access to events and products, and co-create products if they wish for future use in the Metaverse. At the moment, we are talking about a beta version, which the user will be able to join at the end of November.
“For example, a shoe virtual it can allow its holders to pre-order its physical counterpart, enable chats with shoe designers via tokens, or unlock the ability to wear it in a favorite game. We don’t see that product virtual as the end of the buying journey, but rather as the beginning of the journey”explains Ron Faris, vice president of Nike Virtual Studios.
Thanks to Rtfkt’s NFT sales, and with it the Web3 native company’s NFT collections before the acquisition, Nike has already earned at least $185.3 million in product revenue from Web3and is in the lead compared to its competitors Adidas, which has earned 11 million dollars.
“We are not going to sell anything right away. We are going to take our time to educate. The challenge is knowing how to respect the principles of Web3 without alienating a large audience or becoming inaccessible”Faris explains.
Web3: a new world based on speculation?
When it comes to Nike and many other companies, it seems that any specific object in any game or environment Web3 is only rare or unique because the creators of the game they arbitrarily decided to make it weird. The objects are not tied to a technology, like bitcoin.
However, We all know that there could be an unlimited amount of those items and that’s what players or buyers should know. Currently, these companies create artificial scarcity for no real reason as a way to attract new players and certainly not a good image of Web3.
How could we solve this? Well, like Freeverse does, for example. This world is focused on making NFTs that can change over time, which gives them more utility than what we have seen so far.
And it is that, one argument is that these objects, instead of being artificially limited like Nike shoes, should be unique. They should be improved and evolved through the player’s actions in the Metaverse. By evolving based on the player’s actions, each item becomes unique and therefore valuable.
