Walmart and Unity have teamed up to offer a real-world purchase API for Unity developers that delivers real shopping and purchase opportunities in game.
While all the previous ‘virtual goods’ and metaverse chat has been about persuading customers that virtual sneakers DO have value AND there are enough users in the metaverse to notice how cool you look wearing them, Walmart and Unity’s concept rather flips this on its head, delivering far more tangible and easy to parse reasons to care.
Now app makers can feature real-world, Wallmart-available products within their games and apps and have them clickable, purchasable and deliverable in real life, with both the app maker and Walmart (of course) getting their cut of cash which seamlessly slips from wallets.
The new API makes it easy to link in-game intent with Walmart’s product inventory, online store, back end and delivery capability. All the developer has to do is make those in-game items look as enticing as possible…
It’s not difficult therefore to envisage in-game characters wearing genuine branded clothing – “nice hat, I’ll take it” – or for clothing lines to produce lines that meticulously ape the outfits being worn by characters in-game. And why stop at clothing? Phones, home tech, kitchen appliances, lamps, decorations, paintings and more – if you like how it looks in the game, think how great it’ll look round at your place.
Play to pay
Playing and purchasing sit side by side and best of all the transaction is done seamlessly in the game without breaking the flow or sending the user to a boring old marketplace app, so their next exclusive purchase opportunity is only ever a few taps away.
“We have an opportunity to connect the physical and digital realms in a way that only Walmart can, meeting our customers and members with authentic experiences where they already are,” said Tom Kang, vice president and general manager, metaverse commerce, at Walmart. “By opening up Walmart’s commerce APIs to the Unity development community, we’re empowering developers to offer a new mechanism to further drive user engagement while making it easy and convenient for players to complete a transaction for physical products without leaving the game, virtual world or app.”
While Marc Whitten, president, Create at Unity said, “This announcement paves the way for new innovation in commerce for games and other virtual experiences. We’re excited to be able to give Unity developers the option of another new revenue stream while keeping players within their games and experiences.”
A Monopoly GO! top hat and Stumble Guys cowprint onesie? Where do I tap?
