Gaming to Metaverse: The Future of 3D in Apparel | Epic Games, Unity Technologies | PI Apparel

Thanks for joining us here at this session. We'll be covering basically the topic of gaming and fashion, how they interact, how they collide, what's to learn from that process, and what's to come. We've got some amazing people here that can really answer a lot of the questions that you guys might have. This will be a much more casual chat, if you will. So please feel free to contribute and participate in this so it's not just us talking about stuff. I'll maybe let every person introduce themselves and the company they're from. But yeah, we'll start there.

Hey, y'all.

So my name is Cam.

I'm a senior solutions engineer for Unity, focusing more on technical art, 3D photogrammetry, things like that.

Hey, I'm Jameson Tilsner. I run business development for Sketchfab, which is now part of Epic Games.

Hi, I'm Erica Young. I do partnerships for Sketchfab and Epic Games.

Jen McCabe. I'm a senior client partner at Unity, so I manage a lot of our relationships on the retail side of the house.

Liz Perkis, and I am the head of client partners at Unity.

Hi, I'm Bollarm Galen. I'm assistant teaching professor at Northeastern University. I teach in the areas of blockchain technology, wearable computing, and XR. Awesome.

And I'm Ehsan Malkhosh, founder and CEO of Swatchbook. We specialize in digitized material platform. Oh, and then Tim is in the audience.

He's— I'm Tim Dublin, Senior Program Manager at Unity Technologies. And I'm going to be taking your questions today. So just throw your hands up. I'll run to you. Try not to trip.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So to get this started, as a lot of you go through these panels and these discussions regarding digitization, 3D assets, exploration, visualization, XR, VR, AR, all these lovely terms that you guys are hearing, a lot of it is still within the product development part of the process. As we move forward to engage in other realms where we interact with the consumers, obviously gaming comes to mind. It's a pretty core part of that. We're starting to see a lot of the brands show up in different games, show up in different ways, and interact with their consumers, not so much just about the products, but the experience that we're providing. I'd like to start off with the panel, maybe we'll start with Unity first, kind of talking about, I don't know which person is gonna be answering the question, but what are you guys seeing from your perspective in terms of, engagement with the brands? And then how are you, I guess, translating that to engagement with the consumers from your perspective on that platform?

[SPEAKING CHINESE] I think when we start with the brands and the engagement, I think it's— I don't know who said it in the last session, but it's very similar where they want to find a fit, but they don't know where they fit today. And the one thing that comes up is the metaverse. Where do you guys want to be within the metaverse? And where do you fit today? And how can a gaming engine help you get there? So that's one of the things that we see. And then really the consumer and brand is really having that engagement, might it be in-store or online, and how can we enhance that?

You guys want to add anything? Yeah, I would say our experience is similar. I would just note that I'm struck by the sort of diversity of uses of 3D among brands. And every day we hear a different idea that sort of comes from a different point of the process, be it e-commerce or marketing or creation.

Awesome.

Go ahead, Derek.

I just want to add that I actually come from fashion and then entered tech. And I don't know about you guys, but when I hear gaming, I'm like, what? What am I going to do with that? What I would say is I would see gaming as an umbrella term for how you can use 3D assets in innovative ways. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of a sudden someone's going to be wearing your dress and fighting bad guys. It could mean—

They might.

They might.

It could end up there, sure. But it could be something really simple. It could be a really innovative way a customer interacts with their— your garment on your e-com site. So, you know, it's not scary. You can start really small. And there's really quick, easy ways of utilizing gaming tech to really create really amazing immersive experiences for your customers.

I'll just piggyback off that real quick because I think that's perfect. Is anything that you like about gaming, like when you guys get into a game and it's a multiplayer environment, think of that and taking it to the business and having that cross collaboration across different points of that business. And that's really where that technology comes from. And so taking yourself outside of the game and how you can use the system.

That's a great point. So you're basically separating the technology and then what that technology originally was based for, which was for games. Now it's used for visualization in general. And we saw, I think, Pixel Pool before just talking about their experience in using the Unreal Engine, for example, for their showrooms and that technology. For product presentation. And it goes beyond that. And you mentioned also the metaverse, which I'm sure you've probably heard that word a million times so far in the last year. Anybody would like to take a stab at explaining what the metaverse is? Why is it different than what we have today? And where is it going? And how long do you guys all have today? Just an FYI.

So I'll say one thing that I thought was fascinating because I think everybody has their own idea of the metaverse, and it's still this this thing that everyone's figuring out. But JR, our CEO, was on a talk a week or two ago, and I thought he said something that was pretty pertinent that a lot of folks are not thinking about, which is avatars are a way of the future. They're absolutely necessary in many situations, but there's an important amount of stress that we need to put on. You shouldn't just insert an avatar because it's the new coolest emerging tech.

It needs to make sense. And in certain situations, adding a 3D environment or some type of metaverse mechanic may slow down the end user, which if it takes an extra 2 minutes to check out and buy a book, they're going to stop. And all of a sudden, you've counteracted what you intended to do by making it a lot more interesting and cool.

So it doesn't quite answer the question, but I think it's something that is not being talked about too much right now.

Yeah, and I think I actually interviewed some kids recently and asked them what they thought the metaverse was. And they're like, well, it's here, right? Because it's just the internet, but more immersive. And I'm not sure that they used the word immersive. But they said, it's here. Like, we play Roblox, and it's— we play Fortnite. We play whatever. And he said, when I create an avatar, that's my expression of who I am in that world. So it's really just like internet 3.0, right? It's where we're getting. It is here. And I think the way consumers consume, the way we design, it's just shifting from 2D to 3D. It's here, and it's only going to grow. Consumers are going to demand more immersive experiences. They're going to want these experiences from their homes. I think COVID really escalated where we're at with that and our understanding of not everything's going to be in-store. We can certainly create in-store experiences that are more immersive, more engaging, assistance. If I have a food allergy and I'm in a Walmart, for example, I could pick up something and look and see, is this safe for me to consume? Or, oh, you're interested in this product, maybe also this product. So there's so many applications, but it's going to be this combination of AR, VR, online. So it's here today, and I think it's only going to grow.

That's awesome. Anybody else to add?

Yeah, just to add to that conversation about avatars, I think you've highlighted this interesting point that avatars are a medium through which you embody specific experiences and specific personas. If you approach it really as an experience design or interaction design opportunity and building these narrative constructs and design ways for the users to interact with things in ways that's not possible in the physical world? Could you be flying around? Could you have a— I think a very popular example is like a dress on fire and how would that feel? How would that embody? So those are really interesting questions to ask. And so without an avatar, it becomes impossible to have those experiences.

Interesting. I mean, I do find it interesting that at least my kids will spend more time customizing the avatar than actually playing any game. And they're just swatch— you know, switching it every day. But also, to that point, we're almost kind of like in this process of building whatever the metaverse is for the next generation, not just what we have. And their understanding of how all this works is completely different. But so that we don't continue just answering our own questions, any questions from the audience about gaming, gaming technology, fashion, metaverse, anything that ties into kind of the processes that you guys are seeing here and how that all blends in together. Any thoughts, questions? I need more engagement from the audience.

I'm just going to start pointing soon.

Yes, Tim, by the way, he will go and just say this person, that person, or just blur out a name and see if somebody's here. There you go. You already scared somebody.

Well, this begs the question, when do we know when we have arrived at metaverse? And when is it defined? Or is that the point?

We don't know. I'm just the moderator, so you guys are going to be answering this.

I think it's going to be an evolution, right? I mean, think about— I was in high school when I remember learning how to use Yahoo in the library. And look how far that has come. Now I carry the internet in my pocket. And if I want to know something, I just pull out my phone and look it up. I think the metaverse is going to be like that. It's going to be iterative. It's going to expand. I think what's really cool is that we have the opportunity to define it and create these communities. I think one thing that I think is super important is as we're building it, let's put rules in place for engagement, for safety, for consent so there's not bullying. So many topics to think about as brands get into the metaverse. It's if I buy a Nike, do I get a digital code so that I can put that on my avatar? What is that avatar world going to look like? Are we going to share? I go to a virtual shopping mall. And I can take my avatar to every space, or am I going to have a different avatar in each space? There's so much that we don't know yet that we're just uncovering. I think the potential here is limitless, really. But it's cool that we're at the foundation, and there's so many use cases for apparel. And I think when Unity started out, we were a gaming engine, and then other people were buying our tech, and we didn't get why. What are they doing with this? And so now we have this whole other division that's for these business use cases. And it's just the possibilities with 3D are just really limitless. And we're really excited, especially in the apparel industry, to partner and figure out because we don't speak your language yet. So we're learning. Well, Tim does, but we're learning and we want to understand and grow. And I think we're never going to reach an endpoint. It's just going to be building on itself and really an evolution.

Anyone else to add?

Yeah, I would say it's here already, but it's not a thing that kind of stays the same way forever. It's always evolving. So how do you just kind of, you know, make— grab that opportunity and make a great use case out of it?

And it's going to be led by the consumer at the end of the day. And I mean, our number one goal is how do we interact with that end consumer? And that's ever-changing. And so what gaming technology allows you to do is be a couple of years ahead of that. Because you look at the games that we built today, and we— our strength came from, from mobile games, where their strength came from, from Fortnite and Epic and everything that they were able to build. But they were ahead of their times when they developed them.

I think one last thing to add to that on the metaverse is a part of what we imagine it is the whole AR goggle aspect of it. So the hardware is also a big part of that. And in this case, we're still kind of all waiting, like, what's Google/Facebook/Apple going to come up with? Based on all the rumors and articles and whatever they're working on to get that immersive aspect. Because right now we have, like everybody said, the metaverse is here if that device that you're talking about is your phone or tablet or computer. And certainly there's a subset of that community that is working with, you know, VR goggles and things, but it's much more developmental, it's much more technical. But it's like, when will the consumer have that in their household? When is it going to be— it's wireless, it's high resolution, I can see the fidelity of the data. To be high enough where I can make a purchase decision, and it's not just about buying it for my avatar, but buying it for real. I think that's going to become probably a huge stepping stone in the same way that mobile gaming and things like that happened when the smartphones arrived versus kind of the older phones, the Nokias and the Ericssons and things like that.

Jatson, we got a question. Where are you? Over here, hiding out.

I can't see.

In the audience.

Yes.

Hey, I'm Elena from PVH. I was hiding. I'm sorry. My question is, so I think we've all heard about these companies going into the metaverse and snatching up all this real estate and getting in there first and then hoping the consumer follows. And you're touching on this. But I'm curious from an apparel point of view, what is the analog? What is the in for apparel? Because there is no asset there to snatch up and then try to piecemeal out. How do we bring people? To the apparel? How do we position ourselves in the metaverse so that they even know that we're there to look for us?

I mean, I can touch on this. I think where apparel is going to come in is really there— yes, people are snatching up real estate and stuff like that. But I think we're also going to start having virtual malls. We're going to start having a whole virtual community. And that's where it's going to be important for apparel to get in front of it. And so you're there. And so it's almost the bigger box retailers that might already have some real estate in there. Where does your brand fall within that? And then how do we grow it from there?

I mean, I would just add to that that you have the ability to snag the real estate. I mean, I think this gets into the question of like NFTs and how do we work in this space. But it's just, I think, starting with— just maybe a digital line for Roblox or Fortnite, or maybe it's a code or— I think again, it's sort of we're figuring out what this is going to look like. And I think what you don't want is there's companies that have been working on this for years already. I think we're going to start to see like K-marts and Blockbusters where the people that don't invest now do get left behind as consumers expect these experiences. So I think if you're not thinking about it, start thinking about it. That would be my advice just because it's going to be— as business moves forward down this path, you don't want to be the one that didn't invest in this technology.

Excuse me. I agree. I think that the real estate analogy is a bit lacking. I understand this rush to invest, and I think it's important. But I would think about it much more in terms of the building blocks to getting your product into this 3D real-time environment. Then aligning that product or that brand to communities that already exist, that will have an affinity or where you can make an impact. I guess I'm somewhat questioning of this idea that building your own corner of the metaverse, as it were, should be forefront in a strategy. Sure, that can be a component of it, but finding consumers where they naturally hang out, I think makes more sense personally.

I saw a graph the other day and it was talking about where brands are allocating their advertising, you know, budget. And, you know, TV was kind of down here, magazines, newspapers, everything was about the internet. And I think it's a natural progression for us to think about ways of capturing our customer via the internet. And so what's next? You know, 3D is an amazing tool to, you know, have or allow a customer to interact directly with that, you know, product online. And so obviously, there's going to be more and more money put towards finding ways of utilizing 3D to create these really interesting ways of capturing your customer via the web. But to go back to that other question about the metaverse, what the metaverse is, for me, I think it's just an idea. You ask one person what the metaverse is, they say one thing. You ask another person what the metaverse is, they say another thing. What I think it is, is a time when we start associating ourselves with a digital representation of ourself, purely that. And that could look and mean so many things to so many people. And we're all right, you know, like if it's us as a Roblox character, that's the metaverse. If it's, us putting, doing virtual try-on and seeing what a digital dress looks like on us. That's also the metaverse. NFTs are also the metaverse. It's that association with your digital self. So a lot of people are going to explore that in many different ways. And do you want to be those people who allocated your advertising dollars to the newspapers and magazines down there?

No.

You want to, you know, start exploring all those new creative ways that everyone else is exploring, you know? So how you apply 3D, what metaverse means to you, you can, you know, carve out your own way of, you know, making it work for your brand. But, you know, why not?

It's a customizable experience, really. I mean, you think of what consumers like to do. They want to customize their shoes, their jackets, their everything. The metaverse is going to allow you to do that.

I'll also say, just to speak on what Jameson was talking about earlier with virtual real estate and there being kind of an inherent risk, is that something that everyone in this room can work on is the standardization of practices. And if there are 19 different large purveyors of virtual real estate, 18 of those are probably not going to win. And if you've put your money into those pieces of virtual real estate, it's going to be a rough time for your marketing budgets and dollars the following year in justifying why the money went away. So I think that's a part of what we can all be doing together is coming up with standards and saying, if there's going to be a virtual environment, we're all going to participate in this one. And that's why— and we're not moving because that's going to cannibalize our own businesses and each other. So that's something to keep in mind.

Yeah, and I just want to add to the conversation about how fashion can enter this space, right? I think it's helpful to try to define redefine what fashion is, what value fashion provides. And often, when we think of fashion, we think of physical products, right? And that's where I think we get stuck, that we have to kind of try to sell a product. And this time, it's a digital product. But fashion goes beyond just a product. And it's about individual identity as well as social identity. It's about relationships. It's about culture. So how can you leverage these things and sort of think beyond the very specific experience one has with a product. But in the long term, what type of relationships are your customers building with the brand, but also with each other? What kind of communities are being created? And those things will also contribute to how loyal, for example, a customer is to a brand, or beyond that initial interaction, what happens afterwards. So I think looking at fashion broadly and not necessarily thinking of that tactile experience or the product-oriented experience would be helpful, I think.

Just to add on to that, I think it's interesting that you bring up the real estate base because the metaverse, it's a thing. Maybe it's not a thing. It's coming. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's here. Maybe it's been here. But if you think about people buying up the real estate no matter what, we can commonly agree that the metaverse is still a space populated by people. And we are the real estate you can't buy up. So how is that important to fashion? And why does it make a difference now? You know, in the physical world, there's a lot of things that connotate who we are that are outside of what we wear each day. And we have a lot of cues that we can give to each other, things we can do and experience in the world. Some people flew here. Some people took a car. Some people rode their bike. That's all an expression of who they are. Of you. In the metaverse, that's a teleport. That's just clicking a button. The only thing, if you look at the hierarchy of needs, that is really going to distinguish yourself, your representation of who you are, your community, the expression of your brands, is going to be what people wear. And that's the intersection of fashion. That's why we're all super curious to be on the stage, talk to you guys, figure out what's important to you in that space, because the consumer is already making that connection at a very young age. Eric and I were speaking earlier about— the data on where's the money really going in gaming when people buy add-ons, buy into games. It could be in things that enhance your game experience, but they're actually spending way more money in things that create identity within the game—skins, different things to identify yourself. And that's the future that's coming at us now. So that's what's important to fashion in this room. And it's also the real estate that can't be bought.

I just want to say one quick thing.

I think you guys could relate to this, but I change my hair a lot. And whenever I change my hair, I change my emoji on my iPhone to match it. Because it's like somehow that matters. And so when I laugh, it's like in my new hairstyle. So— It's a real-world use case.

All right, so we've got a question here. Got some— we've got one. You keep moving, man.

I can't track you anymore.

Thanks for the conversation, guys. I'm Charlie. I work at Nike. The question that pops into my mind is, especially working for a company like Nike, has there been much consideration about how, especially when it comes to fashion, brands might grapple with the authenticity of their brands when it comes to something that's completely digital? A lot of companies are very performance-based. But creating a digital asset for someone to run around on an avatar, there's no performance aspect of it. There's no quality of construction of materials. All that consideration that goes into a premium product gets turned into a low-poly model that gets run around in. Granted, I could buy a product and wear it 10 years from now. That model 10 years from now, technology will have advanced so much that it's not a low-poly model anymore. So even the continuation of that asset, does it get up-resed along the way? I guess that's a sidebar to my main point about the authenticity and the grappling of premium construction and actual physical products versus a digital, lightweight digital version of that?

Very interesting question. So again, I think part of this goes back to the fact that a lot of things we know about fashion is physical. And we associate the craftsmanship that we see in the real world with the things that we see in the digital world. And we're looking for these things. But I think after some time, it'll become easier for us to sort of disconnect the two. Because I think, you know, eventually what will happen is we'll begin to define craftsmanship, define luxury in completely different ways. And we're no longer looking for these sort of imperfect, you know, stitching line or like old— worn leather or that texture. And there'll be new ways I think we will begin to understand luxury or begin to understand craftsmanship in XR. And that's the really exciting area, I think. We can define that. And there's—

I mean, yeah, I agree. And I think that that is a very important consideration that that for the most part we haven't given enough attention. But I also, I don't really want to live in a world where I can't buy physical Nikes. And so I don't know, I feel like we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves talking about, you know, craftsmanship in a purely digital world. I think that this world that we're envisioning of the metaverse hopefully coincides with, you know, physical meeting wearing actual Nikes? Well, it's maybe a combination of both, right?

Just like everything else, it's that experience you're looking for. You don't— maybe you don't like that, or maybe that's not what you're looking for, and somebody else might be. All I'm looking for is Nike levitating shoes with rocket boosters add-ons. If you can do that, that's going to get us going. But I mean, that's the craftsmanship, right? I think Nike, or any other brand, it's the continuation of that— what makes them different, right? There are multiple companies that make shoes. What makes Nike stand out for what they do? Certainly right now it's performance, but also design. And it's gonna, you know, it's performance in-game, it's performance in my virtual world, if that's what I care about, and can you give me something that the other brands can't? Or maybe give me something that's uniquely you versus another brand that's out there as well. I think that's gonna become that craftsmanship that we're discussing, that you cared about performance, maybe there's in-game performance, maybe it's the look of it, maybe it's what it does. You were talking about the dress with the flames, with my shoes are just on fire while I'm running really quickly. And I think that's going to also tie into the gameplay. And it'll get to that. Certainly ahead of ourselves. I don't disagree with that for sure. But I do think that that's going to become— it's a transition period for the brands. It'll go from what we are today and like, let's just get on the metaverse and be in digital and AR and immersive and then start exploring what other things can— I mean, that's just the way things are when you're adopting all these technologies, I think, at least.

Yeah, and I think it's going to come down to what people are willing to pay for. Again, in this interview with the kids, which is adorable, and I want to figure out how to make it public, but the 11-year-old said, "Well, I really think that it'd be great if none of this was behind a paywall so that people could just express themselves however they want." And then my 8-year-old said, he's like, "Well, I would pay to put Nikes on my avatar. So again, it's going to come down to the kids and the generations and what they want. But I think tying it into, yeah, game performance. If I could put some cool Dunks and be faster in Zelda or whatever it is, I think it's going to be what we make it and what we provide. And the people that get there first are the ones that are going to have some say into how that goes. And I think that's where the intersection of a apparel and games is really cool and can provide so many things. And for the record, I have to limit how much my kids spend in these games because the number one thing they're spending their allowance on is skins and changing their avatars and stupid hats. And to me, that doesn't matter, but to them, that's how they're presenting themselves in these worlds and how they're perceived. So it's, I think this generation's gonna care about it a lot.

The other thing I'll say is, is probably the least mature aspect of emerging technology from my perspective is peripherals and haptics and how you're actually going to physically feel things. And there are a ton of products out there with tactors that will make your fingers actually feel the press of any type of material, but none of it's one-to-one. So that's one of those— I think we are drastically hardware limited as it stands today on making someone feel quality, but I don't think we can't get there. It's just the software is potentially a little bit ahead of the hardware there. Yeah.

And it doesn't have to be one-to-one. Quality doesn't have to mean the same thing in VR, in the metaverse, that it does in the physical world.

I think the real powerful thing there is that what's great behind these engines and the companies that are running the metaverse and gaming is that the data transmission is real-time. So when we can take the data that's happening in the virtual space and blend it with the craftsmanship you're working in the physical space, that's when I think we're going to have a meld of the two. And if we can really extract not just the user preference of how it's worn, but also start mimicking physical data in virtual space of the world and how it interacts with what's worn, then you've got real-time simulation. And that can change the game. You guys have already changed the game doing that. We've got another question here.

Yeah. Oh, thank you. Yeah, just a quick question. And definitely my intention is not I don't want to dim the mood, but I am curious if anybody is doing any research or looking at the throttle point between the impacts already of social media, screen time, and things like that on the mental health of youth, their ability to get outside. And I ask that in respect of, like, let's say you're a team member at Under Armour and you're a very purpose-led company and you're focusing on access to sport and getting kids outside. And, you know, screen time then is going up and we're part of the metaverse and it's having an impact on mental health. And, you know, we're focusing on making people better. I just wanted to know what, you know, what focus or attention is being put on that throttle point so that, you know, in the end we're not looking back and maybe we've had a negative impact on the youth.

Do you want to take it?

I'll take a stab at this.

So, in my master's program, that was actually a focus of our studies, was basically how are we going to affect the psychology of players, and specifically children. And I think one of the things that was eye-opening for me there is that it is— it was at least established that gaming is an addictive, very highly addictive potentially, medium, and that it is up there rated with other types of substance issues. So I don't mean to say that as if it is a massive problem that kids like to game. It's just that there needs to be some amount of regulation put in around the priority of reality versus not. And that's where I think Ready Player One has done a fantastic job of describing what we don't want, which is when you care more about your character looking fit than yourself looking fit. We've hit an inflection point that's not good for society. And I think that's up to us to monitor and try to maintain some amount of control over.

Yeah, as someone in tech, I have done a ton of research on how this tech is impacting my kids. And my kid is allowed 2 hours of screen time a week. And the rest of the time, I force him outside. So while he's spending a good amount of allowance on these games, he's not allowed in them. But I think that comes back to— Great balance. I think as we build out what this metaverse is, I would love it if— If my own company, we have a channel going around, what are the code of ethics? What controls are we building into these games? I don't know, most people probably don't know, but VR headsets, it's really bad for developing eyes. I think there's an age limit of 13 or 15 or something. And then you see TikToks where 3-year-olds have these VR headsets on, and I'm just like, no, don't do that. So I think it's about education. I think as tech companies, I hope that we take a stance and start building in things that make these safer. As we build out communities, code of ethics, what we will allow, I think we'll start to see monitoring bots that do monitoring. I think it's a really important topic. And as we're laying the groundwork, I think it's important that we build in those guidelines and educate people on the impacts, especially to children.

Yeah, regulation is a great point. And also, I think as with any new technology, there is both a good and a bad side to it. And one example just from a paper I was reading the other day is that apparently in VR— and this might have already been touched on during this conference— that apparently in VR, there is this time compression phenomenon. So 5 minutes spent in VR feels more like just under 4 minutes compared to if you were just looking at a monitor and playing a game. And that has good and bad sides. You might be spending long hours in VR, but it feels like it's not that long. And the opposite side of the spectrum is that you can use that to create interesting experiences. For example, if someone's having a lot of pain, designing a metaverse experience or VR experience would make them feel like not a lot of time has passed. So they would perceive as though it hasn't been that— they haven't been in pain for as long, if that makes sense. So there's advantages and disadvantages. And it's about how you use the technology, how you regulate the space, I think.

And I think just to add on this, we understand that this is something that the industry should take upon itself. But I also think that parenting just needs to be more a part of— I mean, I remember— I'm going to sound like the guy that Get off my lawn. But when I was a kid, my parents constantly like, you can't play this for 8 hours a day. And they'd get on my case. And I think we just need to— it's a partnership. It's not the technology. I mean, kids are just massively intelligent. And they will find ways around your screen time, your lock codes. Like, they just go around it. And we, I think, need to also be observant that it's a partnership between the industry and the parents and the families that are there. To try to help, you know, give them some time. Sometimes they'll break it, sometimes they won't. It's a balance. It needs to be a balance between both. We can't just, you know, think that Unity or Epic or anybody's going to solve it for us. Unfortunately, that's just not the way it is in the real world. It wasn't before, it isn't here. I mean, TikTok and all— it's funny, I learned that the hard way. I did not— like, my daughter was like 13. She's like, I want Instagram. I'm like, no, You won't get Instagram until you're a bit older. She's like, OK, well, can I do Pinterest? I'm like, Pinterest? Sure. What's on Pinterest? And it turns out Pinterest basically has everything from TikTok, everything from Instagram also on Pinterest. So as a parent, we're trying to catch up, but we do struggle. And you want to be a bit more informed about what those kids are doing, not just assuming that if I just get— because I just had— she was on screen time. She only had, like I said, 2 hours a day. But she's doing Pinterest. I'm like, Pinterest? It's going to be a couple of recipes here and there. But that wasn't the case. She was smart enough to go around it.

Great questions, and important questions. So thank you. We got time for a couple more, Yeltsin? Sure.

Hi.

Do you see metaverse property as the new domain name? So if you remember back in the— I'm old enough to remember. In the late '90s when the internet was new, all these prospectors went out and bought all these domain names from like nike.com, coca-cola.com, and they eventually knew that when the brands got keen to it, that they could sell it at a higher price. So with that, with the metaverse being Web 3.0, is metaverse property the new domain name.

I mean, I think there's a bit of that. I think back to the real estate question. So you're going to have companies that will build communities and other ones that are cash grabs. Right? That's probably the biggest challenge. And if you've seen and watched the cryptocurrency and NFTs going down in that, it's because there was a lot of that. There's certainly some that are trying to build communities. It's not just, hey, OK, you get a space. That's yes for those, but it's figuring out what that looks like for the ones— how do you distinguish that from a cash grab? Because it's almost— I mean, the reason we have the bubble is because of that to some degree. In all sense, it's not just that. But I mean, certainly, yes.

Yeah, so I mean, not necessarily— like, when the domain name first came out, there was a cash grab.

Sure.

But eventually, it all just settled down. Yeah, the bubble happened.

People got their domain name. And now it's no problem usually getting the name. So what I'm saying is, with metaverse property, is like, if it's Web 3.0, is this just a new— like I said, a new internet, a new domain name, where instead of people going to the 2D environment, they'll go to the 3D?

Right. I mean, I personally think it's just— it's basically visibility of the brand somewhere, wherever people are hanging out. Back to— I think Tim and maybe Cam mentioned, it's where are people spending their time. But I'm just the moderator, so I'll let you.

I mean, personally, if I— oh, God, sorry, I just knocked over my water. If I were representing a brand and I wanted to think about being metaverse ready, I would think less about a domain name or a space, real estate, whatever you want to call it, and more about how do I ensure that there are assets from the production process that I can leverage today in e-commerce and marketing and that eventually can then— I'll have built a pipeline that will make it easy for me to engage with users on the metaverse. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's where it leads me is I feel like there's a focus on— and maybe this was your point— on— building for this environment that we envision that may or may not actually come to pass.

Yeah, that's kind of my point. I think there's a lot of hype around it, but I think if it really becomes viable, I think the market will figure it out.

I mean, the same way that people just bought the domains later for a much more expensive price. If you're going to get that visibility, you're willing to pay that money, right? Companies like Nike and others are going to— are going to take that advantage if you can.

We had one more question, but I think we got the signal. I think that's it. That's it?

All right. All right. Well, this was an awesome panel. Thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you.

Thank you, guys.