022: Disney's Major Step into Gaming + Apple's Vision Pro Takeover

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TLDR:

1. Disney: Announces Equity Stake & Partnership with Epic Games

2. Casio: Collaborates with ‘doodles’ NFT Brand on G-SHOCK Watch

3. Mastercard: Unveils NFT-Powered UEFA Play-to-Win Activation

4. DECATHLON: Launches Immersive Shopping App for Vision Pro

5. J.Crew: Launches Vision Pro App with Virtual Store Partner Obsess

6. Alo Yoga: Launches Vision Pro Shopping App with Obsess

7. e.l.f. Cosmetics: Launches Vision Pro Experience with Obsess

Around the Block…

• Disney: Announces Equity Stake & Partnership with Epic Games

  • The entertainment company announced a major partnership with Fortnite creator Epic Games, to expand Disney’s stories within in-game environments

  • In addition to the partnership, pending approval, Disney is investing $1.5 billion to acquire a stake in Epic Games

  • The partnership will see Disney IP such as Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, & Avatar integrated with Fortnite - which has 236 million monthly active players

  • In the release, CEO Bob Iger stated this was ‘Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion’

  • Sources: Disney / Demand Sage

• Casio: Collaborates with ‘doodles’ NFT Brand on G-SHOCK Watch

  • Casio, who has been making waves in the Web3 space with their Virtual G-SHOCK community, has revealed their upcoming efforts — a collaboration with NFT brand ‘doodles’

  • The pair created a custom G-SHOCK watch designed by the doodles’ team that will be sold with a digital collectible (an NFT on Flow blockchain) that can be used to dress a doodles’ avatar within the Doodles Stoodio ecosystem

  • The watch and digital collectible will be for sale priced at $169 at retailer 2G Tokyo from February 8th-11th, then available online through the doodles’ website starting February 15th with first access for doodles’ and Virtual G-SHOCK NFT holders

  • Sources: Doodles’ X / Casio Virtual G-SHOCK Discord

• Mastercard: Unveils NFT-Powered UEFA Play-to-Win Activation

  • Mastercard is partnering with European soccer club tournament, the UEFA Champions League, using NFTs to engage fans throughout the competition for a chance at prizes

  • To participate, players can claim a free ‘Mastercard x UEFA Champions League Pass’ NFT by registering through digital wallet purveyor MoonPay

  • The Polygon NFT will give owners access to participate in tournament-specific trivia, where players will have a chance to win quizzes or land on top of the leaderboard to earn group stage & finals tickets

  • Sources: Mastercard

• DECATHLON: Launches Immersive Shopping App for Vision Pro

  • DECATHLON’s new app was created in-house & took several months to develop. The new Vision Pro app was available at device launch on February 2nd in the United States

  • Customers can buy & browse products through the app - including seeing products in 3D within their surrounding environment

  • Sources: DECATHLON

• J.Crew: Launches Vision Pro App with Virtual Store Partner Obsess

  • The new immersive app, ‘J.Crew Virtual Closet’ was created in partnership with Obsess, allowing shoppers to look at high-definition products in an immersive environment

  • Shoppers can mix & match items to create a multi-product look, as well as view products in 3D & explore textures up close

  • The app also includes SharePlay connectivity, which can help with customer service & styling - hosting one-on-one conversations with expert stylists or group video chats to get feedback on created looks

  • Sources: Obsess / Venture Beat

• Alo Yoga: Launches Vision Pro Shopping App with Obsess

  • The new Vision Pro app ‘alo Sanctuary’ launched February 2nd

  • Shoppers can shop in an immersive environment, seeing items in 3D and zooming close to see fabric and dimensions in a high-quality interactive format

  • The app also includes over 20 meditations, transporting participants into immersive environments during their session

  • Sources: Obsess / Retail Dive

• e.l.f. Cosmetics: Launches Vision Pro Experience with Obsess

  • The new Vision Pro app ‘you best e.l.f.’ was created by Obsess, allowing users to shop for items & purchase via Apple Pay, as well as participate in meditations & relax through paint by numbers activities

  • Sources: Obsess / Business Wire / Retail Dive 

Chain Reactions!

• Obsess Early to Vision Pro: Immersive shopping platform, Obsess, was early to move in on the Vision Pro opportunity - with three major brand activations launching on February 2nd (J.Crew, alo Yoga, e.l.f. Cosmetics). The experiences all have parallels in providing a 3D format to view & shop items - similar but more immersive than their previous 2D shopping experiences. Obviously, it is super early relative to shopping experiences to come from this new technology, but it's great to see some major brands leaning in this quickly. I can imagine a similar flood of brands will be joining soon and developing increasingly creative use cases.

• Disney & Epic: Major brands continue to make big moves in the gaming space. Last month, we saw Walmart partner with Unity to offer in-game commerce, an update from Nike on .SWOOSH’s expanded offerings in video games, & countless brands enter Roblox. This is a big move by Disney, but also for Epic Games. On the heels of the LEGO Fortnite experience, it is clear that Epic is leaning into brand partnerships & bringing in established IP to expand & solidify its dominance as a gaming platform.

• Mastercard & UEFA: Two weeks ago, I called out the prevalence of soccer entities using Web3 to drive brand engagement. This week, along comes another program with UEFA. With the growing familiarity of these types of activations among soccer fans, it seems to be an easy entry point for Mastercard to lean into new technologies.

DISCLAIMER: This content does not contain investment, tax, legal, financial or other advice & is not intended to be used in this way. It includes the opinions of the author & is strictly for informational purposes. Please do your own research.