Chinese firms bet on “Metaverse-like” experiences for FIFA World Cup

Chinese firms to offer World cup metaverse viewings, X2Y2 backtracks on royalties, and more. 

Chinese firms bet on “Metaverse-like” experiences for FIFA World Cup

The Chinese government made an ambitious plan to boost the nation's VR industry and now it seems local tech companies are using the World Cup to test run-their products. 

The efforts are part of a five-year plan released by the Chinese government in early November to boost the capabilities and development of the local virtual reality (VR) industry. 

Video streaming platform Migu is one of six Chinese firms that has secured the rights to show the World cup and plans to create a Metaverse-like space accessed through VR headsets for users to watch a Livestream gaming experience in VR.

ByteDance who owns TikTok and its Chinese version Douyin received licensing rights to air the competition with ByteDance's VR headset subsidiary Pico offering live broadcasts of the World Cup with the ability for users to create and hangout in digital rooms to watch the game together. 

The World Cup is seemingly being used by China's nascent VR industry as a testbed for the technology the country's Ministry of industry and information technology along with four other agencies, pushed an ambitious industry plan on Nov 1.

The five-year plan for 2022 to 2026 outlined that China wants to bolster its VR industry and ship over 25 million units to the tune of $48.56 billion, the aim doesn't clarify if its unit target is annually or cumulative over the life of the plan. 

X2Y2 firm rolls out back optional royalties, and NFT marketplace X2Y2 has backtracked on its opt-in royalties play saying in a Nov 18, Twitter thread that it will again enforce creator royalties on all existing and new collections.

The Marketplace was one of the first to introduce optional royalties in August moving to a Flexible Royalty that allows buyers to set the amount they want to pay it received mixed reactions from the NFT community. 

X2Y2 said it decided to reinstate royalty enforcement after taking a page from its peer OpenSea which decided on Nov 9. 

X2Y2 also admitted many new collections are using OpenSea royalty enforcement tools that blacklist NFTs on markets that don't enforce royalties. 


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