Why all designers and architects can benefit from the creative economy in the metaverse
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Nike recently acquired RTFKT, a design studio founded in January 2020 known for its "metaverse-ready" sneakers and collectibles. Land acquisitions in the metaverse are making headlines with their multi-million dollar prices. We have also seen the widespread adoption of NFT arts in 2021, with sales projected to soar to $17.7 billion.
Beneath the hype and frenzy, we can detect a fundamental shift that unlocks a new creative economy. It gives creators direct access to the marketplace, builds ongoing relationships with fans, and brings strangers together in autonomous communities. In this article, we will discuss why every 3D designer/architect should embrace the Web 3.0 movement to embrace new business logic and benefit from the maker economy in the metaverse.
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The Creative Economy in Web 3.0 / Metaverse
Before we dive into Web 3.0, let's quickly review how the Web has evolved over the years:
Web 1.0: Users are consumers of content
Web 1.0 refers to the first stage of the evolution of the World Wide Web. There were only a few content creators on Web 1.0 with a vast majority of content consuming users. Service providers such as AOL, Yahoo, and Google monetized advertising and became major beneficiaries during this period that later became known as Web 1.0 (1991 to 2004).
Web 2.0: Users are the creators of content, but do they own their content?
Web 2.0 refers to web services that feature user-generated content. A Web 2.0 website allows users to contribute content and interact with each other through dialogue on social networks.
As Tim O'Reilly and John Batelle put it, Web 2.0 is about "customers... building your business for you." Critics have argued that sites like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are exploiting the "free labor" of user-created content. Web 2.0 sites use Terms of Service agreements to claim perpetual licenses on user-generated content, and use that content to build user profiles for sale to marketers.
Web 3.0 is about property
While Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 are predetermined, Web 3.0 is still being defined. According to Wikipedia, Web 3.0 is an idea for a new iteration of the Internet that incorporates blockchain-based decentralization, often contrasted with Web 2.0, in which data and content is centralized in a small group of companies that which is sometimes referred to as "Big Tech".
How is Web 3.0 different? Property. Many believe that the creators will be the owners of that content, and not the platform on which it is hosted. Blockchain technology, more specifically the creation of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), which introduces scarcity and uniqueness, is turning your content into portable digital assets.
NFTs cannot be copied, only transferred, so there is a real notion of ownership, which manifests itself in the technology. We recommend reading Chris Dixon's article NFTs and A Thousand True Fans to understand why NFTs "may accelerate the trend for creators to monetize directly with their fans" and "deliver a fundamentally better economy for creators."
Now that Web 3.0 solves the problem of content ownership and makes digital assets portable, creators will be able to monetize their creativity and interact with users in ways never before possible, and they too will be able to access their favorite content from easy and safe way. This will encourage new emerging creators to develop quality content, not limited by traditional barriers and monetization models, and will lead to an explosion of new companies and technologies.
Demands for 3D content are increasing in the metaverse
Building Experiences on Virtual Earth in the Metaverse
We've already seen multi-million dollar headline sales of virtual land, but the metaverse will only become a buzzword if users can't have fun within it. Celebrities and brands are fighting to establish virtual domains within games like Fortnite, Roblox, Decentralands, The Sandbox, etc. to host events, expand your business – and we need 3D designers and architects to bring this virtual world to life.
Some architects have seen the new opportunities and have extended their design frontier into the virtual world. Zaha Hadid Architects has presented "NFTism", a virtual art gallery at Art Basel Miami that explores architecture and social interaction in the metaverse.
Create NFTs and sell them
NFTs took the arts, sports, and entertainment worlds by storm practically overnight. We've seen modern generative avatars, cool virtual sneakers, even the first tweet that was made in 2006. Since the metaverse is a virtual world of shared 3D worlds, the demand for 3D content is sure to gain momentum.
Kirk Finkel, better known as Untitled, XYZ, previously had a common career in traditional architecture, is now a full-time metaverse architect. Most of his work is on Somnium Space (a metaverse emphasizing glasses-style VR) and Decentraland (which has more of a web experience so far). He is the resident architect of the Museum of Cryptographic Art (MOCA). “There are a lot of real-world architects that I think would thrive in this space, and I hope we get there,” Finkel said.
There are many NFT marketplaces for you to monetize designs. OpenSea is the largest marketplace for digital products accounting for over 97% of the market and open to all creators. SuperRare describes itself as "Instagram meets Christie's." Still in early access, the platform includes only a small number of select artists. However, via the form on their website, you can submit your artist profile and get on their radar for a full release next year. Other markets can also be consulted in this article.
Develop creative tools and provide training to creators
Instead of creating content, if you have both creative and technical skills, you can create improved tools to help people create content more efficiently. In the mobile internet era, we have seen the rise of Sketch and Figma which are used by UX designers to create, collaborate and prototype. When it comes to 3D design tools, they are often complex, lack interoperability, and are expensive. There is a market opportunity to make more user-friendly extensible tools that target only the metaverse context to drive productivity and interoperability. You can also create plugins, scripts, design systems for existing 3D design tools to extend their functionalities.
As more designers get involved in metaverse territory, we need more training courses and communities to help them learn and collaborate. You can create quality content, like articles and videos, to help people learn how to get the most out of existing tools with just what they need to know. You can create communities, organize events and conferences to discover new opportunities, establish and maintain relationships between the communities of creators and collectors.
Unleash your creativity
Architects face many constraints in the real world, such as building codes, local weather conditions, available construction technologies, construction costs, etc. These factors limit the range of possible design solutions that can be adopted. While in the metaverse, you can unleash your creativity without worrying about all the physical limitations and really think outside the box.
While we can throw away the limitations we're used to, there will be new challenges and rules that 3D creators must adhere to. You may need to learn new tools and design new media. Due to disparities in supported formats and attributes such as file type, size, and number of networks, platforms have different technical requirements, so you may need to configure and optimize your 3D assets to ensure compatibility with different worlds of metaverse.
Another skill set architects might consider adding to their toolbox is interaction design within 3D assets and the game environment. Curating virtual experiences with different levels of interactions (3D asset gamification, motion design, animation design, etc.) will be a new way of telling architectural stories.
You do not need a client in advance and you can create your own community of fans
More equal opportunities, especially for emerging and/or underrepresented designers
In the real world, designers and architects need clients to start their practice. It seems logical that an architect would spend most of their time designing buildings, but in practice, most of a lead architect's efforts go into finding more clients and projects. In almost any company, directors are primarily responsible for winning a new job, through networking, being invited to pitch, preparing proposals, and interviewing, while less experienced designers write and manage the build of that job. .
Young designers and architects often don't have the opportunity to build relationships with potential clients and struggle to find their first client. If you want to climb the corporate ladder in a large company, it can take years to reach the position of director, and it's expensive to market your business and acquire customers. The creator economy in the Metaverse could provide equal and abundant opportunities for emerging and/or underrepresented designers, regardless of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, citizenship...
You may still need to earn commission if you want to develop virtual experiences for brands and owners. You can also convert your designs to NFTs and have direct access to the marketplace. As Chris Dixon mentioned in his article, “The most important way NFTs change the creative economy is by creating proprietary users, thus reducing customer acquisition costs to almost zero. Cryptocurrencies have grown to over a trillion dollars in aggregate market capitalization with almost no marketing spend.
Be yourself and create your community of fans worldwide
While architecture is a relatively local business, it can provide digital products and services around the world. It can be difficult to find clients who appreciate your design in your region, but it is much easier to find users who appreciate your taste all over the world.
The blockchain is decentralized, with an emphasis on openness and diversification. This spirit has attracted many fans of the subcultures to join. Each niche cultural aesthetic can find its own group in the Crypto community, form its own industry chain, and find resonant target users. Therefore, there is no need to adjust your own aesthetic style to suit popular taste. Be yourself, do what you want to do or what you are good at, and your potential audience will follow you.
Creators must not only monetize their community, but also with their community.
If your goal is long-term success, you should continue to engage with your "angel investors" to achieve a win-win situation. Holders of an NFT series can also become loose communities, with the NFT being the key to a members-only club. It illustrates the potential for a new type of collaborative relationship between a creator and a community of fans. Some communities are taking it even further by developing autonomous organizations like DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) around the collective ownership of NFTs.
The Blockchain-backed maker economy is still at a very early stage and will evolve. One day, every internet community could have its own microeconomy, including NFTs and fungible tokens that users can use, own, and collect.
Monetize your projects saved on your computer
Unbuilt Architectures Matter
For Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid, most of her designs were not built during the first 25 years of her career. The avant-garde architectural group Archigram formed in the early 1960s was neo-futurist and inspired by technology to create a new reality that expressed itself only through hypothetical projects. They proposed buildings that moved, that glowed in the dark, that could be changed at will by their users. His bold and futuristic plans, through drawings, collages, models, writings, though never built, inspired generations of architects to envision the future, and his influence is expected to grow further.
For each design contest or commissioned project, we can only have one winning design. Every designer has amazing designs sitting idle on their hard drives. In addition to hosting an "unbuilt architecture" exhibit, you can reinvigorate it in the metaverse to share your creativity with the world.
You can earn royalties AFTER the sale
NFT royalties are an easy and hassle-free way to continue getting paid for your work. NFT royalties are an excellent opportunity for content creators to take advantage of secondary sales profits, which have never been available to them in this way.
NFT royalties give you a percentage of the sale price each time your NFT creation is sold on a market. Imagine that you have created an NFT artwork in Rarible. A fan of your art buys the artwork for, say, 1 ETH. So you have made 1 ETH. It has also codified into the NFT the term that anytime a sale occurs, you will get 10% of the profit.
Everyone can develop architecture in the metaverse, find your own recipe
Like other professionals, architects must undergo rigorous training, gain work experience, pass exams, and obtain a license before they can practice architecture. It is a regulated profession, which means that people without certification cannot participate. While in the metaverse, the door is open for everyone. You don't need to go to architecture school to become a metaverse architect. Traditional architecture professionals will face competition from game designers, developers, hobbyists, and literally anyone. To stand out, designers must reflect on the values they can bring to the market and find their own recipe.
We are still in the early days of the metaverse, and the early adopter often seizes the competitive advantage. As 3D designers and architects, we are trained to think and design in 3D. If the metaverse is 3D, are we perfectly positioned to be the next web designers? The maker economy is evolving and reshaping our industry. Get on board to embark on a new and fruitful journey!
This article was originally published on Medium on January 1, 2022.
