Metaverse: A Dystopian World or a Billion-dollar Utopia?
A Virtual World that Could be the Next Billion-Dollar Opportunity
What is the Metaverse? Is it just another buzzword on the internet or a new game? Allow us to break it down for you. Imagine a virtual world where you don’t have to leave your house to watch a movie or shop for clothes. A digital world where you can watch your favourite musician perform, hang out with friends, go to an exhibition, and have endless other possibilities. Such a universe would be a limitless world accessible to its users at all times. Users can have avatars that can evolve as per their wishes. They can become whomever they want to be. Sounds so “Cyberpunk,” right?
This description might sound like an episode from the Netflix series named Black Mirror! The Metaverse is a conceptualised virtual world that got its name from the concept given by Neal Stephenson in 1992 in his book “Snow Crash.” The sci-fi book by Stephenson weaves virtual reality in a world where there are digital currencies and AI-powered assistants.
A few months ago, Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook to Meta while introducing a new logo that looks like an infinity loop resembling the letter “M.” We saw a virtual replica of Zuckerberg as he unveiled the Metaverse. It’s a place (similar to what Snow Crash has shown) where users can even enjoy a virtual concert, just like in the immersive Fortnite universe! According to the social media company, the Metaverse aims to create a digital world where users can live a parallel life similar to their real-world existence.
The Facebook founder describes the Metaverse as the “Holy Grail of Social Interactions.” Therefore, we expect massive scope for communication via augmented reality glasses, VR earbuds, holograms, etc., that will allow fluid interactions in the virtual space. Many tech experts expect the Metaverse to be the next biggest tech platform with an $800 billion market opportunity! Other key market players like Microsoft, Apple, and Google are already invested in the Metaverse as they see it evolving into something promising.
This virtual world will enable users to play, study, hang out, shop, and work with others like in the real world. If the Metaverse allows users to leverage their digital avatars to buy assets across multiple worlds, we must consider the opportunities brands will have. It will take the concept of personalised customer experiences to a new level!
Brands will have a chance to develop stronger community engagement. The platform will give businesses many opportunities to market their products or build their brand. It will be exciting to see how a higher level of user adoption will help companies understand, interact, and communicate better in the virtual world.
Metaverse and Its Potential Across Industries
Digging Deep into Customer Language in the Metaverse
Zuckerberg’s Metaverse can become a consumer playground in various ways. Tech giants like Apple are optimistic investors who are ready to integrate their services and products into this new virtual world. Apart from tech giants, many other consumer brands can leverage 3D geolocation to curate location-based advertising campaigns.
What are location-based advertising campaigns in the Metaverse? These ads can be adaptive ads that will present relevant or targeted banners to users based on their likes and interests. For instance, if a shopper visiting a virtual mall is interested in cars, the adaptive banners will guide them to the car showroom via banners featuring the latest deals, collections, and offers.
Augmented and Virtual Reality have a massive role to play in the Metaverse. Lately, AR and VR technologies have been gaining immense traction. They have become the new buzzwords; many consider these technologies key factors driving a change in localisation. How? Let me explain it to you with an anecdote from the gaming industry.
As you know, VR devices play a critical role in games. In early 2017, many game developers used VR technology to allow users to enjoy an immersive gaming experience. Many games went a step further and made their game available in multiple languages! Other creators understood the importance of localisation and invested their resources in developing games that offer localised voice-overs and native language over American or English text.
These key localisation tactics allowed the VR and AR games to reach an international audience. Their popularity increased multifold, making them aware of how localisation can help their customers (gamers) get an enjoyable and consistent experience.
Wait a minute? You might be wondering what this anecdote has to do with the “customer language in the Metaverse.” Hold on to that thought. In Metaverse, with digital avatars, AR, and VR, the gamification of services can impact customer decisions. Since the platform will offer a massive space for social interactions at a global level, businesses can localise certain products and services (Like VR games).
Imagine coming across a localised or multilingual magazine. Imagine walking into a virtual movie theatre to watch the movie of your choice in your native language! Brands will be able to build unique, customer-driven products and experiences. Therefore localisation in the Metaverse will incorporate the need for localisation from various angles. These angles could include technical, cultural considerations, linguistics, geography, etc. Let us take a few examples:
Voice-Over localisation
Shoppers can experience multilingual and multicultural voice-overs at shops and communicate with the brand in their native dialects. Dubbing artists and other technical aspects like lip-synched ads, multilingual ads, etc., can become prevalent.
Subtitling & Captioning
Marketers can use localised content to promote their products and services to targeted audiences. They can utilise subtitling and captioning to increase their ad reach and user engagement. For instance: A Nike shoe ad mentions the features, shoe size, colour, etc., in the native language in the caption section.
Localised Design in Campaigns
Marketers can use localised graphics and colours that suit the local culture. Adhering to local preferences and sensitivities can help marketers build trust among new native audiences.
Video Game Localisation
Video games like GTA, PUBG, and Fortnite leverage multimedia localisation for virtual realities, allowing them to incorporate unique content types. VR games in the metaverse can tweak their in-game content by localising player ratings, game currency, voice-over, game dialogues, text embedded in the graphic, etc. Game store optimisation can involve the localisation of the store content. Apart from the linguistic aspect, marketers can also incorporate relevant keywords.
Other Essential Considerations for Localisation
Create Culturally Appropriate Experiences
Mobile App Localisation
Mobile apps can be an integral part of the Metaverse universe. Do you remember Pokemon Go? The viral AR game got extremely popular in 2016. Such applications can receive a wider audience if the content is technically, linguistically, and culturally relevant to the native audiences. Apart from these aspects, developers can localise the app’s product pages. They can also localise the mobile app’s non-string content.
Mobile App localisation does not stop at localising the app’s content. It is more than that! Localisation in apps has to be a continuous process since developers or engineers working on the app are required to make updates and changes. Hence, app owners need to localise those new updates or announcements before they impact the user experience in any manner. App owners can easily deploy automated content updates if they are aware of the target languages in which they want to address their users.
This need for constant localisation can be challenging and complex for app owners. For those reasons, they should seek help from a translation and localisation company. Hiring expertise for localisation can help them increase the efficiency of updates and reduce operational costs.
Marketing And Advertising
Metaverse will have numerous applications that’ll use Augmented Reality. In our previous shopping mall example, we saw how content marketing and adaptable ads could play an important role in getting more shoppers.
In the Metaverse, localisation for marketing and advertising can help brands build a symbiotic relationship with the customers. They can connect with their audiences on a personal and emotional level. Multilingual voice-over services and multilingual translation can help businesses on the Metaverse gain diverse audiences. We always say that localisation is more than translation; it goes beyond words!
Addressing local sensitivities and adhering to cultural and behavioural nuances can become a powerful marketing tool for brands. It can help them deliver multilingual messaging to diverse audiences.
User-Generated Content
Like other social media platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc., the Metaverse will encash upon user-generated content (UGC). In the Metaverse, individuals can share their views and opinions. They can use their digital avatar version to communicate with other individuals worldwide. There could be a great need for translating or localising spontaneous expressions of users as they communicate. User communication can be localised by Machine Translation tools, tools that can weed out language inconsistencies. We can also expect future technologies that can easily localise context-specific terminology, slang, typos, jokes, and idioms.
Therefore, we can say that localisation in the Metaverse has so much to do with your consumers’ cultures and social behaviours. Localisation can be the perfect catalyst that’ll allow you to connect with your audiences at a personal level! Imagine a space where localisation can help you tweak the design and feel of your content based on your audience’s likes and preferences! Imagine they visit a virtual clothing store where they can hear native music playing in the background. Since every culture has specific sensitivities, mere translation cannot help you localise the content. Therefore, you need a broader, more focused approach like localisation.
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Choose the Right Localisation Expert for Your Metaverse Content.
Metaverse is an opportunity for brands to curate marketing strategies that can help them tap into highly lucrative markets. As discussed above, Virtual and Augmented Reality can have a major role in the Metaverse; therefore, marketers must use them to leverage different visual forms of marketing. However, while addressing the user’s visual needs, brands must consider the cultural contexts of their content. It will help them align their campaigns, technology, language, services, etc., with the native audiences.
Even though AR and VR technologies have been in the market for a very long time, it is about to get the same hype with the inception of Metaverse. With mass commercialisation in the Metaverse, these technologies will have a profitable revival in the game. Brands and businesses can utilise this market opportunity with the help of multilingual strategies.
With multimedia localisation, game localisation, eCommerce localisation, and multilingual voice-over translation to mobile app localisation, your business can offer an optimal local experience to users. Into23 can help you achieve the perfect balance of cultural, linguistic, and technical localisation with its broad range of services. We are open seven days a week/for 16 hours per day. We answer All incoming inquiries within 1 hour during our operational hours. You can click on this link to get a quote; it will redirect you to our submission form.