US' Walmart, Unity to bring immersive commerce to games & apps

This partnership brings the retail power of Walmart to Unity’s game and app development community, with more than 1.1 million developers using the Unity editor monthly, powering an average of 3.6 billion downloads each month of Made With Unity apps worldwide, the company said in a press release.

“We have an opportunity to connect the physical and digital realms in a way that only Walmart can, meeting our customers and members with authentic experiences where they already are,” said Tom Kang, vice president and general manager, Metaverse Commerce, Walmart's Store No. 8. “By opening up Walmart’s commerce APIs to the Unity development community, we’re empowering developers to offer a new mechanism to further drive user engagement while making it easy and convenient for players to complete a transaction for physical products without leaving the game, virtual world or app.”

“This announcement paves the way for new innovation in commerce for games and other virtual experiences,” said Marc Whitten, president, Create, Unity. “We’re excited to be able to give Unity developers the option of another new revenue stream while keeping players within their games and experiences.”

Over the past year, Walmart has tested immersive commerce in online worlds, building a connection between the virtual and physical. Three of these experiences were made with Unity and integrate Walmart commerce APIs. Players of the mobile game House Flip, which allows the user to renovate, decorate and sell virtual homes, can purchase the real-life counterparts of items they use in the game. This includes everything from Glidden paint to décor items from Mainstays and Better Homes and Gardens and even a Christmas tree from Holiday time.

Walmart gave players the ability to purchase virtual twins of their latest apparel or receive the virtual item free with the purchase of the physical item. Walmart also released their first virtual clothing line, CoreMood Collective, into the virtual world. Walmart has launched both its Scoop and virtual-first CoreMood Collective brands in this rapidly growing 3D avatar-based social platform by contextually integrating them into social spaces in Zepeto. As the next step to connect the virtual and real worlds, Walmart and Zepeto are working on integrating immersive commerce capabilities into select spaces on the platform for future brand integrations.

Walmart’s official Unity Software-Development Kit (SDK) will enable creators to natively integrate Walmart’s commerce APIs into their projects, allowing players to buy physical goods within their games and applications without ever leaving the game. 

By keeping players in their games, creators can maintain their immersive experiences, extending session engagement. Creators will also be able to increase their monetisation capabilities by receiving affiliate commissions from certain physical purchases powered by Walmart.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RR)