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SuperWorld is a the virtual world in augmented reality that allows users to buy and sell virtual real estate, using nonfungible tokens, or NFTs — the buzzword of the internet.
The company said today it is integrating Props as its loyalty token. The integration will enable SuperWorld users to unlock benefits within the SuperWorld virtual world. The NFTs can uniquely identify the digital plots of land and their owners, and so the buyers hope to make a profit in virtual real estate investment. It’s similar to other virtual real estate games in the real world, like Upland.
SuperWorld was founded in 2017 by CEO Hrish Lotlikar and Max Woon. With the rise in popularity of NFTs, the platform has now been gaining mainstream adoption. SuperWorld virtual real estate lets you stake a claim on over 64.8 billion virtual plots of land geographically mapped onto Planet Earth. Each plot of land in SuperWorld is a 100m x 100m polygon that corresponds to real-world space.
The platform uses the ERC-721 standard of tradable assets, meaning that each plot is characterized by its digital scarcity as a collectible and wholly unique asset to buy, sell, trade, or hold. When a user buys property in SuperWorld, they acquire a unique and irreplicable piece of the Ethereum blockchain, along with monetization opportunities from digital commerce (NFTs), e-commerce, gaming, and advertising activity on their respective properties. We’re going to have a roundtable on NFTs and Games 101 at our GamesBeat Summit 2021 event on April 28-29. It will feature Jon Radoff of Beamable, former NBCUniversal games head Chris Heatherly, James Zhang of Fifth Era, and Gabby Dizon of Yield Good Games.
Above: That’s a lot of land plots to buy.
Image Credit: SuperWorld
SuperWorld is expected to be the seventh app to launch on Props, joining YouNow, PalTalk, Camfrog, Listia, Tegger, and Roomi.
Lotlikar said in a statement that all users of SuperWorld should share in the value that is created on the platform by any of their activity. By integrating Props as a loyalty token, he said the company is providing active community member benefits and a financial stake in the network they are helping to create.
Adi Sideman, cofounder of the Props Public Benefit Corp, said in a statement that he believes in the metaverse vision that SuperWorld is building and he said that Props integration into an NFT world and marketplace is an exciting next step for the Props ecosystem.
Using Props in SuperWorld
Above: SuperWorld and Props have teamed up.
Image Credit: SuperWorld
In the near future, SuperWorld will launch their NFT Salon, a marketplace where virtual items like digital art, music, fashion, avatars, collectibles (including 3D/animation/2D/video//text) can be traded.
Upon the launch of the Props token, contributors to SuperWorld and its NFT Salon will be rewarded for actions such as login streaks, connecting a wallet, minting, buying and selling NFTs, and more. Users, in turn, will be able to unlock SuperWorld benefits, such as bonus NFTs and offers within the platform.
Props is a platform for deploying and bootstrapping community tokens, allowing apps to increase user loyalty, financially align with users and add a new revenue stream. A half dozen apps have adopted the token and five have launched, each with millions or hundreds of thousands of monthly active users. About nine Million users are holding Props tokens.
Any user in SuperWorld – from content viewers and collectors to developers and marketers – can buy and sell virtual real estate on the platform, with every plot of unowned property starting at 0.1 ETH for a 100-meter by 100-meter space. A stretch of the High Line in Manhattan is on the market for 333 ETH ($704,767, as of April 6).
The challenges
Above: You can buy a piece of virtual real estate in SuperWorld.
Image Credit: SuperWorld
SuperWorld has been at this for a while, but it has competition from rivals such as Upland, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels, SomniumSpace, Sandbox.
And it appears to have similar drawbacks to a lot of other blockchain collectibles and games. It doesn’t look that fun, and doesn’t even really look like a game, beyond some digital form of Monopoly. So I’m not sure what’s going to draw users to this world and to pay for the privilege of creating AR imagery on their homes or favorite landmarks.
There’s some novelty in owning the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall, but you have to find people who are willing to buy it from you in order to cash in on your investment.
Investors and advisers include DraperGorenHolm, SOSV, CapitalFactory, Stephen Wolfram (creator of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha), Bob Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet and Metcalfe’s Law), Richard Ling (founder of Rembrandt Ventures), Bob Fabbio (CEO of Tivoli), Robert Scoble (author, futurist), Mariana Danilovic, (founder of Infiom and Hollywood Portfolio), Phil Rowley (head of futures at Omnicom Group), Nitin Gaur (head of digital assets at IBM), Tobias Ratschiller (CEO of CryptoCoinNews), Chris Thomas (head of digital assets at Swissquote Bank), William Burns (a pioneer of the metaverse), Brian Thorp (CEO of Wealthtender) and Joseph Chan (managing partner of Guardian Property Advisors).
SuperWorld has 12 employees, while Props has 15. Props has raised $23 million, while SuperWorld hasn’t disclosed its funding. On average, a paying user buys between eight to10 plots and spends $2000 on the platform.
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