Chances are you haven’t yet heard of ZEPETO, a cross-platform metaverse from South Korean tech giant Naver, but chances are you soon will -- especially in the wake of Roblox’s poundingly successful IPO earlier this week. Here’s just three reasons why:
- A company rep tells me Zepeto already has 10 million monthly active users, making it significantly larger than IMVU.
- Content creation tools include a prim-type building system (see above) that multiple people can collaborate on.
- A publication system for selling content to users for real cash -- and a 50/50 revenue split with creators. (ROBLOX by contrast keeps 70% of creator revenue.)
- Zepeto has already partnered with mega-huge K Pop stars to produce and cross-promote content -- such as this machinima video below featuring BLACKPINK and Selena Gomez that’s already been seen over 100 million times:
This video just hints at one of many global popcult crossover campaigns ZEPETO is planning.
And while the cartoon graphics are similar to early ROBLOX, a ZEPETO team member tells me the world’s top content creators tend to be in their 20s and early 30s, often with fashion and architecture backgrounds. The monetization system is already attracting breakout stars like “Lenge” (below), a ZEPETO fashion creator who used to work as a UI designer in tech, but now earns a reported six figures from her sales of virtual goods that she markets on her YouTube channel.
More from Rudy Lee, Head of Global Business at ZEPETO:
“Creators can upload virtual goods on studio.zepeto.me, where they can also check sales and get paid in USD. They use 3D modeling tools such as Maya, 3DS Max, etc., before submitting their work to ZEPETO. After the submissions are approved, the items will show up on the marketplace within the app. Items developed by the creators (we call them Zepetors) are displayed in the ‘Creators’ shop within the in-app marketplace.”
As for why you probably haven’t heard of ZEPETO:
“[W]e are more Asia-based at the moment and the largest avatar platform based out of Asia,” Lee tells me. But then again, you also probably hadn’t heard of BLACKPINK a few years ago, but if you're even vaguely conversant in pop culture, you definitely have now.
Update, March 12: Added revenue split.
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