The last one year has seen an exponential increase in appetite for metaverse, web3 and the mystery around NFTs. I believe that most of the big names are well in their process of exploring the potential that this new digital world offers and along with it comes a massive opportunity to engage, educate and execute on these novel ideas. New players are emerging daily, rules are being set but regulations are still far from catching up with all the progress. NFTs have successfully enabled identity, ownership and transferability and DeFi protocols can already do anything from lending, transfers, equity growth to payments. Both combined create a perfect recipe for foundations for reliable digital commerce.

Overall, I see three major themes emerging in the web3 space and I am providing three distinct examples of potential companies which could think about a transition to web3 and how it might play out for them.

Sega Games – New Functionalities (enabled by web3)

I think Sega games can easily leverage web3 to enable new functionalities such as Play2Earn, Web3auth and digital commerce.

I am an occasional gamer but grew up playing a number of Sega games; the likes of Street Fighter, Mario, Sonic etc. Some of the most iconic console games that have had a global following. While these are now available in cloud gaming, their growth has been dormant and I believe that they can leverage the power of web3 to infuse new life into their product line.

During my time building the Rippel app, I realized that community building and community management are possibly the most important task after the product itself. This portion is increasingly important in web3, which is currently in early stages and users will need to rely upon communities to build trust and take their first leap. Identifying users and arenas where the net promoter scores are relatively high and doubling down on those is crucial to get going. Luckily for brands like Sega games, such communities are not only well-established but they are loyal, and have been sleeping for a while. A web3 injection would be just the kick needed to help upstart into a new domain.

– Sega could begin by introducing play2earn functionality in their games, supported with either an established token or their own Sega token. Imagine participating in a global street fighter tournament, where you could win handsome prizes.
– Secondly, Sega could come up with occasional digital merchandize rights, ones that they create only to auction off at the end of each season. This does not exist today but could aid in enhancing their marketplace offerings.
– Thirdly, Sega could think about introducing NFTs to their game scopes. A simple first step could be to allow for personalized NFT based avatar capabilities or providing additional tools and capabilities for performance enhancement add-ons, built and tradeable with the help of NFTs. Additionally, they could think about creating a marketplace, where creators in the Sega ecosystem can also buy and sell their creations. Executed correctly, this could lay the grounds for a huge commerce channel in the near future, the likes of which does not exist today.
– Lastly, all of the above features underline not only bringing in the loyal fan base back into the space and winning a lot of new customers in the Gen Z space, but an increased engagement on a per user level would mean a strong potential for allowing for paid advertising in the Sega experience.

Web3 will monetize digital commerce in a big way and not playing is simply not an option.

Universal Studios / Shemaroo – Create Sizeable New Revenue Streams

Media and Content Houses such as Universal Studios and Shemaroo can leverage web3 to build new revenue pipelines from assets that they already own for decades. Web3 will allow monetization of such assets which have been kept in closets for years as they are not currently in circulation, yet maintain communities of global fanbases. The beauty of this is that the ‘asset’ can take many forms and shapes -rights to a particular scene from a movie or the whole movie itself, rights to a certain character, books, literature, short clips – the list is long – everything becomes tradable and a perennial revenue streams in the form of carefully crafted smart contracts.

Such asset sales could take the form of periodic auctioning to create a buzz and new business ventures within the firms itself.

Sports Leagues / IPL – Increased Community Engagement

Professional sports leagues across the world are beginning to wake up to the idea of web3 enablement. IPL is a fast growing brand and the most valuable across all cricket leagues in the world. Currently valued at just shy of $7B, the valuations have seen a staggering 17X increase in the last 10 years. With a majority of highly connected and involved fanbase, IPL teams are primed to leverage web3 to further enhance valuation by many folds and revenue/end user by a significant amount.

Currently most of the revenue comes from:

– Media Rights
– Match Fees
– Ads and Sponsorships
– Physical Merchandise

IPL and each of the individual teams could easily add crypto enabled digital commerce to boost revenue per end user, pushing the trading multiples for IPL brands northwards.

Imagine a thriving IPL web3 community enabled by an IPL coin offering whereby:

– Players also have the power to create and NFT their own brands and collect royalties
– Collectors or groups of people could buy contractors for individual athletes
– Merchandise ideas can be crowdsourced
– Teams can reward fans for engagement and team promotions
– Think about revenue distribution systems
– High stakes match tickets could be NFTs

In terms of execution, each of these above ideas could be easily explored from an angle of digital collectibles first, which I believe can lay a pathway for interesting opportunities like digital marketplaces and whole digital ecosystems around each of the above domains. Truly exciting prospects.

Each of the above mentioned organizations can also consider DAOs to build engagement and to ensure that all stakeholders remain vested. More notes on DAOs can be seen in the second answer.