Auggy, a new tech company, plans to allow creators to build their own brand-centric metaverse worlds. Many established companies are diving into the metaverse, such as Samsung with its new virtual store. However, Auggy is the first company to offer users a world in which they can show off photos or artwork in virtual galleries or gamify songs and other creative products. Essentially, Auggy is creating a platform where both brands and regular users can create their own, personal metaverse.
One of the company’s primary goals is to make the metaverse accessible to older generations. Sidney Swift, founder of Auggy, told Yahoo Finance, “We’re trying to create a Metaverse that your grandmother can understand.”
Swift believes everyone already has a virtual world of their own. However, these worlds are currently spread across multiple platforms across the internet. With Auggy, users can integrate the entirety of their online existence into one platform.
Auggy, and the Music Industry
Swift, a Grammy-winning music producer, came up with the idea for personal metaverses in 2017 while attempting to better reach fans. “I saw so many missed opportunities for fan conversion in the music world, especially as Spotify and streaming started to come out where it was more of a passive audience experience rather than like an active audience experience,” Yahoo Finance reported Swift as saying.
Swift anticipates fans purchasing NFTs that grant them the ability to weigh in on an artist’s upcoming tracks. The former Grammy winner even owns a patent for creating music videos that can trigger an AR game on smartphones. As he told Yahoo Finance, “We found that the secondary experiences were five times the amount of streams and that people kept playing the game over and over.” While game design companies like Square Enix have made their interest in the metaverse known, Auggy will be the first to integrate the music and gaming genres in such a way.
Personal metaverses will be sold as NFTs to allow users to own their world. Furthermore, users will be able to sell NFTs within their metaverses. Additionally, users will be able to build video games within their metaverse and license them to Sony PlayStation.
Currently, the platform is invitation-only. However, once out of the beta phase, Auggy will be free to anyone wishing to sign up. The company will take a small royalty from all NFTs made with Auggy’s metaverse maker. However, creators can choose their royalty rate. “We’re offering artists the ability to make it a very curated special experience for people at the inflection point of their attention span,” Swift said in his interview.
Jack Brassell is a freelance journalist and aspiring novelist. Jack is a self-proclaimed nerd with a lifelong passion for storytelling. As an author, Jack writes mostly horror and young adult fantasy. Also an avid gamer, she works as the lead news editor at Hardcore Droid. When she isn't writing or playing games, she can often be found binge-watching Parks & Rec or The Office, proudly considering herself to be a cross between Leslie Knope and Pam Beasley.
