Most of today’s consumer tech giants monetize through ads: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snap, YouTube. Virtual worlds are the next generation of consumer tech, and they’ll monetize through commerce—through virtual economies and marketplaces.

Consequently, products for those invested in the future of the metaverse will become increasingly popular (VR hoverboards, digital sneakers, and more) as non-gaming platforms adopt the infrastructure of games, from identity to narrative to game-based mechanisms for achieving social status.