High Street, a Play-to-Earn and Commerce-Centric Metaverse

[TL; DR]

- The High Street metaverse enables popular e-commerce brands to develop virtual stores on the platform.

- Brands benefit from tokenizing real world products such as clothing items, thereby generating more revenue than otherwise.

- HIGH is High Street’s native token which the players can use to buy special items such as virtual properties.

- Players earn the STREET token after completing key gaming milestones.

- The virtual land is organized into hexagon tiles, regions and territories.






Introduction

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The emergence of the NFT technology has helped brands to use the blockchain to increase their awareness. Many e-commerce stores wish to tap into this technology but may not have the time, resources or technology to do that. Therefore, some of the retail outlets use the existing blockchain infrastructure to achieve their aims. For instance, some brands have partnered with High Street to promote their products.


What is High Street?

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High Street is a commerce-focused metaverse that aims to create value for gamers and brands. Founded by Travis Wu and Jenny Guo in 2015, High Street aims to redefine brands using the blockchain technology as well as bridging the gap between the physical business world and the digital space.

As such, High Street is willing to work with both traditional and decentralized businesses to promote their brands and products using its metaverse platform. For example, it allows brands to establish their virtual stores on the platform.

In terms of the game, the players can participate in various captivating activities such as fighting monsters. They can also participate in social events and quests in order to earn rewards in the form of digital assets. In addition, they can use the tokens they earn to purchase virtual estates and other digital assets.

High Street also transforms real world assets into digital ones. In other words, it tokenizes real world products into "phygital" objects. The term phygital simply means that the products can be accessed in their physical and digital forms. As a result, customers can choose to buy the digital version or the physical one. In certain cases, they can purchase both forms.

What this means is that the brands that open virtual stores in the High Street metaverse turn their physical products into tokens. Since, their customers can purchase both the physical items and their digital versions, the businesses generate more revenue than if they sell the real products only. Also, owning virtual stores enables them to have more customers than before.





How does the High Street work with brands?

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High Street forges partnerships with big brands around the world to bring various products into the metaverse. As a result, the players have a chance to claim some free digital products which some ecommerce stores provide.

There are many physical products which the brands can tokenize. For example, they can turn clothing items such as sneakers, belts and T-shirts into their digital forms. In fact, High Street converts the products into fractional NFTs. These fractional NFTs become in-game items which players can buy, own and sell. This means that some departmental stores generate revenue from the NFTs without incurring high expenses and without any reduction in their stocks.

The other NFT fraction is linked to the physical stocks. What this means is that if a player purchases it, he/she will also get the real product such as a t-shirt or pair of sneakers. This is because there is a Shopify feature that enables the player to claim the real product from the e-commerce store.


How High Street Works

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The High Street metaverse has some islands and regions with hexagon tiles which represent construction components. In other words, each hexagon tile is a virtual plot where a player can construct a property. A single High Street region comprises fifty hexagon tiles.

The regions are set aside for construction of residential properties. It is possible for players to purchase hexagon tiles, regions or territories, depending on their needs and preferences.


High Street Components

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There are different components that make High Street unique. These include Highstreet Marketplace, Highstreet Lands and Highstreet Homes

Marketplace: People can buy and sell phygital products and in-game items there.

Highstreet homes: The users can purchase virtual homes using this feature.

HighStreet lands: The virtual land is divided into different sizes including single Hexes, 10-Hex Zones, 50-Hex Regions, and 150-Hex Megaplexes. Real world brands can purchase these plots and develop their virtual stores.

Forever Fomo Duck Squad (Ducks): These are the official avatars of High Street. These NFTs perform various functions such as being gateways to the special FOMO Duck club in Highstreet World.


High Street Tokens

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High Street has two tokens, HIGH and STREET. HIGH is the internal utility as well as the governance token for High Street. On the other hand, the STREET token is the in-game currency, meaning that the players use it for making payments. It is the token which they also earn as they play the game.

People use HIGH to buy different items used in the game such as properties or limited edition products in the marketplace.

Since HIGH is also the governance token, its holders can propose and vote on necessary improvements to the protocol. However, in order to make proposals and vote, the HIGH holders should stake it. As a result, the voting power of an individual is proportionate to the staked HIGH tokens.

The gamers earn the STREET token after completing different tasks such as quests and hunting monsters.


Conclusion

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In short, High Street is a metaverse which incorporates gaming, brands, shopping, cryptocurrency and NFTs. The e-commerce stores that partner with High Street create virtual stores in the metaverse and tokenize their physical products. HIGH is the native token for the platform while STREET is its in-game currency.



Author: Mashell C., Gate.io Researcher
This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
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