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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: etc.

"Fashion brands are finding it increasingly difficult to catch the attention of people between the ages of 18 and 34 because they prefer interactive experiences."

From a traditional point of view, video games and fashion circles seem to have nothing to do with each other, but the clothes of these virtual characters have been fascinating since the characters can change their clothes and skin. Whether parachuting in Fortnite or attending dinner parties in the Sims, players tend to pay great attention to their clothes, and more and more online games rely on selling this type of paid props for a profit. As a result, another door in the game circle opened.

Now, luxury brands are keen to enter the game field. Over the past three years, brands such as Balenciaga, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Tommy Hilfiger and Valentino have linked across the border with popular games, such as "gather together!" Hold a runway show in the Animal Forest Club, launch brand clothing and equipment skin in "League of Legends" and "Fortnite", or build a realistic shopping game environment in "Robles" in "Meta Universe".

In a sense, it is gamers who promote virtual fashion to achieve today's prosperity.

Pursue fashion in "moving Sen"? Italian luxury brand Valentino has a keen sense of marketing in the late 1990s and early 2000s, some independent designers began to create customized clothes in games such as the Sims, and some people will sell digital goods from games such as "endless tasks" and "World of Warcraft" on online platforms, many years before game developers and clothing brands sell skin to a wider range of users.

"the virtual image economy is nothing new." "I think what's new now is that more people realize that this is an opportunity than in the past, not just a niche experience for gamers," said Casandri Napoli, a senior strategist at trend forecasting firm WGSN. "overall, the game has become more mainstream."

According to a report released by WGSN in 2020, global gaming revenues in 2019 were $120 billion, of which skin props accounted for 80 per cent of sales.

The Sims 4's collaboration with the Moschino brand personalized creativity when the original Sims came out in 2000, it provided players with a virtual world similar to the real world, unlike most games with fantasy backgrounds. Players can use external software to import hairstyles, clothing and other content to modify or "modify" the image of the villain. Since then, many players have begun to be creative, designing a variety of clothes for virtual characters in the game.

Jenny Svoboda, a Texas designer known as Lovespun, has been creating custom clothes for games such as the Sims, second Life and Robles for the past few years. "this is the embodiment of digital fashion, and people don't want to look exactly like some NPC or other player." Svoboda said.

The Sims has worked with fashion brands such as Gucci and Moschino, but players have designed richer character shapes. Svoboda says players can create almost all kinds of personalized content, including hairstyles, clothing and makeup, including almost any element you can think of. If anyone wants the matte lip color of Internet celebrity Kelly Jenna, the pink look of the comedy "mean Girl" or all the makeup of Jules in the US TV series "excited", they can always find the right module.

A virtual Gucci bag once sold for more than $4000 in Robles, even higher than its physical value, in addition to increasing the playability of games such as the Sims, player personalized design has also become the cornerstone of the platform operation of games such as second Life and Robles. As early as 2006, mainstream fashion brands entered second Life, and American Apparel, Amani and Adidas opened their own digital stores in the game, valuing second Life at $64 million at one point. Earlier this year, famous fashion designer Jonathan Simkai held a catwalk at New York Fashion week and showed off his fall / Winter 2022 collection in second Life.

In Robles, some head developers earn millions of dollars a year and have the opportunity to design dedicated gaming environments for fashion partners. Svoboda has worked with Forever 21, Tommy Hilfiger and Carly Klaus, and in her view, Robles is definitely a gateway and breakthrough for many brands to enter the game field and cooperate.

Edward Casanova, a coveted virtual product, is a professor of media at Indiana University at Burmington and an expert on game virtual economy. Since the launch of the first MMORPG in the late 1990s, he has been watching the rise of virtual goods in games. Casanova says he is not surprised that many players are obsessed with collecting digital clothes.

In his 2006 book Man-made World: business and Culture of online Games (Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games), Casanova wrote that when Genesis online, a fantasy online game that allows players to store unlimited equipment, was launched in 1997, a player began collecting shirts almost frantically, eventually collecting and storing more than 10,000 pieces.

Casanova, the MetaUniverse fashion week in second Life, also mentioned that rare armor and skin became a coveted commodity before 2005, with an overall economic value of tens of millions of dollars on trading sites such as eBay. But it wasn't until the 2010s that game companies began to make money by selling skin. Now that skin has become one of the important sources of income for online games, and there are many games suitable for fashion brands to display, promote and directly sell virtual goods, it is reasonable for the game industry to attract the attention of fashion brands.

For many games, including Fortnite, the interest of players and fashion brands in skin has paid off handsomely. In Fortnite, the character's costume style is an integral part of the player's experience.

"We encourage players to express themselves in a variety of ways, which is the core of the player experience." "Fortnite" developer Epic Games cooperation director Emily Levy said. In 2018, this tactical competitive game became popular all over the world and successfully held social events such as concerts and fashion competitions. Levy revealed that some of the costumes in the game have attracted a group of "fanatical followers."

Players get the skin, game companies get revenue, and third-party brands expand their publicity. A "win-win" world has reached a long-term relationship, Epic fashion director Sally Young Horton believes that with the development of technology, the relationship between games and the fashion industry will become closer and closer. She pointed out that the "Unreal" engine developed by Epic is a real-time 3D modeling tool that supports many video games and meta-universe platforms and has created digital fashion shows for designers such as Gary James McQueen.

"graphic technology has made great progress, whether for a piece of clothing, a building or a landscape, we can now create a digital version of it to bring a more immersive experience to the audience." Horton says, for example, that in a partnership between Epic and Meikai, character costumes change from light to dim depending on their altitude-a similar effect for physical clothing designers.

At present, most of the partnerships between mainstream fashion brands and game companies are one-off, and it is not clear whether these brands are willing to dig deep into the game field for a long time. However, Gucci has been investing more in the game market in recent years, not only in cross-border cooperation with games such as Pokemon Go, Tennis Clash and Robles, but also in official applications with the launch of Gucci retro Gaming Hall (Gucci Arcade).

Robert Treves, head of corporate and brand strategy at Gucci, which uses modern technology to create retro Gucci, said: "Video games have great potential around the world, with influence spanning time, gender and race. We realize that Gucci has the opportunity to make its voice in the player community." Treves also revealed that his team has made many different types of attempts to gain a deeper understanding of the game world.

Casanova believes that branded goods in the game will always be attractive to players.

"people care about their appearance, both in the virtual world and in real life." "over time, it has become increasingly difficult for fashion brands to catch the attention of people between the ages of 18 and 34, because they prefer interactive experiences, so I think this trend will continue," he said. "

This article is compiled from: http://edition.cnn.com/ style / article / digital-fashion-video-games-the-sims / index.html

Original title: "You can thank The Sims for the rise of luxury fashion in gaming"

Original author: Jacqui Palumbo

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