Nike just bought a virtual shoe company that makes NFTs and sneakers ‘for the metaverse’

[Lightwreather]

Summary

The apparel giant just announced the acquisition of RTFKT Studios, which it calls “a leading brand that leverages cutting edge innovation to deliver next generation collectibles that merge culture and gaming.”

 

Quotes

Quote

“This acquisition is another step that accelerates Nike’s digital transformation and allows us to serve athletes and creators at the intersection of sport, creativity, gaming and culture,” says John Donahoe, President and CEO of NIKE, Inc. “We’re acquiring a very talented team of creators with an authentic and connected brand. Our plan is to invest in the RTFKT brand, serve and grow their innovative and creative community and extend Nike’s digital footprint and capabilities.” 

“This is a unique opportunity to build the RTFKT brand and we are excited to benefit from Nike’s foundational strength and expertise to build the communities we love,” says Benoit Pagotto, one of RTFKT’s co-founders. “Nike is the only brand in the world that shares the deep passion we all have for innovation, creativity and community, and we’re excited to grow our brand which was fully formed in the metaverse.”

 

My thoughts

Bananas. More of this Metaverse hype. Welp, NIKE is now going full on into the Metaverse. And I find this a bit funny, the Metaverse isn't even here yet, and yet there are companies like NIKE that already want to sell stuff there. Well, how this plays out, we'll have ot wait and see. But I for one welcome our Meta algorithmic Overlords /s

Sources

TheVerge

NIKE

[TOMPPIX]

Dear diary, today I will once again go and flaunt my 5 million metabucks Nike branded apparel to my fellow pals in the metaverse. I will kiss the almighty ZUCC on the lips when I logout, because he is the one that allow me to live such a lavish lifestyle. But now it's time for bed, I'm looking forward to sleeping on the mattress I found at the dump.

[RejZoR]

Metaverse, the next dumb buzzword. Yay. Can't wait to listen about this dumb crap for next several years...

[suicidalfranco]

Sad things is it will become popular because the lowest common denominator are the normies who will flock in the MV like there's no tomorrow.

[Video Beagle]

I recall in the pre WWW days...when the internet was just text based in mono color....the dreams of the cyberverse....reading cyberpunk stories, the ideas of the 'net.....never thought it get here and just be so stupid.

[RejZoR]

17 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

I recall in the pre WWW days...when the internet was just text based in mono color....the dreams of the cyberverse....reading cyberpunk stories, the ideas of the 'net.....never thought it get here and just be so stupid.

And how mainframes were always depicted as something you enter with VR headset and you wave around with magic gloves on your hands to navigate through folders and files that are visually represented inside VR. Even The Matrix was pretty bad in that regard with "code" flowing through display and everyone somehow magically reading what the F was happening from it. Like come on...

 

It is however funny and interesting watching something like Stargate SG-1 series that was happening through late 90's to mid 2010's. In late 90's, all monitors in the SGC were CRT's and at the end of the show they used LCD's basically everywhere. It was just the biggest transition from fat TV's and monitors to flat ones we use now.

[Video Beagle]

14 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

And how mainframes were always depicted as something you enter with VR headset and you wave around with magic gloves on your hands to navigate through folders and files that are visually represented inside VR.

that stuff is cool.... unlike virtual tennis shoes.

[Fasterthannothing]

Not surprising RTFKT did an exclusive shoe drop in Decentraland for Atari and the shoes were selling for outrageous amounts of money

[dizmo]

Interesting. Smart move IMO. The company appears to be insanely profitable, especially considering the amount of work that would be put in vs an actual physical product. I wonder how much they paid. 

 

As for the Metaverse. It'll be interesting to see if it'll aid in the end of society as we know it. We're already well on track according to a pretty in depth MIT model. 

[StDragon]

"A fool and his money are soon parted"

[Heliian]

I enjoy vr and escapism more than most but I will never pay for this ridiculous concept.

 

The scams are already rolling hard. 

[poochyena]

I still have literally no idea wtf people mean by "metaverse". They just create and sell artwork of shoes, right? How does "metaverse" play into this?

[Salv8 (sam)]

1 hour ago, poochyena said:

I still have literally no idea wtf people mean by "metaverse". They just create and sell artwork of shoes, right? How does "metaverse" play into this?

dude it's a buzzword, it's impossible to understand.

all this shit is made up 100% of the time cause it's a waste of time, resources and money.

nothing else, the computers that power the blockchains for these things could be used to help cure cancer.

BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WE NEED USELESS ITEMS THAT WE CAN'T EVEN SEE!!!!!!!!

[StDragon]

41 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

dude it's a buzzword, it's impossible to understand.

I for one understand it very well. The entire concept of NFTs is to conflate the material world with the digital. It's an exclusive item that you own, but accessible only through the metaverse (internet). It's virtual item made of bits.

 

Reality: NFTs are popular because most people aren't part of the money laundering operation that makes it so successful.

 

"It's a big club, and you ain't in it" -George Carlin

[Video Beagle]

Can someone explain.. do the blockchains for NFT's have the power issues mining coins in blockchains have?

Like, "mining" is doing number crunches to find some kind of number that means a coin, right? but blockchains themselves are just like some kind of distributed database, so it's divorced from the math stuff....

 

boy, I just really don't understand this stuff

[Sauron]

23 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

Sad things is it will become popular because the lowest common denominator are the normies who will flock in the MV like there's no tomorrow.

I don't know, the whole idea seems to be completely opposite to the way most people use their devices... I don't see the average tiktoker strapping on a VR headset just to scroll while bored.

[Sauron]

6 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

Can someone explain.. do the blockchains for NFT's have the power issues mining coins in blockchains have?

Yep

6 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

Like, "mining" is doing number crunches to find some kind of number that means a coin, right? but blockchains themselves are just like some kind of distributed database, so it's divorced from the math stuff....

"Math stuff" is required to verify the transaction.

12 hours ago, StDragon said:

I for one understand it very well. The entire concept of NFTs is to conflate the material world with the digital. It's an exclusive item that you own, but accessible only through the metaverse (internet). It's virtual item made of bits.

Except you don't actually own it, you own a receipt.

[Kisai]

On 12/13/2021 at 10:43 PM, James Evens said:

 There are already companies turning sneakers into physical "NFT" by pairing it through a NFC tag with some blockchain.

Well that -is- what the intent of blockchain was for. Tracking the authenticity of physical items so they can't be counterfeited. Scan the token on the luxury product with your cell phone, and it says where it was made, who made it, who handled it through the entire production chain, what store finally took possession of it, and who sold it, and who was the final purchaser. If you resell it (because for some god-for-saken-reason shoes are collectable) you have to update the blockchain of who owns it, otherwise you're still responsible for it if the new owner is found dead wearing them. Or any other crime where the blockchain can be scanned to see who "last owned it"

 

But for obvious reasons, people could just steal virtual property, Opensea has been nothing but theft to date. DeviantArt, ironically has been revealing how big of a grift NFT's have become by showing how many times the same image has been stolen from DeviantArt and turned into a NFT on opensea.

 

 

By finding a reason for people to actually pay to use DeviantArt. DeviantArt doesn't send DMCA's on your behalf though. They  just tell you to go to the marketplace and file the report there.

 

We've entered the FOMO grift point of NFT's and now all these idiot companies and celebrities (even dead ones) are jumping in.

 

Just let it go, nobody needs to own a NFT any more than they need to own the receipt that a celebrity touched one time.

[suicidalfranco]

5 hours ago, Sauron said:

I don't know, the whole idea seems to be completely opposite to the way most people use their devices... I don't see the average tiktoker strapping on a VR headset just to scroll while bored.

talking about people who made insta, tiktok, twitch, freaking vtubers etc. the giants they are now

the metaverse will become the next big social network. And there's nothing we can do to stop that

[Kadzo]

Look on this from a brighter perspective, at least this time they cant have slave workers... 

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

talking about people who made insta, tiktok, twitch, freaking vtubers etc. the giants they are now

the metaverse will become the next big social network. And there's nothing we can do to stop that

There have been times when people have hyped up something that ended up not working out too well. VR is probably the best example. 

[BuckGup]

I find it hilarious how old people sound in this thread. It's gone full circle from Boomers complaining about facebook to now zoomers complaining about meta which is Facebook. There's no difference between something physical and virtual besides your subjective view because your body exists in the physical world. Holding an object physically and virtually is the same thing without subjectively quantifying it with things like weight and saying this thing is real because I said so.  A good example is a conversation. Your body has evolved to be able to transmit information physically and receive it physically with sound waves. Now take a conversation in a virtual space. Did it not exist and the information transmitted from someone to someone else not be valid? No, we are simply evolving and this is the future and I'm not sure why people are having such a hard time accepting this. 

[BuckGup]

14 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

There have been times when people have hyped up something that ended up not working out too well. VR is probably the best example. 

The metaverse isn't VR though. Meta did a shit job portraying what it truly is. Nvidia's demo was much more impactful and having an API framework that ties it all together is in a way the physics of the virtual world

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, BuckGup said:

The metaverse isn't VR though. Meta did a shit job portraying what it truly is. Nvidia's demo was much more impactful and having an API framework that ties it all together is in a way the physics of the virtual world

I find it hard to believe that it won't end up alot like VR. Sure it will be a thing but you won't see mass adoption and it's not as good as peoplemade it out to be. 

[samcool55]

Am I the only one just failing to understand this whole metaverse thing?

Like, u can't just create an account and join it as you would expect because it, doesn't exist yet or something?

 

Sounds to me like minecraft for the rich influencer social media type of person.