Walmart’s Discovered experience has launched last year as a way for kids to buy virtual items for in-game Roblox. But today, the partnership is testing an expanded pilot program that will allow teenagers to buy real-life merchandise stocked on digital shelves before it’s shipped to your door.
Available to children 13 years of age and older in the United States, last addition to Walmart Discovered is an IRL shopping store featuring items created by collaborative user-generated content creators, including MD17_RBLX, Junozy, and Sarabxlla. Customers can browse and try on items inside virtual stores, after which the game will open a browser window to Walmart’s online store (displayed on an in-game laptop) to view and purchase physical items.
Additionally, anyone who purchases a real-world product from Discovered will receive a free digital twin so they can have a virtual representation of their purchase. Some examples of the first products to get the dual IRL and virtual treatment are the touch bag Boundlessa TAL stainless steel tumbler and Onn Bluetooth headphones.
according to digiday, during this initial pilot phase (which will take place throughout May), Roblox will not be cut from any of the physical sales made as part of Walmart’s Discovered experience as it looks to gauge people’s interest levels. However, the parameters of the partnership may change going forward as Roblox gathers more information about how people perceive buying real goods in virtual stores.
Unfortunately, while Roblux’s latest attempt may seem like an oddly exploitative way to squeeze more money out of teenagers (or, more realistically, their parents’ money), it’s really just another small step in the company’s efforts to make the game a full-fledged online game. market place. Last year, Roblox got a big boost when it launched new ways of digital marketing sell and serve in-game advertising before then removing the requirements for advertisers to create bespoke virtual experiences for each product.
So, if you needed another reason not to store payment information in the game’s virtual store, now instead of spending money on virtual items, kids can spend cash on littering their rooms.
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