Throughout human history, every technological advancement has solved some problems, only to then create others.
Technology is never a panacea.
The emergence of the Internet has changed the way information is transmitted and has greatly changed the traditional business models of mankind.
This has led to a series of problems, including data breaches, giant companies violating personal privacy, and the spread of misinformation.
In the past, the spread of false information only affected people around the source of the information, and the speed of information flow was very slow.
In the internet age, any piece of false information can become a collective memory for tens of thousands of people.
From Tencent's perspective, they are integrating their services and presenting them in a city-like format.
However, for most users, the immediate thought is that the hype surrounding virtual real estate may bring new forms of oppression to ordinary people in the future.
Online discussions are progressing rapidly, and most of them are negative.
Tencent's directly or indirectly controlled online trolls have begun to defend the company.
The most common explanation is:
"If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it. This is different from real estate in the real world, which is not something everyone needs."
In reality, not everyone needs real estate. If it weren't for so many other things tied to it, many people could easily rent their entire lives.
Negative public opinion cannot stop capital from voting with its feet.
Following the release of Tencent's latest "Global-Pengcheng" project, the company's stock price soared, rising by more than 20% in just two weeks.
The first batch of virtual properties sold out in less than two hours after being released.
It's not just Chinese people who are investing in virtual real estate; there are also a considerable number of overseas cryptocurrency players.
Cryptocurrency players are born to chase risks.
Previously, in very basic virtual land transactions, a simple string of data fields could be auctioned off for a price.
Not to mention that Tencent provides a complete virtual city solution, which has already been implemented.
At the end of 2017, ded held its first virtual land auction at the Terraform event.
At that time, the starting price for each plot of land was 20 yuan.
Five years later, in 2021, the average transaction price of these virtual lands exceeded 6,000 yuan, an increase of more than 300 times.
In November 2021, Republicrealm purchased a property in The Sandbox for 4.3 million US dollars.
Metaverse real estate is actually becoming an increasingly popular trend overseas.
A lot of hot money is pouring into this field.
Tencent's entry into this arena has completely ignited the virtual real estate market.
This may not be good news for the previously dominant virtual real estate developers.
Previously, virtual real estate was mainly played by four companies: ded, sandbox, and somovoxels.
Sandbox holds approximately 60% of the market share, and their virtual land prices exceeded 10,000 yuan per plot as early as 2022.
Following the release of Huanyu-Pengcheng, the price of virtual land in Sandbox plummeted, with a drop of more than 50%.
The virtual real estate platforms on the other three platforms also suffered the same fate of being halved, as the platform was cut in half.
Of course, this was followed by announcements from overseas internet giants that they would enter this market, with Facebook (now called Meta) being the most eager.
That same day, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would also be developing virtual cities, and they planned to choose from New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
"New York or Los Angeles? Or should we build a completely virtual city?"
Virtual real estate presents a fantastic opportunity for us, and we need to launch the product as soon as possible.
“I think New York is more suitable; New York is the undisputed symbol of American culture.”
As the first project in the meta virtual real estate market, we need the best city to represent it.
"What platform? Quest or Futureverse?"
"We're on both platforms, but we're focusing our main efforts on futureverse."
One day later they decided to create a virtual city - New York.
Those familiar with Facebook's development history know that they either copy or acquire good business models on the market.
The classic example of Facebook copying other people's business models can be traced back to 2012, when there was a ephemeral messaging app called Snapchat.
Snapchat had tens of millions of users at the time, and Facebook spent twelve days copying the company's product, creating an almost identical product.
Facebook didn't even shy away from admitting to copying other people's products at the time; the manager in charge of copying the products directly stated on Facebook:
This product was developed in just 12 days by a team of product and engineering engineers, with Zuckerberg himself writing the code and providing the voiceover.
Does it remind you of Tencent?
In America, the average usage time per user of TikTok has surpassed that of all apps under Meta.
Meta also wanted to copy TikTok's model, but the problem was that it couldn't compete.
They launched the Reels short video app, but there's no sign that it can compete with TikTok.
Previously, large companies copied the ideas and products of startups; now it's the turn of large companies to copy each other.
After news broke that Meta was planning to create a virtual city, its stock price surged.
Even for Meta, the biggest advantage of engaging in virtual real estate is that they don't have to pay as much 'tax' to the New York City government.
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