According to a recent market report, the VR industry will grow at an incredible annual rate of 35% in the following few years. As more and more people commence to purchase headsets, the industry will want to keep producing new content to keep them engaged. Furthermore, as companies and users provide more VR experiences ever, the issue of ownership rights will naturally occur. VR can be a superb source of monetization – yet how can experience creators ensure that the income goes to them? Here’s where blockchain comes in: it’s a comprehensive tool to establish rights to an asset and trace its usage. Not surprisingly, quite a few projects have begun offering to mix blockchain and virtual reality.

Here are five projects that are investigating innovative ways to monetize virtual reality. Rather than just enabling users to play games wearing a headset, they allow their clients to start virtual businesses, visit concerts and sports events, shop, or trade their services. All five have previously gone far away from a simple idea: you can utilize them and even purchase a virtual land plot of your own!

1. VIARIUM

Unlike various other VR projects that concentrate stringently on entertainment, VIARIUM has a more efficient, business-oriented approach. The company produces and trades digital plots of land that can be expanded into sales outlets, meeting venues, showrooms, and much more. It enables users to monetize their own VR content and maintain exclusive rights to it. Online commerce is required to become the principal driver of the VR industry, dramatically extending the consumer experience. The prices of virtual shopping outlets are commencing to proliferate, leading to heightened interest from investors. 

2. CEEK

On CEEK, it’s all regarding events – be it basketball matches, concerts, or drama performances. The company commenced out as a manufacturer of VR headsets and following branched out into virtual experiences proper. Nevertheless, it neither produces its original content nor allows its users to join their own custom-made experiences. Instead, CEEK intends to collaborate with record labels, theater companies, sports teams, and professional educators to broadcast events in its virtual venues found in a specially designed “digital city,” complete with a concert hall, teaching auditorium, arena, and more.

3. Decentraland

Decentraland allows users to purchase 10x10m plots of virtual land in its “Genesis City” that they can improve and monetize as they wish. So far, executed projects involve a card game, an RPG, and a racing game. By buying adjacent plots, members can start larger businesses and increase their income. It should be regarded that the project utilizes IPFS (Inter Planetary File System) for classified content storage – another experimental technology. File storage with IPFS is free for now, however it remains to be understood if the limited resources of IPFS can help the expanding amount of data generated by Genesis City.

4. BeachHead

Somewhat similarly to Decentraland and VIARIUM, BeachHead allows users to purchase virtual plots and improve them. Its distinct feature is its focus on gamification. The platform is focused on a virtual city where members can buy, watch concerts, or trade their services – although at the same time, they have to preserve the town from an invading force. For these purposes, they will receive tokens. The project intends to draw the gaming audience, which so far has been the most active users of VR.

Also, read – What is a smart contract and how is it implemented in DApps Games?

5. VibeHub

VibeHub is a marketplace of VR content; it doesn’t provide virtual properties, aggregates experiences generated by others. One range of VR creation where the project’s founders are working is capturing holographic pictures of real people – celebrities, comedians, educators, and so on. According to the organizers, such holograms are the prospect of making a video. So far, the marketplace highlights two simple games and a few holographic singing performances, though many more are coming soon.