Yesterday Eminem and Snoop Dogg performed at the MTV Video Music Awards as Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT characters in the Otherside metaverse. The two artists performed a rendition of their “From the D 2 the LBC” track which was launched in June with a BAYC video.
This year’s awards also featured a metaverse awards category, although no blockchain platforms were nominated.
The Eminem Snoop Dogg performance was a massive promotion for the Otherside, the metaverse experience being launched by BAYC founder Yuga Labs and Animoca Brands. At one point in the video below (2.14), you see another object in the background, an alien Koda character from the Otherside. It shouldn’t be a big surprise because famed music promoter Guy Oseary – known for managing Madonna and U2 – represents Yuga labs.
Eminem and Snoop Dogg both bought BAYC NFTs earlier this year, with Eminem paying around $450,000 for his. Snoop Dogg also has land and NFTs in Animoca Brands’ The Sandbox metaverse. He acquired Death Row records to convert it into a metaverse label.
The Yuga Labs money machine
A Yuga Labs slide deck showed that it raked in $127 million in profit in 2021, forecasting $455m for 2022. In March, it raised $450 million in seed funding at a $4 billion valuation. It subsequently bought the Cryptopunks intellectual property.
The pitch deck predicted selling Otherside land for $200 million. When the land went up for sale at the end of April, it brought in around $300 million in revenue. However, it resulted in Ethereum grinding to a halt, and many bidders wasted thousands in gas fees that Yuga Labs promised to repay. Total gas costs were estimated at around $150 million, although the Otherside only committed to repaying gas for failed transactions.
As a result of the Ethereum congestion, the Otherside said it needed to migrate to its own blockchain at some point.
Metaverse land prices have dropped this year. Despite a spike yesterday, prices dropped today, so Otherdeed NFTs are transacting at the lowest price since launch. In dollar terms, the value is down more than 50%, but in Ethereum terms, they are hovering around the original mint price.
What is the Otherside?
In the Yuga Labs pitch deck, the team doesn’t pull its punches, calling most (social) metaverses boring, and hence aims to build an interoperable gaming metaverse or a metaRGP. It plans to include multiple NFT collections, including BAYC, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Meebits and World of Women, which Oseary also manages.
The pitch deck notes that success in terms of stickiness and revenues has primarily come from games which account for 71% of total app store revenues in 2020 (67% in 2021). As context, 2021 iOS and Android revenues totaled $133 billion, so games accounted for $89 billion.
It believes the secret sauce comes from “combining storytelling, pop culture, taste and fun in just the right amounts.”
But I’d really like to know whether MTV was paid for the promotion of the Otherside, and if so, how much.
