Adidas opens metaverse pop-up shops on Roblox
Adidas is offering digital wearables and accessories via a popular immersive gaming platform.
The German athletic footwear and apparel giant is kicking off its launch in the Roblox metaverse gaming environment with pop-up stores carrying officially licensed digital clothing and outfits specifically developed for the platform.
Roblox users will be able to dress up their avatars with Adidas pieces, such as firebird tracksuits. All items will be available on the Roblox Marketplace digital commerce platform and can be purchased with Robux in-experience virtual currency.
Adidas is teaming up with Roblox creator Rush Bogin (Rush X) to design a range of exclusive, limited-edition digital items that will be available on a first-come-first-served basis. Following the initial release, additional designs for both Adidas and the “Adidas x Rush X” collaboration products will be introduced with new drops scheduled weekly throughout December.
The first Adidas Roblox pop-up shops are available in the following Roblox experiences: Princess Dress Up Obby, Cotton Obby!, Seaboard City, Theme Park HeideLand, Noob Train, Dream Island, and Ultimate Ragdoll Playground. Adidas will introduce more stores regularly in the coming weeks.
Headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, Adidas employs more than 59,000 people across the globe and generated sales of more than $24 billion in 2022.
Nike pursues active metaverse presence
Adidas is following in the footsteps of fellow global athletic footwear giant Nike, which has initiated a number of metaverse efforts in the past few years, including its November 2021 launch of a proprietary virtual world called “Nikeland” on Roblox.
Other Nike metaverse offerings include the company’s acquisition of RTKFT, a company that leverages game engines, NFTs, blockchain authentication, and augmented reality (AR) to create unique virtual products and experiences, including collectibles.
Most recently, Nike introduced .Swoosh, a metaverse platform that has its own domain, welcome.swoosh.nike, and is designed to enable registered members to learn about, collect, and eventually help co-create virtual products, which are typically interactive digital objects such as virtual shoes or jerseys.