Branding in metaverses and virtual spaces

Why metaverse projects fail more often than they succeed

The main mistake is confusing technology with a product. Meta bet on VR headsets as the primary interface of the future, but forgot to ask whether people are ready to wear them for hours. Studies on VR fatigue show that working in a headset causes eye strain, convergence, and accommodation issues, plus motion sickness — a vestibular conflict between the visual image and a stationary body. No brand will be able to retain an audience in a space that is physically unpleasant.

The second reason is the lack of a killer app, something worth returning to. A virtual store copied from the real one is a beautiful showcase without a reason to visit again. Investment in metaverses dropped from significant levels in the 2021–2022 years to $707 million in the first half of 2023 — the market itself wrote its disappointment and shifted to AI, where returns were visible faster and cheaper.

The third mistake is misunderstanding the audience. Companies built spaces for an abstract 'young user', rather than for a specific gaming mechanic in which that user already spends time.

A custom metaverse or a ready-made platform — different strategies

Here, the top results almost always stay silent, and the difference is fundamental. Creating your own environment, as Meta did, requires building technology, attracting an audience from scratch, and retaining it without external game traffic. Working within a ready-made platform like Roblox or Decentraland is using someone else's already warmed-up audience and their gaming habits.

Simple conclusion: if a brand does not have Meta-level resources, building its own universe is not an ambition, but a way to beautifully burn the budget.

How much it actually costs and who will come

Real figures in rubles look like this: a simple project on a ready platform — from 400 000 to 1,2 million rubles. A full-fledged space with gamification — from 1,2 to 3 million. A large project with several locations — from 3 million and up. Ready template solutions allow you to launch within 2 days and from 120 000 rubles — this is an entry point for testing a hypothesis, not a flagship project.

Regarding attendance — figures can be truly impressive, but they need to be read critically. Auchan City in Roblox attracted 700 000 users in the first weeks. Burger King reached 1 million visits in 9 days and took first place in the Russian Roblox ranking. Diksi increased Brand Lift by +20–24% and received gaming sessions on 59% above planned KPIs. These are real successes — but they happened within a platform with an existing audience, not in a vacuum of its own metaverse.

How to transfer brand identity into 3D-space without losing its essence

A flat logo stretched over a 3D-object will not work. Virtual environments provide three resources that a website or social media does not: volume, sound, and interaction. These should be used consciously.

• Space architecture should mirror the brand's logic, not the physical store — Samsung in Decentraland did not make a copy of its flagship store, but three meaningful zones: a news theater (Connectivity Theater), a sustainable development forest (Sustainability Forest), and an event platform (Customization Stage);
• Sonic branding in 3D works stronger than in 2D — spatial sound creates presence that is not available on a website;
• Avatar is not a decorative element, but a point of contact. MTS Verse implemented a digital consultant with voice and video support right inside the metaverse, and this resulted in significantly higher engagement than just interactive objects without dialogue;
• Gameplay mechanics should be tied to the product, not to the brand abstractly — Nike created Airphoria in Fortnite — an immersive gaming experience with virtual Air Max sneakers, integrating virtual products into the gameplay.

How to calculate ROI if traffic is not a metric

Dwell time (time in space) — a metric that is often inserted into case studies, but it says almost nothing about the value of the contact. A person can 'hang out' in space, lost in navigation, and not because the brand held their attention.

You need to look at a different set of metrics:

• return frequency — does the user come back without external stimulus;
• message recall — through surveys after the session, not through clicks;
• conversion to the next step in the funnel — transition from virtual contact to real purchase or subscription;
• Brand Lift — change in attitude toward the brand before and after interaction;
• spatial behavior — avatar movements, gestures, routes inside the space, which show what actually attracts attention, not what was scanned by gaze on inertia.

It is precisely spatial behavior — something that is not found in web analytics or social networks — and what makes the metaverse a tool, not a trendy shell, if it is measured correctly.

Is it worth it for the brand to go there now

There is no clear 'yes' here. If a company has a budget from 400 thousand to several million rubles and a specific hypothesis — testing a new audience, launching a limited collection, an event with a measurable goal — entering a ready-made platform is justified and quickly pays off through engagement and Brand Lift. Building your own metaverse makes sense only for companies of the scale of Meta or Samsung, ready for multi-year investments without guarantee of a killer feature. For everyone else, this is an expensive experiment with an unpredictable outcome — and the Horizon Worlds experience confirmed this better than any case of success.