Gaia Online just announced the release of celebrity-inspired items for Gaia users. This week’s items now allow registrants the opportunity to dress up their avatars as Snoop Dogg or The Incredible Hulk with hairstyles, purple pants, green fists and more. This marks the first time fully licensed celebrity-branded virtual items have been sold in the virtual world.
In a partnership with virtual goods sales and distribution system Virtual Greats LLC, Gaia Online will allow users to collect or ”snare” quality celebrity items each month to create unique characters or just have fun.
In a press release, Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online, said these items will allow users to express themselves and show some love to the celebrities they adore the most. “The same way fans hang a poster on their bedroom wall or wear a t-shirt with their favorite band on it,” Sherman said. “We’re enabling our users to establish a connection with the celebrities they admire.”
Gaian users will also help be able to vote to help decide which celebrity item will be featured next. The items are purchased using Gaia cash which users can be purchased 500 Gaian cash for $5, 1000 for $10, 2500 for $25 and 5000 for $50 real American dollars which can be used for evolving items or celebrity items like this month’s:
Snoop Dogg’s:
- Plate of Chicken ‘n Waffles for 25G
- Gold Chains for 50G
- Wig for 99G
- Posse Figurines for 99G
- Retro Boombox for 99G
- Hoodie for 99G
- Snoop’s Girls for 199G
- Snoop’s Dobermans for 299G
The Incredible Hulk’s:
- Gamma Soda for 25G
- Rage emoticon for 25G
- Impact Crater for 50G
- Tattered purple pants for 50G
- Words SMASH! for 50G
- The Hulk’s fists for 100G
- Hulk action figure for 150G
According to Virtual Great’s CEO, Dan Jansen, in a recent announcement, this would also mark a new market with many possibilities.
“The arrival of celebrity-branded virtual goods in one of the world’s top online destinations for young people brings tangibility to this incredibly promising and essentially untapped market,” Jansen said. “We can’t fully predict how the Gaia community will make use of these goods, but we know it will be boisterous, irreverent and fun - all to the long-term benefit of the IP owners.”
He said in the press release that the ability to display these avatar items offers celebrities and IP-holders a new way to “monetize their copyrighted content and to seamlessly extend their brands into sought-after and fast-growing online communities. Virtual Greats, which holds exclusive virtual world distribution rights for its affiliated artists, celebrities and entertainment properties, was launched in June 2008.”
During the coming weeks, virtual goods associated with entertainment properties will continue to launch on Gaia Online and through other virtual worlds online.
Read [PR Web] Press Release [Virtual Greats LLC] Site [Gaia Celebrity Snare] Site [Gaia Online] Site [Virtual Greats]
No comments:
Post a Comment