Bandai Namco is making its own $130 million ‘IP metaverse’

The publisher wants to create virtual spaces to “connect with fans”

Bandai Namco has revealed plans to develop its own ‘IP Metaverse’, to help fans of its games interact.

The publisher shared details on its mid-term plan (April 2022 to March 2025) with shareholders on Tuesday, and explained that the plan’s core aim will be what it calls its ‘IP Axis Strategy’.

This strategy consists of three main goals – connecting with fans through its IP, enhancing IP value and making its projects span worldwide to improve sales outside of Japan.

Part of this includes the creation of an ‘IP Metaverse’, which the publisher says it will spend ¥15 billion ($130 million) on implementing.

The Metaverse is a term currently popular among tech companies, used to describe a hypothetical, online virtual world focused on social connection.

“Bandai Namco will develop a metaverse for each IP as a new framework for connecting with fans,” the plan reads.

“In this IP Metaverse, we are anticipating virtual spaces that will enable customers to enjoy a wide range of entertainment on an IP axis, as well as frameworks that leverage Bandai Namco’s distinctive strengths to fuse physical products and venues with digital elements.

“We are aiming for open frameworks that provide venues for connections with and among fans and business partners. Through the IP Metaverse, we will establish communities among Bandai Namco and fans, as well as among fans themselves.

“Through these communities and content, we will build deep, broad, multifaceted connections that continue for long periods of time, and we will focus on the quality of those connections. In this way, we will work to maximize IP value over the medium to long term.”

According to the plan, the ¥15 billion investment in the IP Metaverse will go towards establishing the “data foundation (data universe)”, and developing content for the IP Metaverse itself.

The plan concludes with a reiteration that “realising the metaverse concept” is one of Bandai Namco’s main strategies over the next three years.