Requirements to Enable Future “METAVERSE” Revenue Streams for Emerging Fashion Designers

The fashion industry’s engagement within gaming has largely been driven by established brands using the digital interface as a new means to reach customers, ensuring brand identities transition into multiverses, commonly known as ‘the metaverse’. However, for emerging fashion designers, routes into digital markets through gaming interfaces are challenging with no clear frameworks for revenue streams.

The research presented within this chapter explored the convergence of fashion and games, questioning how fashion designs can be monetized through video games to create new approaches to fair revenue streams for emerging fashion designers. The research undertaken formed part of a larger Proof of Market study funded through the Research and Development stream within the UKRI project, Future Fashion Factory – Digitally Enabled Design & Manufacture of Designer Products for Circular Economies (grant reference: AH/S002812/1).

The research was undertaken within a cross-disciplinary empirical study encompassing law, gaming, and fashion design to develop an integral understanding of the contracting and Intellectual Property (IP) protection requirements, fashion design process, and gaming market. A UK-based games company and three emerging fashion designers, each with varying degrees of interaction with the metaverse, informed the research. The results discuss the key stages required for the initial development of frameworks that will enable emerging designers to access gaming revenue streams as follows (i) Designer IP, (ii) Platform Model, (iii) Democratising Creative IP.