Walmart Partners With Gaming Platform to Allow Users to Sell Products in the Virtual Realm
Walmart is partnering with Unity, a 3D content platform and gaming engine, to allow creators to sell physical items on various games and apps.
Via the partnership, Walmart will allow Unity developers to “integrate Walmart’s commerce APIs [application programming interface] directly into their games and apps,” which will enable the sale of Walmart products across more than 20 platforms.
The deal will help bring Walmart’s retail dominance into the realm of digital commerce. According to a release from Walmart, more than 1.1 million developers use the Unity editor each month.
“We have an opportunity to connect the physical and digital realms in a way that only Walmart can, meeting our customers and members with authentic experiences where they already are,” said Tom Kang, VP and general manager, Metaverse Commerce, Walmart’s Store No. 8, in a statement. “By opening up Walmart’s commerce APIs to the Unity development community, we’re empowering developers to offer a new mechanism to further drive user engagement while making it easy and convenient for players to complete a transaction for physical products without leaving the game, virtual world or app.”
“This announcement paves the way for new innovation in commerce for games and other virtual experiences,” said Marc Whitten, president, Create, Unity, in a statement. “We’re excited to be able to give Unity developers the option of another new revenue stream while keeping players within their games and experiences.”
The news marks Walmart’s latest push into the realm of immersive commerce and virtual reality. In September of 2022, the retailer launched two immersive metaverse experiences powered by Roblox that offered “interactive content and entertainment for customers,” Walmart said at the time. In 2023, Walmart teamed up with a home renovation mobile game that allowed players to test paint colors sold at Walmart while playing the game.
And last September, Kang said Walmart would continue to test various virtual experiences in 2024.