D3eSports Looks Toward The Metaverse For Greater Engagement With “Virtual-To-Real” Racing Platform

Every year, the gaming industry gains 10-12% more gamers than the previous year. With nearly 3 billion gamers worldwide, it’s a $200 billion industry that shows no signs of slowing. For many non-gamers the numbers may seem surprising, yet for forward-thinking D3eSports, a division of StemGen Inc., (OTC: SGNI), it was an anticipated trend that led to work in partnership with Dawson Racing, a real racing team. They partnered to provide authentic collaboration and support to D3eSports’ online gaming venture with real racing experience and expertise.

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“We saw the impact that gaming was having on traditional sports. Participation in outdoor sports was declining while time spent behind devices and computer screens was on the rise,” said Simon Dawson, President/CEO of D3eSports, a StemGen company. “Recognizing that it’s a trend unlikely to change, the challenge became how do we make that experience as rich as possible?”

For Dawson, the answer was obvious. “We have vast experience in real racing in our executive team. What if we could bridge the gap between virtual and real and use our platform to educate, entertain as well as bring together corporate teams and provide a recruitment platform like no other?

“With our Microsoft license, we envisioned teams in a healthy, competitive online racing environment using the popular Forza motorsports video game franchise and launched the D3eSports Cup in 2018. The corporate cups were great to bring teams together in a fun, engaging way since many businesses had lost the ability to connect with its workforce.

“The school pilot that we ran was very powerful in connecting in-class learning to real situation and experience by seeing from lead engineers on real cars how to change set-ups so they could make the adjustments on their virtual cars and experience those modifications.”

The format for the five-week competitions fielded 16 drivers in eight corporate teams competing on Forza Motorsports 7 in a Swiss format in five 20-minute races.

“From the beginning, we saw the potential of using our virtual and real motorsports platforms to incorporate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) principles in a way that would be more engaging. Now, just a few short years later, the metaverse has taken that opportunity to another level.”

The venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz described the metaverse as “a persistent, infinitely-scaling virtual space with its own economy and identity system.” Exactly how that plays out among gamers is still unknown, yet Dawson sees opportunity on multiple fronts.

“People are very connected to their favorite sports teams, and motorsports fans are particularly loyal and engaged,” said Dawson. “The metaverse will make it possible to experience an even greater connectedness among the team, sponsors, players and fans through virtual tours, sponsored content and possibly even play-to-earn opportunities. By being able to seamlessly cross from virtual reality into the real world, we have an advantage other sports teams do not.”

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Seeing the StemGen brand on Dawson Racing’s and Hasbro’s iconic Transformers toy brand carried on the #84 D3+Transformers Le Mans Prototype 3 racer in July 2021 at the historical Watkins Glen International race circuit and seeing the spike of 100% positive social media interactions between real racing fans and real Transformers fans truly positioned D3eSports platforms. “Through Dawson Racing and D3eSports, we see an opportunity to enrich this relationship in ways unexpected just two years ago,” added Dawson.

According to Alexandre Kandelaft, the head of marketing for the sports tech B2B, LaSource, Web 3.0 and the promise of the metaverse has only begun to take shape. Experiential marketing avenues such as integration of e-commerce, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and earning opportunities will not only increase engagement among fans and their favorite sports team, but could create potential investment opportunities as well, as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) become more of a possibility.

“These new entities have no central leadership and decisions are made by the community, organized around a specific set of rules and smart contracts enforced on a blockchain,” explains Kandelaft.

D3eSports, which is powered by the publicly traded StemGen, Inc. (OTC: SGNI), will continue to explore innovative technologies in sustainable energy to be communicated through their virtual team’s marketing efforts for the near future. It is clear that with the new technologies in both real and virtual, it is the fans who are ultimately in the driver’s seat.

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