Fashion Tech News Roundup powered by 360Fashion Network.

1. Balenciaga launches retro pixel game and NFT avatar. Balenciaga has launched two retro mini-games as part of its 520 marketing efforts, which are integrated into the brand’s official mini-program on Wechat. Players can collect Balenciaga star items by searching rooms in the game and clicking on the hidden product icons they discover.The Balenciaga 520 holiday limited-edition series are also available in the brand’s stores and on its official website. The collection includes graphic hoodies, T-shirts, shorts, hats and jackets printed with the characters “5:20”, as well as the Hourglass bag, Le Cagole bag and Track sneakers in limited edition colours. (News source: Crypto Saurus)

2. Gucci Town on RobloxGucci is making its presence inside of Roblox a little more permanent. The fashion brand previously collaborated with the virtual world for more short-lived experiences, like the surreal Gucci Garden from last year, and is now releasing a more persistent space called Gucci Town. The space features a central garden that links together various areas, including a space for mini-games, a cafe, and a virtual store where players can, of course, purchase virtual Gucci gear for their Roblox avatar. (The company says the virtual outfits make use of Roblox’s new “layered clothing” tech.) (News source: The verge)

3. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has revealed that Epic will, later this year, release the Unreal Editor for Fortnite. “The full capabilities that you’ve seen [in Unreal Engine] opened up so that anybody can build very high-quality game content and code and deploy it into Fortnite without having to do a deal with us,” Sweeney says in a new interview with FastCompany. The aim is to make it a first-class outlet for reaching the consumers, just like you might look at the mobile app stores and consoles and Steam as ways to reach users. People are looking at Fortnite as a way of reaching users. Along with that, they are building an economy, and it will support creators actually building businesses around their work and making increasing amounts of profit from the commerce that arises from people playing (and paying for) their content.Many platforms exploit creators by keeping a huge chunk of the profits. So a low commission, or even no commission at all, looks like an open goal for Fortnite. (News source: PC Gamer)

4. Nothing an uptick on interest in metaverse patents as companies that are developing the building blocks for the virtual world look to protect their innovations, ArentFox Schiff’s Michael Fainberg and Mohammad Zaryab state that among metaverse-specific technologies that they are seeing companies amass patents are “systems for optimizing shared views of virtual objects to multiple wearers of VR headsets; algorithms for generating and moving virtual shapes and scenes in a VR environment based on hand gestures, head motion, or line of sight of the user; systems for generating haptic feedback corresponding to users’ interaction with virtual objects in a virtual environment; and methods for generating 3D avatars of the users, which emulate users’ appearance and behavior,” among others. (News source: JD SUPRA)

5. Coinbase is testing a practice where it asks employees to frequently rate each other. Some employees at the company have been using a real-time evaluation app invented by Bridgewater Associates, the well-known hedge fund founded by Ray Dalio, which helped enforce a culture of “radical transparency” that encourages blunt honesty, The Information reported Monday, citing two people with direct knowledge. From the report:The app, Dot Collector, is sold by Principles, a company Dalio founded. Coinbase’s version lets employees evaluate co-workers, including their managers, on how well they exemplify the crypto firm’s 10 cultural tenets — which include clear communication, efficient execution and positive energy — during meetings and other interactions, these people said. After an interaction, an employee can give their colleague a thumbs-up, thumbs-down, or neutral rating.  (News source: The information)

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