The Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) has announced it‘s launching the first ever metaverse experience to coincide with the upcoming games later this month.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Gangwon-do Province, and the Gangwon 2024 Organizing Committee (YOGOC) came together for the novel metaverse initiative, along with support from the Information and Communication Technology (MSIT) and the Ministry of Science.
The Gangwon 2024 Metaverse focused on the Youth Olympic Games will be launched as an extension of Gangwon-do Province’s existing metaverse. It will offer users from around the world virtual interactive tours of the game’s venues, as well as mini games like bobsleigh, curling, and skiing.
To enter the metaverse, users must create an avatar consisting of 30 different characters with a myriad of traits, including different body shapes, hairstyles, and apparel. The avatars can also dance and express love, sadness, joy, anger, and other emotions. After creating their avatars, fans can move around the metaverse, enjoy virtual replications of tourist attractions in South Korea, visit the Youth Olympic villages, and more.
For visitors and locals in Korea, there will also be a metaverse experience hosted at the Gangneung Green City Experience Centre, which will include simulated winter sports experiences, a virtual reality kit, and graphic panels. Koreans who visit the 3D virtual world will also have the chance to live-stream the games.
According to the report, the Gangwon 2024 Metaverse will contain automatic translations in Korean, English, French, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese — potentially making it accessible to millions of people from around the world.
The Winter YOG Gangwon 2024 is scheduled from January 19th to February 1st. Nearly 2,000 athletes from around the world will be participating, showcasing the next generation of winter sports stars.
South Korea Continues to Lead the Way in Web3
It should come as no surprise that The Winter Olympic Games in South Korea will launch a metaverse to compliment the upcoming winter games. After all, South Korea has been bullish on Web3 for years now, and the country continues to lead the world through innovation and investments in these nascent technologies.
At Rarity Sniper, we’ve covered dozens of articles highlighting South Korea, and companies based in the country, bullishness on Web3. Here are the top headlines:
- December 2023. Starbucks Unveils Eco-Friendly NFT Loyalty Program in Korea
- October 2023. Korean Gaming Giant Partners with Chainlink for Interoperable Web3 Gaming
- August 2023. Polygon Partners with South Korea’s Telecom Giant SKT
- November 2022. The Sandbox Creates New Metaverse Event for Korean Brands
- July 2022. South Korea’s #1 Bank KEB Hana Enters The Sandbox
- June 2022. Solana Invests $100M in South Korea’s Web3 Industry
Furthermore, in March 2022, news broke that South Korea’s Ministry of ICT, Science, and Future Planning had invested $186.7 million to create a metaverse to enable the growth digital content in the country. The latest news about the metaverse experience for the Winter Youth Olympic Games shows that some of those investments are starting to take shape.
At Rarity Sniper, we’ll be looking forward to the winter games and keeping our eye out for reports on the metaverse initiative. To stay up to day with the latest happenings in the NFT and Web3 space, please subscribe to our weekly free newsletter, The Sniper’s Nest.