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55 Metabeauty
Metabeauty
Gaming systems are introducing virtual beauty and real-world cosmetics to their realms, heightening user engagement and opportunities for beauty brands and creatives.
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Gamers are customizing their avatars using virtual cosmetics, bringing new forms of creativity and personality to gaming. Even in violent or action-centered games such as Grand Theft Auto or Fortnite, players are turning to digital highfashion clothes and hair and makeup options for enhanced self-expression and immersion. “By dressing your character how you want, it pushes the imagination a little further,” Jo-Ashley Robert, Dead by Daylight’s associate producer, told Vogue. “It’s only getting more popular.”
Traditional beauty brands including Nars Cosmetics and Gucci are creating virtual makeup for players to use. Nars Cosmetics added 30 virtual products to the Drest app in October 2021, displayed using virtual model avatars. Also in October, Gucci Beauty added 29 virtual makeup products to Drest’s Beauty Mode feature, with more than 40 potential combinations and links for users to purchase the physical products in the app.
The Sims 4 Spa Day Game Pack got a beauty upgrade in September 2021. Players can now add a High Maintenance trait, do yoga, meditate, and get
facials, pedicures and manicures with new nail designs. At least 100 new skintone swatches, hairstyles, and makeup options were included in the update.
3D digital artist Nathalie Nguyen photoshops alien-inspired digital beauty effects and 3D nail art into her self-portraits, blurring the viewer’s sense of reality. Using real objects and digitally rendered 3D makeup, Nguyen’s beauty concept redefines what is real and highlights how we portray ourselves online versus in real life.
Why it’s interesting Adaptation of digital beauty has evolved from CGI model Perl’s AI makeup line, which we identified as an early indication of this trend in “The Future 100: 2019,” to brands restaging their physical products for digital platforms. As gamers continue to engage with metabeauty, brands will find opportunities to sell and promote their beauty offerings in the metaverse.
