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Following the introduction of Louis: The Game last August, which rewarded players with the chance to win historical postcard NFTs, Louis Vuitton has added new quests and new NFT rewards to its standalone game app, investing further into its virtual platform as luxury’s relationship with gaming continues.
The NFT project aims to educate players on the brand’s 200-year history, and again turns to randomly awarded free NFTs rather than an auction or priced sale. Similar to the first iteration, players who reach a certain threshold will have the chance to qualify for an NFT raffle. The raffle, running until 4 August, will distribute a total of 10 new NFTs that feature the game’s character, Vivienne, who is an anthropomorphism of the company's monogram. The NFTs portray Vivienne in a variety of looks, and will be portable across platforms and function as an avatar on social networks, similar to an LV PFP.
The project combines a number of themes that have been integral to luxury’s participation in early Web3 experiments. Games have provided a way to increase engagement and affinity among younger consumers while testing virtual worlds. PFPs, meanwhile, have become a digital badge of honour that display status, community and cultural relevance. Louis Vuitton’s approach reflects relative caution in embracing digital fashion and metaverse principles: by creating its own game, rewarding players for learning about its history and giving away NFTs for free, it has more control of the environment and avoids having to price its digital goods.
The game, which is available on Android and Apple, has been downloaded two million times, according to the brand. There are two new levels, which are accessible to those who previously successfully completed the first level. Players must retrieve 16 pages from a manuscript of Louis Vuitton, gathering details about the founder’s life and the founding of the brand and its trunks.
A global leaderboard encourages competition and showing off skins that can be changed throughout the game. The brand is also planning physical experiences of Louis: The Game at the Louis Vuitton family home in Asnières and Los Angeles, although it did not share further details.
This strategy is similar to the first iteration, in which players had the chance to win a total of 30 postcards (10 each of three designs) portraying information on Louis Vuitton’s past in addition to a recent show. The NFTs, which were created in collaboration with events startup Wenew Labs (founded by Beeple artist Mike Winkelmann) and minted from the Louis Vuitton Ethereum wallet. Similar to the first game's launch, Wenew Labs worked with Possible, its sister company, to develop and deploy the smart contract for this second round of NFT giveaways. The NFTs from the first drop have all been awarded, but Louis Vuitton did not immediately offer additional details. (According to Wenew, most recipients chose to remain anonymous.) Gucci also partnered with Wenew Labs on its recent 10KTF project that dresses popular PFPs in digital Gucci.
Although LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault has garnered attention in January for comments that he is cautious of the metaverse “bubble”, the company and its maisons have still released several projects, in addition to spearheading nonprofit Aura Blockchain Consortium. Arnault’s son Alexandre Arnault, who is executive VP of product and communication at Tiffany & Co., began evaluating interest in physical, custom pendants made for Cryptopunks owners after joining the Cryptopunks community with a new profile picture. Last month, Tiffany bought a $380,000 NFT artwork.
In comparison, rival conglomerate Kering is all in on the metaverse, with chief executive François-Henri Pinault calling it a “disruptive phenomena”. Gucci, Kering’s biggest power brand, has led the way on experimentation with multiple NFT drops, virtual real estate and an internal metaverse team. Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri told Vogue Business in March that the company’s approach to the metaverse “which is already a very real place for [Gucci]” is based on limitless imagination.
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