YouTube has announced it will start creating metaverse “experiences” on its platform in an attempt to cash in on the craze.
The video-sharing giant will start with gaming videos as it aims to rival its competitors’ spending in the sector.
“We’ll work to bring more interactions to games and make them feel more alive,” YouTube’s chief product officer Neal Mohan said Thursday in a blog post.
“It’s still early days, but we’re excited to see how we can turn these virtual worlds into a reality for viewers.”
YouTube has supported virtual-reality (VR) videos since 2016 after its owner, Alphabet, released its VR platform which it coined Cardboard in 2014.
Despite the announcement, it is a fairly ambiguous message to investors around YouTube’s plans for the metaverse, with the company not yet putting as much money behind the buzzy space as its rivals.
READ MORE: Youtube CEO looks to capitalise on NFTs
Google does have its own AR and VR division however hasn’t released any plans for a device in the field as of yet, meanwhile Facebook changed its company name to Meta, throwing all of its weight behind the new idea, which it believes will be the successor to the mobile internet.
Microsoft has also said it’s bringing workplace collaboration software to the virtual world.
Some of YouTube’s biggest creators specialise in streaming video games, with it signing away several popular broadcasters from rival streaming platform Twitch over the past few months.
The platform’s head of gaming however, Ryan Watt, left the company for a Crypto start up last month.
