Facebook is now testing virtual reality advertising

It is Facebook's financing model: the advertising business. It is clear that this will also be extended to virtual reality (VR). The first tests are already starting.

Since last month, VR developers have been able to place adverts for games and apps in the Oculus mobile app. Now Facebook is going one step further and testing adverts in selected VR apps.

It all starts with the competitive shooter Blaston from Resolution Games. Here, two players compete against each other in a cyberpunk arena and battle it out with futuristic weapons. The game stages the duels as a fictional sporting discipline of the future and, of course, there is plenty of free space for advertising boards in this context. The adverts are therefore sensibly embedded in the game scenario.

Players can interact with adverts by clicking on them and opening a context menu. Here you can call up more information about the selected advert, hide it or find out why this content is being displayed.

Advertising as a new growth factor

The VR advert will appear in a number of other, as yet unnamed VR apps in the coming weeks. Facebook first wants to gather feedback from developers and consumers before announcing further steps. In the future, the company would like to test further VR-specific advertising formats.

The adverts are primarily intended to benefit VR developers and contribute to the growth of the Oculus ecosystem. VR advertising opens up a new opportunity for studios to generate revenue with their VR apps. This can be invested in new and larger projects, which in turn attract new users to virtual reality who buy VR apps.

Facebook's goal is to create a self-sustaining VR ecosystem. The company is aiming for ten million active VR users. "A more profitable content ecosystem is a critical step on the path to mainstream," writes Facebook in the announcement on the Oculus blog.

Advertising revenue flows into Facebook's XR expansion

In the blog post, the company indicates that any advertising revenue will be reinvested in price reductions for VR and AR hardware. Incidentally, the same also applies to revenue from app sales in the Oculus Store. That would generally be good for the entire industry.

Facebook is pursuing an aggressive pricing policy with Oculus Quest in order to bring as many VR glasses to the people as quickly as possible. According to Zuckerberg, the first AR glasses should also be as affordable as possible.

Source: Mixed