Entertainment firm T&B Media Global (Thailand) expects its new "Translucia Metaverse" project to be a growth engine over the next three years, generating economic value of 1 trillion baht by 2030.
Translucia Metaverse aims to gain more partners beyond the property sector, in health and wellness, education, and retail.
"We will make trendsetters bring entertainment into the 'metaverse' as a new revenue stream, rather than waiting for technology to disrupt our business," said Bhak Tanta-Nanta, the company's deputy chief executive.
The entertainment business faces challenges from digital technology disruption that shortens the lifecycle of intellectual property, the current economic downturn, and the effects of the pandemic when cinemas closed around the world, he said.
The company expanded its business from core entertainment, with investment in its own content production and co-investment in movies and animation, to two new businesses.
The first involves investment in artificial intelligence for movie production planning, and the second sees innovation in products like non-fungible tokens and the metaverse.
"We've prepared 10 billion baht for the investment in Translucia Metaverse, which will be fully launched by 2025, and this will be a growth engine," he said.
The company estimates an economic value from its metaverse of around 1 trillion baht by 2030.
Athid Nanthawaroon, executive director of Translucia, said Translucia will connect the physical and virtual worlds and provide opportunities for businesses to engage with consumers, while users gain virtual well-being and safety.
This will create a value proposition to make a positive impact, said Mr Athid.
In this metaverse, the open platform allows creators to generate revenue from digital assets by bridging the physical and digital worlds, he said.
Phantabat Santimakorn, Translucia's chief of business development, said entertainment still has significant content to drive the business into the future.
Transforming existing content into new Web 3.0-based platforms using Translucia should prove a key factor, he said.
"We can gain some revenue from NFTs that work with brand partners by the end of this year, or early 2024 in this metaverse," said Mr Phantabat.
"The metaverse is a long-term game and this is still in the early stage, but it will gain momentum over the next 2-3 years. A research firm estimated the economic value of the metaverse at US$600 billion by 2030."
Jiraya Thongsen, chief of marketing and sales at T&B, said the firm will continue to focus on creating world-class quality content with global partners, and aim for a global audience.
The company has a budget of 2 billion baht to invest in content in 2023.
