Walmart and Unity team up to bring immersive commerce for physical goods to games

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Walmart and Unity have partnered to integrated immersive commerce into games and apps. With it, players can buy Walmart physical goods from directly within games.

This enables creators to sell physical items in real-time 3D experiences across more than 20 gaming and interactive platforms, unlocking a new way for developers and creators to connect customers’ virtual and physical lifestyles and establishing a new monetization channel for developers.

It’s a collaboration that enables the world’s biggest retailer to make headway in digital commerce in collaboration with game engine maker Unity, which has more than 1.1 million developers using its Unity editor each month.

Developers can explore Walmart’s Unity SDK, facilitating the integration of immersive commerce within their projects, at CES 2024, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas next week. The interesting thing about this deal is that it looks like it works. Rather than build a metaverse mall that could be a ghost town, this deal lets the commerce take place where the people already are — inside games.

The integration means that Unity developers can use Walmart’s commerce application programming interfaces (APIs) and enable players to make purchases inside games, buying Walmart merchandise that they can then pick up in a store, said Tom Kang, vice president and general manager of metaverse commerce for Walmart.

“It is really about meeting customers where they’re spending a lot a lot of their time,” said Kang. “I don’t have to tell you there are over 3 billion people playing games, and they’re doing digital commerce. They’ve been buying digital