Exploring the Metaverse Gaming world

It was June 2022 when we began our voyage into the Metaverse. It was an uncharted area for us, and more of an imaginary world full of virtual figures, 3D visuals and games that, in our opinion, had huge potential to create new opportunities for user interaction and engagement. Our research taught us that this technology is now catching the attention of technologists, companies, and consumers more than ever before to develop, use and experience its effects & impact. We saw this as an opportunity to explore how Metaverse can create new ways for _VOIS to connect and interact with our colleagues, customers, and communities in the virtual world.

We explored a variety of metaverse capabilities & evaluated different approaches. We tried, succeeded, and failed with a few ideas and were eventually convinced that one of our experiments should focus on the Next Generation of Talent with Roblox; one of the largest global gaming platforms that brings people together with play. Roblox has more than 54million active users every day and has gained strong traction in recent years for its ‘Metaverse like’ features. It allows users to create their own virtual worlds and engage with people globally.

We believed that _VOIS can benefit from its presence in Roblox by creating a community with the younger generation and connecting with them in the virtual world – the world which has no boundaries and allows emerging ways for people to express themselves. By doing this, we plan to get future ready with new channels of branding & marketing and next generation talent attraction. There’s so much yet to discover!

We were thrilled about creating our game and the first ever public metaverse presence of _VOIS. At the onset of the experiment, we recognized that we didn’t have all the skills needed to create the game. Neither hiring nor outsourcing proved to be the right approach to accomplish our goal at speed and therefore we chose to unearth the talent within the company.

Living three of Vodafone’s spirit values – Experiment Learn Fast, Get it Done Together, and Create the Future – we organized a Roblox Gameathon across VOIS and multiple Vodafone entities to find passionate & skilled individuals who were eager to join us on this adventure. We were delighted to find our active squad of 8 – not just our colleagues, but their children collaborated as well!

Witnessing the Magic of Passion, Resilience & Collaboration

Our goal was to create our very own _VOIS game on Roblox. Despite limited skills & resources, the team worked with passion, agility, and persistence, beyond their regular business roles, to create the game MVP within a period of 6 weeks. The squad created their own assignments, established their own deadlines, and continually came up with new ideas and approaches to improve the game and upskill themselves. The teamwork & ownership was unbelievable and so much fun at the same time! I couldn’t be prouder being a member of that team. It was a unique gaming experience that we created unlike anything we had imagined before we began this journey. Here we are now ready with our game VOISWorld of Play [Christmas Adventure]. Have a play!

Our Learnings

This experience taught us some remarkable lessons that we now carry with us.
• Skills are developed but Passion is intrinsic. Choose your right bet when hiring!
• Guide to Impactful Leadership: Get the Right Talent, Give Performing Space and Gain Trust
• Quick acceptance of failure is the fastest road to success