As the world increasingly adopts digital “third places” and virtual realities (think Discord, Fortnite, Snap, etc.), and the boundaries blur between emerging technologies such as XR, Gaming, and AI, avatars are emerging as the new core of user identity. From the internet's early days, users have shaped their digital presence. Now, enabling users to express themselves in digital spaces, from XR to games, is crucial. Just as all companies needed to adapt to the advent of mobile with a mobile app strategy with the earlier adopters heavily reaping the benefits, companies will soon also need to consider their 3D, XR, spatial/gaming strategy to stay ahead.

At Genies, we're tackling this exact space - pushing the boundaries of digital identity, moving beyond simple profile pictures and backend user data. Users will be able to own and display tangible digital artifacts that truly represent who they are. Just as Roblox has captured a generation's imagination with its user-focused creation tools, we envision a future where all players can have their unique avatar-based platform. The Genies Tool Kit enables developers to confidently build 3D/XR avatar-based experiences within Genies Party and eventually within their own platforms.

The Tool Kit is grounded in two core pillars: the Avatar Framework and the Traits Framework. We’ve built our avatars to seamlessly exist across different digital environments, enabling users to not only visually tailor their online persona but also carry a range of digital assets that reflect their individuality. The Traits Framework provides the tools to imbue these avatars and assets with unique behaviors and traits, making every digital interaction more personalized and engaging.

Unlike traditional platforms that often limit users to a single and static identity, Genies celebrates the ever-changing nature of self-expression in the digital age. We’re not just about providing technical avatar tools - we're about enhancing digital experiences to be as complex and meaningful as our real-life interactions. We're enabling developers to build unique, evolving experiences on a feature-rich identity layer through our suite of tools. 

POWERING IDENTITY ACROSS WORLDS

With Genies, avatars aren't just temporary personas, they evolve into persistent yet dynamic identities that users can carry across different experiences. Unlike traditional gaming environments where avatars are abandoned post-game, losing all invested time and effort, Genies is revolutionizing this dynamic. A player's avatar is an ongoing project, a digital extension of themselves that they can continually develop and invest in over time as they can carry this avatar from Experience to Experience.

This offers several advantages to developers. Firstly, they no longer have to invest in creating their own avatar systems and asset IP which would typically be abandoned after the lifetime of the Experience. Users can carry and showcase the avatar assets across the ecosystem, extending the life of the IP beyond its origin. Secondly, developers can keep introducing new, engaging content and assets that can be added to avatars, without concern about their original Experience's popularity or lifespan, enabling them to create longer term value for their IP. User avatars can carry and showcase the IP across Experiences and worlds, promoting and giving additional life to avatar assets they care about.

Developers, studios, or creators can easily upload a variety of assets from varying IP, enabling users to express their individuality in any way they choose. This not only enhances avatar expressiveness but also deepens the cultural relevance of digital personas over time, aligning with the evolving nature of identity in the digital age just as it evolves in the real world.

Consider a scenario where a Swedish artist designs a Viking helmet, while a Japanese developer crafts a samurai game. Users can acquire and mix and match these avatar assets, allowing a Viking helmet to appear in the samurai game. The same concept can apply to major studios like Disney. Disney could upload assets from their iconic films, enabling users to create unique avatars. Imagine an avatar wearing Cinderella's glass slippers, holding Captain America's shield and then donning Woody’s hat. The potential for creativity and personal expression is unlimited, fostering a diverse and inclusive digital community.

SEAMLESS INTEGRATION OF DIGITAL ASSETS

This is enabled through our auto-rigging capabilities that leverage advanced AI to streamline the transformation of 3D assets into rigged, segmented wearables, addressing key creation frictions and hurdles normally faced by artists and developers. Any piece of clothing you’ve designed can automatically be rigged to any of our Genies Avatars by uploading it within our The Workshop portal. This user-friendly portal reads your asset to be interoperable across all Experiences in only a few steps.

After simply uploading it, our Machine Learning and graphics models will then begin to fit the clothing to animatable skeletons. The previously static jackets, pants, and any other asset you create can then be animated along with our avatars. The process to not only rig but also segment wearables and avatars normally takes creators hours or days for an artist to complete, but with our auto-rigging tools, it would only take minutes with almost no additional work required from the creator.

Any 3D avatar you upload to our platform can also be automatically rigged to work across our entire ecosystem. You can pull in user avatars to then use within your Genies Experiences - not having to worry about creating your own avatar system or avatar wearables and inventory. We also provide a library of animations and tools to support many avatar use cases. 

This technology, combined with our Developer Kit allows for the adaptation of 3D objects across various contexts, making it possible to repurpose items dynamically. For instance, a microphone used in a karaoke setting for singing on stage can easily be adapted to singing in the shower after uploading a shampoo bottle asset. Similarly, a phone that can be thrown at the wall in anger can be swapped out for a tomato or snowball to be thrown at a friend. This flexibility enhances the interoperability of digital assets. If you want to leverage an avatar system for your 3D Experience, there are not many that can match Genies’ Avatar Framework in versatility and flexibility.

Emulating the economic success seen in platforms like Roblox, Genies aims to further revolutionize the creator economy by crowdsourcing diverse assets from global creators, providing unprecedented opportunities for creators to monetize their work. This fuels the beginning stages of the most diverse avatar asset library in the world with ample opportunity for anyone to earn from submitting all kinds of creative digital assets. We never want to be shepherding culture and needing to keep track of what’s fashionable or cool. As we scale, we’ll need the support of the UGC community to start to build assets that people want in the moment - maybe a Stanley cup or a Trader Joe’s tote bag.

CRAFTING EXPERIENCES FOR UNIQUE IDENTITIES 

Our Tool Kit doesn't just elevate the visual identity of avatars, it introduces a sophisticated layer of metadata known as the Trait Framework. This layer empowers developers to tailor Experiences to each player's distinct characteristics, shaping a game that aligns more closely with their preferences and actions.

Imagine your Experience in Genies Party resembling a Tamagotchi game, where your digital companion evolves uniquely in response to you. This personalization extends beyond a single Experience, weaving in your historical interactions and characteristics from other Experiences to make every new engagement distinctively tailored to you.

A developer could leverage this to craft storylines that adapt to a user's traits, such as offering peaceful diplomatic challenges to a "Calm" player, or thrilling combat to a "Fiery" enthusiast. NPCs, tuned into these traits, can then guide personalized story arcs - ensuring a dynamic and singular experience for each player. This adaptability could guide players toward gameplay that resonates most, or even influence AI or procedural generation to align with their gaming preferences. Create complex unique gameplay or storyline elements for not just users who have played your experience, but also immediately providing value to existing users who have brought their richly developed avatar identities.

Direct gameplay implications might involve linking core mechanics to traits while maintaining balance. A 'Curious' player could uncover hidden items more efficiently, whereas a less 'Curious' one might excel in brute force tasks. Such trait-based mechanics should ideally offer balanced advantages or scaled benefits across the trait spectrum.

Additionally, developers can write to the Traits Framework, giving avatars an additional layer of uniqueness that they can carry around with them because they interacted with an Experience. Imagine writing to your own database layer of metadata (think achievements or badges) for each Avatar to carry from Experience to Experience.

UNLEASHING FUTURE WORLDS WITH OUR TOOL KIT

With the Genies Tool Kit, developers have the opportunity to create their own immersive 3D avatar Experiences or craft worlds akin to Roblox, filled with personalized avatars. This Developer Kit, armed with both visual and behavioral interoperability tools, paves the way for developers to construct rich, dynamic environments that go much further than just simple 3D worlds.

By integrating the Avatar and Traits Frameworks, creators can offer users a deeply customized experience, where avatars not only look unique but also behave in ways that reflect individual user traits and histories. This ability to personalize experiences at such a granular level invites developers to imagine and realize a universe of possibilities, where each user's digital identity and interactions are as unique as they are in the real world.

Our future vision of this Tool Kit aims to be the cornerstone for developers and brands looking to craft their own unique, interconnected virtual worlds while unlocking unlimited personalization capabilities for developers and users such that digital identities are respected from world to world. Developers, brands, and companies can construct their own applications, seamlessly integrating our advanced avatar and experiences technology into their own ecosystems.

At the moment, developers are required to build within the Genies Party ecosystem. However, as we continue to refine our technologies, developers will eventually be able to create Experiences within their unique worlds. Imagine creating a 3D digital version of Disney World, combining all of your own characters in your own ecosystem. Furthermore, envision a world where you can support user-generated content, allowing your community to contribute to the development of your world, keeping the context uniquely yours, yet still culturally relevant and open to user expression and individuality. Users not only visit your world, but can also take away avatar assets and Things to integrate into their own identities. Developers not only make money off of their own IP assets but can also take a cut of all UGC assets. 

As you integrate any 3D asset from your IP or creative teams into your ecosystem, we’ll eventually combine this with our user intelligence systems to maximize asset sales for your users based on traits data. Additionally, uploading an avatar is not just having a 3D asset auto-rigged - Our AI technology eventually will give your auto-rigged characters the ability to sense and remember not only the world around them but also the memory across users <> character interactions, creating a living breathing world, personalized to each of your end-users. Our AI roadmap is actively pushing forward this vision of “Smart Avatars”. 

Through further development and the evolution of our Traits Framework, you will eventually be able to gain valuable insights into your users and demographic data allowing you to adapt and create personalized interactions for your users through AI. Our Tool Kit will allow you to automatically provide unique interactions to different cohorts based on traits, allowing developers to permeate gameplay design with personalized paths, making experiences generativity unique for each individual. Imagine, users coming into a virtual Disney world and being naturally guided to either Cinderella’s Castle or Star Wars depending on their interests and Traits and having characters remember all of their unique interactions. Users will always have a higher propensity to spend and invest in a world and avatar identity that is persistent and uniquely theirs. 

To wrap up, our Genies Developer Kit is a powerful tool for developers looking to break new ground in the ever-evolving world of XR, AI, and Gaming. It's more than just a Developer Kit, it's an ecosystem of tools that provide a gateway to creating immersive, personalized Experiences that resonate with your users. By integrating our SDK, developers can enhance user engagement through personalized experiences, monetize by selling unique auto-rigged assets, and keep users retained by allowing individuals to fully invest in, personalize, and own their digital identities. This approach can attract more diverse players who engage more deeply, increasing their lifetime value. 

So, let's reimagine the future of interacting with digital identity together - reach out to us at contact@genies.com for more information about our Tool Kit or apply for our Developer Incubator today to build Experiences for Genies Party.