Youth retailer Pacsun has announced its first dedicated digital experience on Roblox — Pacworld, a fantasy interactive mall experience created through a partnership with premier game development studio Melon. This is an extension of Pacsun’s existing catalogs on Roblox, with the best sold catalog items being fantasy-focused items including gold wings.
In June 2021, Pacsun transitioned into the online entertainment space by introducing digital items on Roblox, a global online platform for shared experiences connecting millions of people every day in its metaverse.
Pacworld allows players to create a unique hub, intersecting fashion technology and community. Within the social environment, customers find community in this space, leaning on the metaverse’s strong network effects. Players are the owner and operators of a new mall, and it is their objective to make the mall as profitable and popular as possible. Players will be able to create and remove shops, upgrade the shops that do well, decorate the mall to try and attract more customers, and even invite their friends to visit their mall.
“Innovation and creativity are at the heart of Pacsun’s brand voice, and we view our audience as the cultural pioneers of the future. As we are catering to a fully digital generation, we recognize that Gen Z values community and accessibility more than any other generation, and we joined Roblox to further build that connectivity with our consumers,” said Brie Olson, Pacuson president. “Considering that they leverage Roblox as a point of socialization, we knew that in order to further our strong emotional resonance as a brand, we needed to continue to build alongside them in the gaming world.”
In Pacworld, players will be able to customize their malls with flair and aesthetics that can be purchased with their virtual income they earn in-experience. The starting point is a sunny beach island reminiscent of Pacsun’s Southern California home base, where players can choose a plot for their personalized mall that they can build their stores onto. Shops are the primary aspect of the game, and each shop will generate its own virtual income to add to the player’s overall virtual income earned in-experience. As a mall’s popularity increases and is visited by more shoppers, modeled after their Roblox friends list, the players can continue to upgrade their mall by adding new fun shops and restaurants, along with decorations such as plants, furniture and murals.
“We are at a moment in time when we are seeing an industry transformation and it’s incredibly exciting,” Olson said in a keynote at the ShopTalk conference, held this week in Las Vegas.
To amplify the social element, Roblox players can visit each other to socialize and compare malls. Pacworld allows up to six players to build malls next to each other, while Roblox’s platform allows players to go to any server to visit their friends and check out their malls.
Pacworld is available now on Roblox.
