Decentraland Brasil: collective creates content to encourage Brazilians to enter the metaverse

Despite  news published  in the second quarter of this year, the  metaverse  still alive and with a piece of the  Brazil . Inside the  Decentraland , one of the virtual universes that has become popular in recent years, a collective decided to focus their efforts on making the metaverse more friendly to Brazilians. Cointelegraph Brasil spoke with members of  Decentraland Brasil  on the performance of the collective.

Reducing barriers for Brazilians

Decentraland Brasil emerged to make the metaverse more accessible to Brazilians, by creating content in Portuguese, says Atrovenado, founder of the collective. He says that the lack of content in Portuguese limited the participation of the Brazilian public.

“For people born in countries that have English as their mother tongue, it's very simple, they end up not understanding this limitation due to the language. From the moment you create a community with your language, which speaks of your culture, it is possible to bring people much closer together and create a much greater engagement”, says Atrovenado.

The founder of Decentraland Brasil says that the collective has been dialoguing with organizations linked to the metaverse to create communities focused on different cultures around the world. For this, a new type of incentive, aimed at community leaders, will be created.

Brazilians at an event organized by Decentraland Brasil. Image: Decentraland Brasil/Twitter

In addition to the quest to popularize Decentraland for the Brazilian public through localized content, Atrovenado says that the collective has also made an effort to make the user experience simpler. He says that many older users, who didn't grow up immersed in games, are interested in the metaverse. The lack of familiarity with the commands, however, keeps these new users away.

“These are people who are not used to things that may seem simple, like the WASD keys being used to move the avatar. The center of life in the metaverse is your avatar, and if you don't have control over your avatar, you tend to get frustrated.”

Keeping the community engaged

Despite the efforts made to bring new Brazilians into the metaverse, Decentraland Brasil has also dedicated attention to keeping these new users interacting in the virtual universe. Classes are offered to learn how to interact with the Blender software, game-related content and, soon, English classes will be offered by the collective.

As a community, Decentraland Brasil offers daily calls on its  server on Discord , and it does a tour of the games scattered across the metaverse on Tuesdays. In your  YouTube channel , the collective also provides educational content in Portuguese.

The collective also organizes events, such as Carnival 2023 held within the metaverse, says Atrovenado. “We have events every day on our Discord,” he says.

Carnival in the metaverse organized by Decentraland Brasil. Image: Decentraland Brasil/Twitter

shipping entities

In addition to facilitating the entry of enthusiasts into the metaverse, Decentraland Brasil also carries out actions with entities. One of them is the Black Money Movement, which, in recent weeks, has given lectures with the support of the Brazilian collective. Another example is Samsung, which opened the House of SAM in Decentraland and has received support from the collective.

Teaching institutions have also reached the metaverse with the support of Decentraland Brasil, says Atrovenado. “We are partners with several educational institutions, such as Mackenzie, Puc, Educ 360, MetaSafe and ANPPD [National Association of Data Privacy Professionals].”

'A little bit of Brazil'

Isabela Gomes is a Brazilian 3D animator who, since 2021, has been part of the Decentraland Foundation team. The animator says that, like many users and professionals of  Web3 , fell into this ecosystem by parachute.

“I didn't know anything! The Foundation needed a 3D animator, and a person from their HR contacted me on LinkedIn. At the time I was like: 'wow, what is Decentraland? What is she talking about?', because it's a bit of an abstract concept. But then I took the test, went in and fell in the middle of this mess”, says Gomes.

The animator is actively involved in the design of emotes, which are actions that Decentraland avatars can perform. These emotes have become a fundamental part of the metaverse, explains Gomes, as they fill in the mechanics that the metaverse doesn't yet have. 

Through a kit made available to users, built with the participation of the animator, any interested person can create different actions to be performed by the avatars. And it is through them that Gomes has taken more of Brazil to the metaverse.

“I made a square emote. At the time, there was a Brazilian producer at the Foundation, and she said she wanted a square emote like Anitta's. She asked if I could do it, and I did. During Carnival, there was a party and I also made a samba emote. It's cool, little by little we're taking a little bit of Brazil in there”, he concludes.