McDonald’s Hong Kong launches McNuggets-themed metaverse

With the opening of its own metaverse on Thursday, the Hong Kong division of the American fast food chain McDonald’s Corporation joined the ranks of companies like Adidas, Coca-Cola, Gucci, and others. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Chicken McNugget, which initially went on sale in 1983 all over the world, the McNuggets Land metaverse was created on the online gaming platform The Sandbox.

Fast facts

• The McDonald’s Hong Kong metaverse allows Sandbox users to play mini-games in a McNuggets-themed virtual space. Players earn rewards including SAND tokens — the native cryptocurrency of the Sandbox ecosystem — and in-game accessories for the completion of quests and other McNugget-themed activities.
• Sandbox users in Hong Kong can also earn real-world McDonald’s coupons by completing quests in McNuggets Land. Access to the metaverse will continue until August 28.
• The Sandbox is an Ethereum blockchain-based metaverse gaming platform. It claims to allow users to build upon, monetize and take ownership over their gaming experiences within the metaverse.  
• A subsidiary of Hong Kong-based gaming company Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd., The Sandbox has secured partnerships with various household name celebrities and brands for the development of decentralized virtual worlds. Those partners include Snoop Dogg, Adidas and Warner Music Group. 
• Hong Kong’s McNuggets Land metaverse project is not the first time McDonalds has employed blockchain technology in its promotional activities. The firm’s U.S. and China branches both launched NFT collections in late 2021.
• Beyond McDonald’s, global brands such as Nike, Coca-Cola and Starbucks are all actively exploring Web3 — a new phase of the internet built around decentralized blockchain technologies, the metaverse, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — as a way to promote their brands.