Ladies and gentlemen, Walmart has entered the metaverse. (whooping, cheering, clapping noises) Finally. That's right, Greg. Through one of the most popular children's games in the world, Walmart is now an actual destination in the metaverse where you can go to have fun, play, learn, and of course, buy things from Walmart. And that is what I will be doing today. I personally cannot wait to get into Walmart's metaverse, look around, explore, it looks fun as hell. One of the biggest corporations in the entire world advertising to young children in a video game? Uh, let's just say Daddy likey. But before we do that, before I show you the actual Walmart metaverse experience. I was surprised to find out that this actually isn't Walmart's first metaverse project. A few months ago, apparently Walmart was sort of laughed off the internet because this video surfaced demoing their "vision of the future of shopping" in the metaverse. And not only did this failed experiment not look like it made shopping any better, it, like, actively made it worse. You know how instead of like, a store with colorful aisles full of products and people from your community shopping around, you'd much rather shop in a dystopian void of a Walmart that's been abandoned for a thousand years? You d-- Oh, you do? Okay, that was meant to be sarcastic but you actually do? Okay, well, then maybe you'll like this. (futuristic synth noise) (industrial door-opening sound) [Woman] Hi! Thanks for visiting Walmart. I will be your shopping assistant module today, but you can call me SAM for short. [Danny] Look man, I already feel like kind of dystopian going to a regular Walmart in the real world, but this actually feels like I'm like a test subject in some kind of psychological experiment. What is this void? Where am I right now? [SAM] Let's get started. I have your shopping list loaded up and I'm tracking your oil change so I can let you know as soon as it's done. [Danny] Now I don't know about you, but when I go to the store, if an employee asks me if I need help finding anything, I say no every time, even if I DO need help because I'm a nervous person. So this? This scenario is like a nightmare to me. Just having an employee floating 2 feet in front of me at all times just locking eyes with me, recommending products, is actually a nightmare. It's like my worst-case scenario when I go to a store, but if it just never ended. It also doesn't help that she's like, literally telling you what to do, she's not even making suggestions. [SAM] You see the tomato sauce on your left? Go ahead and grab that and then place it in your cart. [Danny] You see the tomato sauce? Grab it. Put it in your cart. You said you wanted tomato sauce, right? It's right there. Put it in the cart now. There's no time for browsing and taking your time in the Walmart Metaverse. Get your shit and LEAVE. How is this any better than shopping normally? They had every opportunity to make shopping, like, a breeze, Like, I feel like the most efficient form of shopping is ki-- is just like, ordering it online. They didn't need to take the actual physical experience of going to Walmart and put it in VR. If I'm not going to the store anymore, it's like, the actual act of putting a tomato sauce in my cart is not the part I'm gonna miss. It's probably gonna be, like, human contact, or just, like, feeling like I live-- I exist in a real social world. [SAM] Great! Looks like you need a good wine pairing. Take a look to your right. (metallic clink sound) Your age has already been pre-verified through your profile, so no need to wait for an ID check! (bottle crashing) [Danny] I love how in this supposedly, like futuristic utopian version of Walmart in the future, we're already being upsold to buy shit that we didn't want. It's like, "Okay, you wanted pasta sauce, go ahead and buy a wine with that. You can't have pasta sauce without wine, right? And also here's $5 off a VUDU movie rental, you're gonna wanna buy a movie as well. And then, oh, you're watching a movie? Head on over to our gun department. You're gonna want a gun with that movie." Also I haven't even bought pasta, or meat yet. Why is red wine the thing I need to pair with the pasta sauce? I need the rest of my meal. Or am I just, like sipping on glass of wine and one glass of pasta sauce while I watch my VUDU rental movie? [SAM] I'm getting a notification from your connected smart fridge. It looks like you already have a full gallon of milk at home. Should we put this one back? [Danny] Sorry? My FRIDGE told you that? The sheer passive aggressive in this Walmart employee's voice. "Hey, so, um, I noticed you have a gallon of milk in your cart, but, uh, I was just talking to your smart fridge and he told me you already have milk at home. Should we put the milk back? Should wittle baby put the milk back? Did wittle baby forget that we have milk at home? (action music) Did you forget in this dystopian world there's a milk shortage? Are you trying to hoard milk? Also stop talking to my fridge behind my back, dude. What the hell? Why are smart fridges so integral to every corporation's version of the future? I do not want my fridge snitching on me to Walmart, okay? (beep beep) [Danny] Damn, you can really feel the anger through the screen in that toss. "Fine, I'll fucking put the milk back, dude. Stop talking to my fridge!" Just every part of this is so eerie. What is with the hum throughout this video? They could've had, like, fun music playing, you know, you go to like, Target or Walmart and they're playing, like, Ed Sheeran. It's like they're making it eerie and dystopian on purpose. Every time you pick up an item from the shelf all of the shelves descend into the underworld and new shelves come up. That's really comforting, I gotta say. There's something so comforting about them being like, "NO YOU DON'T MOVE, ALRIGHT? THE SHELVES MOVE. You stay right where you are. The milk will come to you. (distorted) The gun aisle will come to you. [SAM] Good news! Your oil change is done. Your vehicle will be ready at the Tire and Lube Express. [Danny] Okay, now wait, so this is confusing. Am I... at a Walmart with a VR headset on? This whole time I thought this was something you do from home. You go around, pick out all your items, and then Walmart will come and drop your stuff off. But she just said that my car's getting an oil change right now-- [SAM] Good news! Your oil change is done. [Danny] At the Lube Express or whatever? [SAM] At the Tire and Lube Express. [Danny] The Tire and Lube Express. That's right, that's what I said. So... I drove to Walmart, dropped my car off at the Tire and Lube Express, And then went into Walmart and then just put on a VR headset? At that point, I-- why can't I just shop? Why do I need to be wearing a VR headset? I'm so confused. (ominous humming and machine hissing noises) [Danny] I feel like these hands say so much about the emotion of the person watching this happen. Would you say that this person is, like, happy or terrified about what's going on right now? (machinery hissing noises, dark scary piano music) [SAM] I'll have the TV brought out to your car. (confirmation ding) (drone hums to life) [Danny] Okay, so my shopping cart is going to my car to load my groceries, this drone is just gonna deliver the TV straight to my house, and then I notice that I'm not leaving the Walmart? I notice that my cart and the TV get to leave and I don't? There any reason for that? (dark scary piano music) "Okay, your groceries will be delievered to your smart fridge as a sacrifice, and you will remain here forever. Thank you for shopping at Walmart." Okay. I think you guys have waited long enough. You wanna see the REAL DEAL. That experiment obviously did not work, people were like, "What the HELL is wrong with you? Of course we don't want this." So now it's time to look at Walmart's actual, real-life, currently live venture into the metaverse. Walmart enters the metaverse with Roblox experiences aimed at young shoppers. Young shoppers, young shoppers, I feel like there's another word for that, another word that they're not using for some r-- Oh, CHILDREN! Yeah, that's right, we usually call young shoppers "children." But I guess at the end of the day children are basically just young shoppers, aren't they? Congratulations ma'am, you've given birth to a beautiful young male shopper. Oh, thank you so much! I can't wait for him to grow up and shop just like his father. Isn't that right, sweetie? (people talking, dark scary piano music) Walmart is entering the metaverse with two experiences: Walmart Land and Walmart's Universe of Play in gaming platform Roblox. Walmart's marketing chief, William White, said the company will use Roblox as a testing ground as it considers other moves in the metaverse and beyond. Definitely makes it sound like they're using this opportunity to sort of experiment on children. Which I guess makes sense as to why they're not using the word "children," cause there's lots of laws against advertising to children. But there are no laws, as far as I know, about advertising to young shoppers. Ah, I just remembered, that's my favorite show. My favorite Big Bang Theory spin-off. Young Shopper. The retail giant's first foray into the virtual world will feature a blimp that drops toys, a music festival with hot artists-- I hope they mean, like, sexy. The most ATTRACTIVE artists we could find. Yassified Van Gogh. ("Believe" by Cher plays) -- a bunch of different games, and a store full of virtual merchandise, or "verch" -- I think I wanna throw up from reading that sentence. -- which matches what customers may find in Walmart's stores and on its website. Walmart is trying to make themselves seem SO COOL to children. A blimp that drops toys and music festivals? Kids that grow up going to Walmart Land in Roblox are gonna be so disappointed the first time they actually go to a Walmart. They're gonna walk in, there's like a small cowboy kid yodeling in the corner, in another corner there's an employee in a physical altercation with a customer. They're like bashing the customer's head in, the poor kid is like, "Where's the blimp that drops toys?" For now, Walmart won't make money from its immersive experiences. Gamers can earn tokens and other rewards to put towards virtual merchandise on Roblox. Brands like L.O.L Surprise! and Skullcandy headphones were included in the experiences based on their popularity with Roblox's younger audience of gamers. Still not using the word "children." No, now they're young gamers. Walmart COULD make money from it in the future-- Oh. You think? You think Walmart MIGHT somehow be trying to find out a way to make money from this? (scoffs) I don't know man. Seems a little far-fetched to me. I kind of assumed they were doing this pro bono. (bass-boosted buzzing) Universe of Play has games that feature items from Walmart's top toy list for the holiday season, like Razor scooters and Paw Patrol and Jurassic World characters-- a potential nudge to get Roblox users to ask for them. A potential nudge? Has the person who wrote this article ever heard of Walmart? Or like, business? They're showing really popular products to kids in a really popular kids' game. Maybe that could be to get them to BUY the products FROM WALMART. Walmart Land has an obstacle course of oversized items from the retailer's Gen Z-focused beauty brands, such as skin-care products from Bubble and makeup from Uoma by Sharon C. It's crazy that even in the metaverse corporations are trying to convince you that You Are Ugly. You're a fully digital avatar and Walmart's still like, "We can still tell you're uglyyy! Hellooo! You need to buy virtual makeup! We just talked to your smart fridge and it told us you're uglyyy~" To be fair, of course your Roblox character needs makeup. (screaming effect) They're all hideous. There's no way a Roblox character's ever going to conform to traditional beauty standards. They have, like, pitch-black doll eyes. Alright guys, I don't know about you, but I'm ready. My young shopper mind is ready to be advertised to. Let's hop into this game. And so I hopped into this game. (claps) (cool synth music plays) I have never played Roblox before. So unfortunately, even though Walmart is advertising this as a metaverse experience, it's not in VR. I kind of thought that every metaverse experience takes place in VR, but I guess metaverse just means it's in the computer. I don't know how that's different from like, walmart.com. That's in the computer, is that not the metaverse? Since the game is not in VR and I wanted to still wear a cool headset, I'm gonna be wearing these cool gamer glasses instead of a VR headset. Anyway, I have, um actually have no idea how Roblox works. It took me a minute to figure out how to actually get into Roblox and start playing in Walmart's world of play. I guess there's all these worlds here. I wonder if Walmart Land is in here somewhere. Survival. Probably not gonna be in there. "Yeah, Walmart Universe of Play, the new SURVIVAL game. Try not to get MURDERED in our- in the new Walmart Land." Apparently Roblox isn't just one game, it's like a million different games. "Don't Call at 3 AM" and it's a picture of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. "Squid Game." "Last to Leave," it's like a Mr. Beast video within Roblox. What is Roblox? What IS... Roblox anyway? But eventually I found Walmart Land in the Recommended For You tab. They know why I'm here. New to Walmart Land? Yes. Well, welcome! It's a place where inspiration starts with play, including mini games, challenges, an obby, and more-- An obby? Am I supposed to know what that is? Is that Roblox lingo? Or is that just a, like, a word in the English language that I don't know? Oh, this is helpful. Is obby a word? Yeah, obby is a valid English word. Okay, what does it mean though? The hell is an obby? Oh! In Roblox, it's an obstacle course. Explore Electric Island! Play Netflix Trivia hosted by Noah Schnapp?? Wait. The dude from Stranger Things? Is hosting a game in Walmart Land? Compete in the Dance Off Challenge. Make beats in the DJ-- okay, this place actually... this place actually might be kinda cool. That's right, it MIGHT. Now there's some cool-sounding stuff in here, like a giant cosmetics obstacle course, but what I'm really interested in is Noah Schnapp hosting trivia in Roblox. How is he just IN Walmart Land? Is he just playing Roblox all the time? Just sitting there waiting to ask people questions about Netflix? How much are they paying him for this? There's no wrong way to play! I bet I can prove you wrong, buster. Let's see how long it takes me to get banned from this world. Then we'll find out if there's a wrong way to play, won't we? So this is Walmart Land. My initial impressions of the game were not great. So this is me. See, the thing I don't get, okay, this isn't even, this isn't a thing about Walmart Land specifically. But why's this game so ugly? (grunt through gritted teeth) DIH! DIH! DIH! DIH! DIH! DIH! This video's just gonna be me discovering the horrors of Roblox. It's not even gonna have anything to do with Walmart anymore. What the fuck? Check how loud the game is. UH! It's about this loud. (echoing) UH!! I knew I couldn't go seeing Noah in this wretched default outfit, but lucky for me, Walmart Land has a virtual store. Ooh, there's a store, let's go over there. I can buy some Walmart jeans! Where you can shop for clothing from real life clothing brands like Bonobos. Wide-leg jeans, Bone-a-bose sweatpants. Is that how you pronounce it? (dark piano music) I looked it up afterwards and it is not. Bonobos. But that wouldn't stop me from mispronouncing it the entire time I played this game. I guess I need coins to buy some BONABOSE sweatpants. I don't think I've ever met anyone that's actually been wearing an article of Bona-- Bone-- Bonny-- Bonaboe clothing. But I'm gonna go and get some. There's a couple different ways you can collect tokens to buy Bonabose clothing in Walmart Land. First, as we know, there's a blimp that drops toys. Okay, there's a thing at the top that says "Next Blimp," a minute and a half away. Oh, there it is! Take me with you. I want to go in the blimp. Except as far as I can tell, it only ever drops cold hard cash. Ookayyy. I just got 82 surprise coins. Okay, sick, so it dropped some coins. Didn't drop any walmart.com T-shirts or anything, so a little underwhelming, but. These coins will make do. I did get distracted from my mission to buy some sweatpants when I realized there was a fight going on in the chat. Looks like there's a bit of a dispute happening in the chat. It's the same person who commented over and over. No. This is my monorail. Off. Wait for the next one. WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE! OFF! Holy shit. There's a monorail in this game? How do I hop on this thing to piss this guy off? I was told there's no wrong way to play, so I'm assuming that hopping on this guy's monorail just to piss him off is cool? I said, "I'm waiting to get on your monorail. I'm so excited." and he said, "No. Wait for the next one." (badass rebellious rock music) Let's go. But I guess he was pretty serious about it, because by the time the monorail came around, he was gone and I never heard from him again. Wow, what a beautiful view I have of Walmart Land. Trying to sort of get a good vantage point to get a good look from the monorail at Walmart Land. Can I sort of zoom out and just get a really good bird's eye view-- Nope, okay. Now I'm looking at my own taint. Sort of wanted to look at Walmart Land instead. Wait, how do I have 200 coins now? What happened here? How did I get that many coins? I still don't know. Watching the video back, I'm just standing on the monorail and I gain 100 coins for no reason. I don't know but it's time to go buy some frickin' PANTS! Pants, pants, pants, pants, pants, pants, pants! Guys, I gotta level with you, I didn't buy the pants. In fact, I didn't buy any Bonobos clothing. I LOOKED at the Bonobos clothing. Oh, I can buy shirts too? Well, hold on, this changes everything! They've got Bonabose Ssshweater Blue. That's that sad feeling you get when you put on your Bonabose sweater. (sad piano music) Got the Bonabose sweater blues, man. But then I found something that I thought was a little more likely to impress Noah. Oh, and they have Stranger Things stuff, too. Dude, I could dress up as Eleven-- Oh wait, let me try it on. And here I am. And why am I not wearing it? Excuse me. EXCUSE ME. Maybe this is just Roblox as a whole, but Walmart Land was generally very glitchy. How do I put on this freaking dress?! I have a feeling it's in this bag, but I-- there's sort of like a list of players in the way that I can't-- so I can't click on the bag. (growling) Let me click on the goddamn BAG. When I bought this Eleven costume, and I went into my inventory, it said it was already equipped, but it wasn't, and I had to like, unequip it and then reequip it and then just like, wait a couple seconds for it to show up on my body. LET'S GO!!! (cheerful electronic music playing) DUDE! I just turned into Millie Bobby Brown from a Millie Bobby Clown. Can you dance in this game? Maybe someone in the chat can help me. It's time to see how kind the people of Roblox are, I guess. Oh! You can dance in Roblox, but there's certain games that you can't dance in. Well surely you can dance in Walmart Land, it's the best place in the goddamn world. (ominous THUD sound) They said, "I tried and it didn't work." Excusez-moi. There's supposed to be, like, a dance rave here, isn't there? And you're not allowed to dance? There's a music concert, a music festival, and you're just meant to stand there like this? (cheerful electronic music playing) Woah. ColdAtlantic sent me a friend request. Sure, dog. I'll be anyone's friend. As long as they can teach me how to freakin' play this game. So it looks like there's some areas of Walmart Land they have not fleshed out yet. There's a bunch of bubbles that just say "Coming soon." So they're keeping some hype alive for Walmart Land. As if there wasn't enough already, y'know? While searching for Noah, I came across the cosmetics obby. The goal is simple, just try to get to the end of the obby. Alright. I thought I'd give it a go in an effort to, I don't know, earn some extra tokens. Uh! Uh, uh- oh God! But little did I know this obstacle course would ruin me. (rock music playing) Fuck! Shit! I hate Walmart Land now. I don't wanna buy any of these products at all! What is this?! OW! Am I just bad at this? EH! Fucking. Shit. I swear to God, this is harder than it looks, gang. Only an adult could beat this, for sure. And even then, y'know, I mean, I'm a-- I'm a grown-up, and I'm definitely being given a run for my mo-- FUUUCK!!! Some advertising this is, WALMART. You see what you've done? You've turned a lifelong loyal customer into a pissed off Lego guy! Egh, this is getting... getting kinda hard to watch. Honestly I would much rather be watching an ad for ExpressVPN right now! While I'm getting absolutely dominated by this beauty obby, let me tell you how YOU can avoid getting dominated by your internet service provider by using ExpressVPN. UGH!!! You see, in the US, it's legal for your internet service provider to sell your data to other companies. They can keep track of every website you've ever visited, every product you've looked at buying in the past month, and sell it to advertisers. If they wanted to, they could sell it to Walmart. Oh my GOD. I'm never going to Walmart again. But ExpressVPN puts a stop to this by rerouting 100% of your network traffic through their secure, encrypted server. ExpressVPN also helps you unblock content that's not available in your area. For example, Laura and I are absolutely rabid fans of Survivor. But a few weeks ago, Laura and I were on vacation in Europe, where they did not have Survivor on Hulu. But by turning on ExpressVPN, (which is very easy to do, you just do it in one click) and changing my server location to the US, we're able to watch Survivor in our hotel. And even when you're not traveling, there's tons of shows you can unlock on Netflix simply by switching your location. I think I'll just chill here for a little bit. He looks comfortable here and I don't wanna risk falling, it seems like a, kind of a cool place to hang out. ExpressVPN has the fastest speeds, they're consistently ranked the number one VPN by sources like CNET, Tech Radar, The Verge, and more, so if you wanna find out how you can get 3 months of ExpressVPN for free, then head on over to ExpressVPN.com/DANNYGONZALEZ or the link in the description. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash Danny Gonzalez. Thank you to ExpressVPN for sponsoring this video and thank you to you guys for checking out ExpressVPN, and now please God, can I finish this obby? Where's the end? Is that the end? (grand, momentous string music) Wheeee! LET'S GO!!!! LET'S GO! We're back, baby! We did it. 250 coins, by the way. So I'm basically rich now. Oh my god. (laughing) That look so much longer than it should have, holy cow. They say the night is darkest just before the dawn, and I have to say in this case, that was correct, because right after this obstacle course, I found Electric Island-- Electric Island looks kinda fun, let's go there. --and by extension, Noah Schnapp. Okay, what is there to do on Electric Island? Play Netflix Trivia hosted by Noah Schnapp. I have a feeling it's just, like, a bot that says he's Noah Schnapp. But it'd be crazy if it was actually him. It'd be crazy if it wasn't even, like, a Roblox character, it was just, like, him in the game. I looked around for a little bit trying to find this guy, and I gotta say, the name "Electric Island" makes this place sound a lot more fun than it actually is. Alright, I'm already seeing something that looks pretty fun in Electric Island. A pool party. Let's go, dude. Let's go, let's turn up! Okay, there is no one here. You know, for the fun and totally happening place that they made it seem like Electric Island and more broadly Walmart Land would be, it doesn't seem like there's that many people here. Feels kinda... lonely. Does it show how many people are in here? 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. There's 22 people here in Walmart Land. So this looks like the gigantic stage where huge concerts take place and everyone stands still and watches. This place is electric during live events! I doubt it. I highly doubt it. Electric Island is a strange and mysterious place. Maybe I-- Woah! What's going on? And they did a damn good job of hiding Noah Schnapp. Alright, where's Noah Schnapp at? Let me talk to Noah Schnapp, dude. Where's Noah Schnapp? Noahhhh? I want to play some Netflix Trivia with youuu. But eventually, I made it to the trivia floor. There we go! I found an elevator. Netflix Trivia, please. I feel closer to Noah than ever before. (Netflix's reverbing "duh-dun" sound) (Noah) Hey, what's up everyone, I'm Noah Schnapp, and you might know me as Will Byers from Stranger Things. (Danny) It's actually him! (Noah) Anyway, today we're gonna have some fun playing Netflix Trivia here in Walmart Land. There are 3 categories you choose from, one about Stranger Things, another about Outer Banks, and a third called "Surprise Me." (Danny) You know, something tells me he wasn't actually IN Walmart Land. There weren't too many blank white walls that I saw in Walmart Land. He said, like, "I hope we're all having fun in Walmart Land" like he was also there. He didn't even look like a Roblox character. Now the only thing left to do was play some Stranger Things trivia with my boy Noah. What sport does Lucas play at Hawkins High? Football...? Fuck! Oh no, I forgot I don't watch Stranger Things! I didn't know the answers to any of these questions! Which of the following is a real quote from Argyle? Who is Argyle? 5 coins for like 30 minutes of work trying to find Will-- oh, sorry, not Will. Noah is his real name in real life. And I get 5 measly coins. I kinda felt like all the kiddos in Season 1 trying to find this dude. And I finally do and I get 5 coins. I-- At this point I've gotta pretty much be the richest person in Walmart Land, so. (electronic-sounding piano keys play) I think I'm just gonna head to the store and spend all of my money and then be done. So I got some Bonabose Sweater Blues and some Bonabose Sweatpants. And let's just see how I look. And they didn't appear on my character-- That's not the sweater I just bought. Is this game broken? Oh, there we go. But now what happened to my pants? The sweater's on, but my blue pants are not. --And then I quit the game. Well guys, I think I've played enough Roblox for today and the rest of my life. I hope you enjoyed this in-depth look at Walmart's first steps into the metaverse. I'll see you guys next time, uh-buh-bye.