Entertainment Company Launches Unified Digital Marketplace to Help Content Creators Build New Worlds

Situation

A leading interactive entertainment company had gradually acquired several digital marketplaces where content creators and experience designers could buy and sell 3D models, assets, textures, animations, audio and more for use across various game engines and creative tools. While each marketplace was robust, the fragmented ecosystem created a frustrating experience. Creators were forced to navigate multiple storefronts to find the resources they needed.

At the same time, the company saw a broader opportunity. Industries beyond gaming — including architecture, automotive and manufacturing — were exploring digital twins and virtual environments more heavily. The company's extensive library of 3D assets had the potential to support this shift and expand consumption, but the existing setup made access cumbersome.

To unlock this growth opportunity and streamline the user experience, the company set out to unify its storefronts into a single, centralized peer-to-peer marketplace. The goal: to make it easy for creators across all industries to discover, share and transact in one seamless platform.

To bring that vision to life, the company partnered with WWT.

Solution

With 35 years of experience helping the world's largest companies and government entities, we've learned that digital transformation and IT modernization thrive in the overlap of:

strategy and execution; business and technology; physical and digital

Drawing on our deep expertise in media and gaming, commerce applications, AI, and digital marketplaces, we helped turn the entertainment company's broad vision into a focused, actionable strategy.

From there, our work unfolded in two distinct phases: First, we designed and developed a custom plugin that allowed creators to browse and purchase assets from the new marketplace directly within their creative environment without disrupting their workflow. Following this success, we shifted focus to enabling seamless content migration. This was a critical step in the client's digital transformation that required thoughtful design and technical precision to help thousands of sellers migrate more than 200,000 assets from multiple legacy platforms to the new unified marketplace without disruption.

Here's how we did it:

We helped prioritize what really powers the player experience

Through competitive analysis and direct user feedback, we uncovered valuable insights that guided prioritization. This allowed us to streamline our client's 200+ desired features into 20 high-priority items that would truly enhance the user experience. For each feature, we delivered detailed breakdowns of technical complexity, user experience benefits and value propositions, empowering our client to make informed decisions about feature prioritization and resource allocation.

We brought ideas to life with creator-inspired designs

We collaborated with key stakeholders to transform abstract concepts into tangible designs. We created visual comps and videos that showcased our vision for the marketplace experience. The centerpiece of our design work was a revolutionary plugin that allows creators to explore, select and purchase assets directly within the client's flagship development engine. This seamless integration eliminated friction points in the creative process, enabling users to maintain their workflow without switching between applications.

We battled complexity behind the scenes

The technical challenges of unifying three distinct marketplaces with different content types, licensing models and user expectations were immense. We developed sophisticated migration services, APIs and interfaces that allowed sellers to seamlessly transfer their assets to the new platform.

We implemented AI-enabled moderation systems to streamline content review while maintaining quality standards across diverse asset types — from simple static meshes to complex 3D models with advanced physics. Our solution needed to handle everything from audio files to complete plugins while preserving metadata, licensing information and user entitlements.

We created one marketplace to rule them all

The culmination of our work was a unified marketplace that consolidates multiple storefronts into a single, cohesive experience. This platform now serves as the foundation for our client's vision of an open marketplace driving a creator economy while supporting expansion beyond gaming into industries like automotive and manufacturing. It also creates a sustainable ecosystem where asset creators and experience developers come together with aligned financial incentives.

By the numbers

Three platforms consolidated into one unified marketplace.
More than 11,000 sellers migrated to the unified marketplace.
More than 200,000 individual assets transferred without issue.
Zero downtime.

Outcomes and benefits

Enhanced creator and seller experience: Through the unified marketplace's intuitive search capabilities, simplified asset migration and direct in-engine purchasing via a custom plugin, creators can find, buy and sell assets more efficiently.
Competitive advantage: We helped our client strengthen their competitive position while opening new revenue streams and market opportunities, transforming their business model for the digital future.
Increased operational efficiency: By leveraging automated content migration workflows, AI-powered moderation systems and streamlined content approval processes, our client has significantly reduced manual effort while upholding creator community standards.
Greater agility: By breaking down complex features and capabilities into manageable, sequential implementations, our client launched critical features faster while planning for future enhancements.

Areas of expertise

Transformation isn't simply a technology decision. Such undertakings demand the right mix of technology, people and capabilities — all of which WWT brought to our partnership with the entertainment company:

How can we help you?

For organizations across media, gaming, retail, healthcare and beyond, a fragmented digital ecosystem holds back innovation, speed and customer experience. Unifying platforms, systems and marketplaces isn't just a technical challenge — it's a strategic imperative.

We help leaders overcome complexity by aligning cross-functional stakeholders, conducting deep research, delivering actionable roadmaps and identifying the right technology solutions. Then, we execute at scale so you can:

Drive digital revenue by unifying commerce platforms and marketplaces.
Elevate customer experience through connected, intuitive and personalized journeys.
Scale confidently with flexible architectures and deep integrations.
Future-proof operations with AI-driven insights, automation and agility.