What is this guide about
The following guide will help you to create your own 3D NFT store in the metaverse by using the Decentraland platform and DG Live. This guide doesn’t require any special skill but it may be time-consuming.
What is Decentraland?
Decentraland is a decentralized platform that works on the Ethereum network where players can create and monetize content. Inside, users can create experiences on plots of LAND, sell virtual clothing and much more. The cryptocurrency of Decentraland is $MANA.
What is DG Live?
DG Live is a platform that lets users list and sell their NFTs on an online marketplace, and showcase them in the Decentraland metaverse. This tool eliminates the need for coding to sell NFTs in Decentraland. Think of it as a Content Management System (CMS) designed for Decentraland.
How much creating a store costs
Note that the price of creating a store in Decentraland varies depending on many factors.
Structure / 3D
If you want to have a custom 3D structure, you will have to make one using a 3D software like Blender. If you know/learn how to use the software, this will be free. However, if you want to hire a professional to do it, this can go from hundred(s) to thousand(s) depending on who you ask.
If you don’t want to learn how to model 3D structures nor pay a professional, you can download an already existent FREE 3D structure and use the free assets provided by Decentraland.
In short: it can be done for free and you can also pay someone else if you want.
Publishing
In Decentraland, you can publish on land or worlds. The main difference is that lands are part of a map and people can discover you by walking from another land and worlds are isolated places where you only have your scene and no one else is deploying around it.
Lands are NFTs that can be bought on the market and the prices varies depending on the time, but they are usually high. This means that you could spend a thousand dollars just for one plot, which is not enough space for a decent store. Renting a land, however, can be cheaper. For example, four plots of LAND for one month are around 30 USD.
A Decentraland World is an isolated place which you obtain when you buy a NAME in Decentraland, which is an NFT that gives you the exclusive usage of your username. With this world, players will be able to jump writing play.decentraland.org/world/(THE NAME YOU BOUGHT). On this isolated place, you can use as many plots as you want. Minting an unclaimed name costs 100 MANA which most of the time goes from 30 USD to 50 USD. You buy it once, and you will have that space forever. BUT: you can have a max. of 100 players on the world and up to 100mb on files. These two limitations can be removed if you self-host a world in your own server.
If you are not able to afford to buy/rent LAND or mint a NAME for a Decentraland World, you can always self-host a world in your own server or ask on our community for someone to give your rights on their land. There is always people willing to help.
In short: it can be done for FREE if you ask someone to help you, it can cost 100 MANA (once), it can cost 30/USD per month if you rent or it can cost over thousand(s) if you buy them. Oh, and it can cost you 5/USD a month if you self-host it on your own server using a VPS.
CMS
DG Live it’s a free tool to use and it only takes 5% from the sales of Decentraland.
Conclusion
If you are low-budget, and don’t want to spend too much time, I recommend you to buy a NAME for 100 $MANA and don’t spend anything else. You can get the FREE 3D structure from here. If you know how to set up a server, you can self-host on a server a world and point it to a web domain (which is even better since you don’t have the 100mb and 100 players limitation(s)). == starting from 100 $MANA (hosted by Decentraland) or $5/month (self-hosting on a cheap server).
If you are mid or high-budget, you can buy/rent land(s) and have your custom structure designed by you or a professional (we can help you on that). You can also use the FREE 3D structure(s). If having a separated place from everyone else is necessary, you should host it on a custom server. == starting from $30/month (four plots of land).
… and if you are ZERO-BUDGET, you can come to the community and ask for someone to lend you land permissions or a space on their server.
* Note that this guide will only cover how to buy/rent a LAND and buy a NAME (as well as how to publish on both spaces.) This guide does not cover how to self-host a world.