How to monetize VR content? This is the challenge facing the entire VR industry | CJ 2016

As in previous Julys, Shanghai was extremely hot, which seemed to explain the enthusiasm of many game developers and players for ChinaJoy. Before the exhibition officially started, many companies had already launched various warm-up activities, such as Sony, which was flooding the WeChat Moments. In Shanghai's Century Park, the China-Europe VR Game Developer Competition hosted by helmet hardware manufacturer Dapeng also attracted many people's attention.

In addition to watching their work demonstrations on site, Leifeng.com briefly interviewed these developers before the game. As VR content providers, they shared their views on Daydream released by Google, VR content monetization and other issues.

Google announced its Daydream plan at this year's I/O conference, which will undoubtedly have a certain impact on current VR content developers. In an interview, a domestic developer said that Daydream has solidified the standards for Android phones, which is more like the parameters of a phone. Only when certain parameters are reached can the phone be called a VR phone. Whether users use the VR function or not will become an indicator for their phone purchase, just like the camera pixel of a phone. It doesn't matter how many megapixels it has, but it is important to have this function. Some developers also believe that after the phone is equipped with Daydream, more control methods will be added. The original paper box glasses can only be clicked and lack core control.

In addition, how VR content development teams can realize their profits and how they can survive before VR is widely popularized is one of the challenges facing the entire VR industry. However, each team has its own coping strategy.

Developers from Shanghai Mengguo Network said that they mainly adopt a shorter development cycle and try new ways of playing games. "Because of the short development cycle, the product can be completed faster, and there will be no big losses due to the investment of funds and costs in large projects. We need to adapt to the living environment." At present, they are actively cooperating with some offline experience stores and will also do some projects for the B-side.

The co-founder of Beijing Vision Network said that since they saw the disadvantages of the C-end, they started to target the B-end market and achieved profitability by combining software and hardware and bundling games with non-helmet hardware devices. The operations director of Magic Interactive said that they do not have any income at present, and all costs are invested in content development. The online and offline business models are just beginning to be explored. Although investment is gradually cooling down, "good teams still have the opportunity to get investment, mainly depending on the advantages of products and teams."

As for the profit model of cooperating with offline experience stores, some developers believe that this is still under exploration, and they hope that the offline experience can be more diverse, such as a large-scale multiplayer offline experience with 5-10 people. This kind of experience is obviously different from playing at home and in an experience store, but this is also the charm of offline experience.

Leifeng.com also asked foreign developers about the monetization issue. Some of them believed that before people start buying games, or even VR helmets, developers need to create many good games. Obviously, the current helmets are not good enough. In a few years, when there are more games and better helmets, people will start to buy them. Some developers said that some offline experience venues are gradually appearing in the United States. VR experience is even called a "killer application" in the United States. Many people go to experience it, but what they want to do is to create something valuable. When the game has its own value, it will promote sales.

Obviously, due to different market environments, domestic and foreign developers have their own views and understandings on how to make money, as well as their own coping strategies.

Even with all the challenges ahead, we still saw a lot of creative VR works at the finals on July 28. A total of 16 domestic and foreign VR game teams (11 foreign and 5 domestic) participated in the finals, and they were divided into groups for demonstrations. The judges had experienced all the games before the competition and made their judgments after the demonstrations. The domestic teams' "Skull Ocean" and "BombU" won the second and third place respectively.