Author | Chu Wenlong
Source | Insights New Research Institute
"The demographic dividend has disappeared, and the era of market staking is over, and the next growth needs to be harvested in every crack." This is what Gong Yu, the founder and CEO of iQIYI, mentioned on many occasions.
iQIYI was able to turn losses into profits last year and achieve full-year profits for the first time, and it was indeed "picked out" between membership, advertising and other revenues and content costs.
If you look at the growth of a company, the ceiling is too low if you only rely on "picking". In this way, it is a matter of course for iQiyi to find new growth "gaps" from the Metaverse.
01 Focus on both content and hardware
iQiyi has always believed that "Metaverse and VR are a natural pair", so as early as 2016, iQiyi Smart was established to specialize in the development of VR hardware. On December 26 last year, iQiyi Smart changed its name to Dream Bloom, with The "content + hardware" model provides entertainment services, focusing on the three major areas of VR, AI, and smart hardware.
Compared with the disbandment of Tencent's VR department less than a year after its establishment, iQiyi's investment in VR can be said to be persistent.
Qiyu VR was launched in 2018, and has been updated to the third generation. In order to promote the VR business, iQIYI paid for its own content and purchased copyrights, and used videos and games as gifts to increase the value of Qiyu VR.
Under such a set of "combined punches", Adventure 2 once won the sales crown of VR products on Tmall's Double Eleven in 2018. Perhaps it has seen iQiyi's long-termism in the metaverse, coupled with the boost of the outlet, the dream Blooming also successfully won the C round of financing of 400 million yuan in January this year.
Regarding the understanding of hardware, Wang Kai, vice president of Dream Blossom Company, pointed out at the FBEC Future Business Ecological Link Conference in February this year: "Currently VR is in the process of rapid evolution to MR, and MR can truly achieve virtual content and real content. The natural interaction between VR and AR...MR will become the mainstream form of XR universal terminal in the future Metaverse.”
Wang Kai also revealed that all Qiyu VR products in 2023 will support MR functions, and will release the next generation of new mixed reality MR flagship new products in April this year.
On the content side, as early as 2019, iQiyi launched the love variety show "Like You and Me Too". The audience's mobile phones will vibrate based on the rhythm detection algorithm when the hearts of the program guests are beating. Although it is only a form of interaction, it is really Realistically project the virtual emotional fluctuations into reality;
In 2021, iQIYI will create an immersive virtual concert "City of Virtuality and Reality" for the idol group THE 9, in which a large number of virtual production technologies such as AR and XR are applied to support multi-angle viewing, artists and fans to create a collaborative stage, Remote support, on-site large-screen connection and other interactive gameplay.
In 2022, iQiyi launched a virtual reality game breakthrough reality show variety show "Vowel Adventure".
During the production process, iQIYI not only created a virtual world positioned as the moon on the moon - MEMOON Vowel Continent in the studio, but also combined the pre-arranged motion capture lens with holographic technology to bring guests and guests wearing motion capture suits together. The digital human is linked, and the action is projected 1:1.
iQIYI has pioneered the fact that live audiences must wear VR glasses to watch performances, and it is the first time to truly show the process of real people relying on equipment to manipulate digital people into the virtual world. .
It is worth mentioning that the technologies related to the digital human in "Vowel Adventure" are all supported by Baidu Smart Yunxiling. Apply AIGC (AI-Generated Content artificial intelligence self-generated content) technology to iQiyi's content search, content publicity, content creation tools, novel creation and other businesses.
Obviously, iQiyi's exploration and layout in the Metaverse will continue to deepen.
02 From "The Wind Rises from Luoyang" to explore the realization path of the metaverse
Whether it is content or hardware, the ultimate goal is to make money in the Metaverse.
iQIYI's exploration is to create IP, then output metaverse content that combines reality and virtuality, and finally realize cash through paid experience and digital collections.
Under this idea, iQiyi built a VR full-sense theater around the IP of "The Wind Rises in Luoyang".
In 2021, "The Wind Rises from Luoyang" will start broadcasting on iQiyi and become the platform's annual IP. Before the show is over, iQiyi will cooperate with the digital collection platform Thin Box to release the "Wind from Luoyang" themed digital collection.
Different from other digital collections, the system released by iQIYI has 6 digital collections as wearable props, which can be used on the digital identity of the thin box "space", and another "Bad Well" is a scene digital storage, Can be used as a digital space skin.
iQIYI subsequently launched a set of VR series digital collections of "The Wind Rises in Luoyang". At this time, consumers can see the 3D digital collections in the VR full-sense interactive offline museum under iQIYI and experience the corresponding collections at the same time. VR interaction.
The above are all the foreshadowing left by iQiyi for the VR full sense theater.
On February 18 this year, after a long period of polishing, iQIYI launched the first real-scene plus VR full-sense entertainment project open to the public in China - "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" VR full-sense theater.
The production team of iQIYI integrated real scenes into the experience, added parts such as changing costumes and watching live performances during the plot experience, and also used VR to allow users to enter the "parallel universe" and become the "protagonist" of the story to come to the bustling Experience multi-level immersive entertainment in Luoyang, the bustling capital of the gods.
Compared with the entertainment projects in the real space such as the escape room, the subversiveness of the VR full-sensing theater of "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" lies in that it allows the audience to leave the ground for a short time, and even go to the sky and into the sea, breaking the boundary of the real physical space.
In iQIYI's cognition, the VR experience is evolving from the simple content experience in the 1.0 era to the interaction with people and the environment in the 2.0 era.
In the era of version 1.0, players put on the headset and enter the VR world without too much "warm-up". This experience is defined by iQiyi as "lack of sense of purpose";
In the era of version 2.0, through the output of mature IP and the atmosphere created by the "offline real scene", users have a full "sense of ritual" before entering the VR world, and they also have sufficient psychological expectations. The digital assets accumulated during the shooting are also used as "materials" in this VR offline experience, and users are thus brought into the "top of the entertainment pyramid" with the strongest sense of immersion and substitution.
Obviously, the VR offline experience of "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" is not just an attempt of iQIYI's VR experience version 2.0. Through this project or product, iQIYI has accumulated a set of processes from VR content to offline experience. And standards, in the words of Zhang Hang, vice president of iQIYI, established an "immersive experience platform", as long as you follow this process, as long as you have enough creativity, you can turn the appropriate content into a real scene + VR The 2.0 version offline experience product.
Although "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" VR Full-Sense Theater is currently only an entertainment project and is still a traditional business model of paying for experience, whether it is the evolution of VR hardware, the development of digital assets, or the operation of offline scenes, all There are a lot of articles to do, which is also an important reliance for iQiyi to break through the ceiling of the long video platform.
03 Epilogue
With the in-depth exploration of the metaverse, the industry has become more and more aware of the importance of content, especially "native content" to VR. At this time, iQIYI, which started from content, has a long board of advantages among many players. come out.
At the same time, the VR full-sense theater of "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" has established a model of the Metaverse in a new consumption scenario. iQiyi has also completed the online and offline closed loop of the Metaverse, and has accumulated experience that can be replicated in batches.
Regarding how the future entertainment experience will evolve in the future, iQiyi has outlined a beginning and left unlimited imagination.
In Zhang Hang's opinion, "it's worth at least another 20 years."