Liu Yexi, who has only sent four videos, has nearly 8 million followers, and NetEase has just made its sixth virtual person company investment this year. The original virtual person Trip Love just announced that it would stop the event indefinitely after the 2022 concert, and Sony joined hands with Station B to open the global virtual idol "Virtual Cinderella Project" project.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the virtual human industry.
More precisely, most companies create virtual idols: they go from 2D to 3D, some "engaged" in acting, and some are brand advertising tools. Still, not many people can really make commercial achievements. Perhaps for such an industry, it is a bit cruel to demand commercialization quickly, but the competition is fiercer than people think.
Virtual people are still just tool people
The popular enlightenment of virtual idols may be traced back to Hatsune Mirai in 2007 and Luo Tianyi in 2012, but they were still virtual singers at that time. What drives the development of virtual idols towards more comprehensive fields such as live broadcasting is Youtuber, which pioneered the form of virtual live broadcasting in 2016.
With Trip Love breaking through the million-fan mark in 2017, virtual artist operating companies such as Rainbow Society and Hololive have risen. Until 2018, this type of two-dimensional anchor is still a symbol of virtual people. After 2020, the application of hyper-realistic 3D technology has become the mainstream, and more people are willing to accept a new generation of virtual people who resemble humans but have exquisite makeup and distinctive characteristics. At this time, the rise of the concept of meta-universe allowed players in all major fields to see the opportunity to enter.
ByteDance has the virtual idol girl group A-Soul created and operated by Lehua Entertainment, Tencent has the "Infinite King Group" of "Glory of Kings", and Mihayou has Lu Ming. Although NetEase, which holds a large number of content IP, has not launched a specific role, it has just led the 10 million yuan angel round of financing for virtual digital people and virtual fashion developer Shiyue Xingcheng.
Since the beginning of this year, NetEase has invested in six virtual person-related companies in a row, including the virtual image technology company Genies, the "meta-universe" social platform Imvu, the American live broadcasting company Maestro that creates virtual interactive concerts, the "Microsoft Xiaoice" parent company Red Cotton Xiaoice, and the sub-world culture of virtual idol IP content development and operation.
(Shiyue Xingcheng's virtual people have already cooperated commercially, and NetEase believes that the future of realistic virtual people is broader)
The attitude of the big factory is clear, not only can it lay out the virtual person industry alone, but also as a part of its own products. Acquisition and cooperation is also a good idea, AYAYI created by Burning Wheat Technology is the first hyper-realistic digital person in China, after becoming a member of more than 20 virtual bloggers in Xiaohongshu, Ali met her in September this year and became the digital manager of Tmall Super Brand Day.
In the matter of creating virtual people, large factories have both funds, technology, and application scenarios, and can temporarily catch up with this hot spot regardless of returns. In contrast, there are also small and medium-sized players in the subdivision who are not willing to give up this cake, but it is not easy to make achievements.
Chuangyi Technology, which created Liu Yexi, only received the first round of financing of 10 million yuan in February this year, but it was already an experienced video team with tens of millions of fan IPs such as "Hui Hui Zhou". There are more than 150 people in the large middle office team behind Liu Yexi, which is already the top level for small and medium-sized companies.
At the 11th Beijing International Film Festival, China Film, which does animation, said that it will carry out development activities such as virtual idols around the IP of "Youth Song Xing". This kind of virtual person development idea is an extension of traditional IP development, although it is more in line with the characteristics of small and medium-sized companies, but it undoubtedly has a heavier test of operation, otherwise it will also face the decline of IP.
The problem boils down to one thing, virtual people need a reasonable way of dealing with themselves in this world that is not virtual. As a product of human technology, virtual people are now struggling to get rid of the fate of "tool people". If it only blindly exports content or image to the outside world, but cannot bring output, the controller behind the virtual person will obviously not have a hard time generating electricity with love.
So, for more or less virtual people with idol attributes, what kind of monetization model can be more decent?
Star-making belt goods sell IP, and the commercial reality of virtual people is cruel
For virtual people living on the Internet, traffic is still the mother of commercialization - of course, if the metaverse worldview is formed, virtual people may have new developments. But at least since 2016, whether it is Trip Love or Liu Yexi, the commercialization, methods and needs of virtual people are still very realistic.
(Liu Yexi's profile contains two business contact details, and her positioning is a virtual beauty expert)
There are two ways to create virtual people with commercial value, one is to customize content and products, or to create virtual people for IP, and the other is industrial mass production, which can also be regarded as creating virtual people first and then creating IP.
The former is relatively easy to understand, a popular and popular character with its own heat and attractiveness, only need to give it enough interactive ability and expressiveness, can continue to attract the original IP fans. But as mentioned earlier, it is more difficult for such virtual people to break away from the original life cycle of IP, especially if they are affected by the original content evaluation - think of the content that is still broadcasting for various reasons The score plummets. Therefore, the independent commercial value of virtual people created by this kind of thinking is relatively limited.
The industrialized virtual person is more similar to the copy of the traditional star-making route, but as a life living on the Internet, the risk of the virtual person's acting skills slipping and the collapse of word of mouth is obviously smaller.
(Four real people + four virtual people 1:1 modeling hybrid girl group aespa launched by South Korean SM Company)
Unfortunately, technology has created more plasticity, but it has not been able to dig out more forms of monetization for the time being:
· A-SOUL received more than 2.49 million yuan of live broadcast rewards on station B in November this year, its members "To the Late Devil" in June birthday party live broadcast 1.25 million yuan, member "Bella" in July birthday party overnight income of 2 million yuan
Luo Tianyi, who has more seniority, has done live streaming with goods and concerts, and the virtual idol LING has brought goods to GUCCI in Xiaohongshu in June this year, but because of its virtual attributes, it has encountered "group ridicule"
Houhaihui official virtual idol @ think hilda and Beijing Shiyue Xingcheng's virtual people@CallmeVila in Shanghai to explore the store, and released punch card notes in Xiaohongshu
It is not difficult to see that for virtual people, the step of combining virtual and real is already a very breakthrough achievement, and there will be more integration attempts in the future, but its monetization method is always trapped in the traffic cage.
Ai Media Consulting's "2021 China Virtual Idol Industry Development and Netizen Investigation and Research Report" pointed out that the core industry scale of China's virtual idol industry in 2020 will be 3.46 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 6.22 billion yuan in 2021. In contrast, the size of the surrounding market of Chinese virtual idols is expected to reach 107.49 billion yuan in 2021. To some extent, it is more cost-effective to win a virtual person to dig up the surrounding industries, just like after Ling na Belle became popular, everyone will also compete for peripheral dolls.
Monetizing by traffic is not a problem, the question is that when many traditional content itself is also the divider of traffic, can the attention taken away by the new virtual people become a long-term dividend?
Liu Yexi's team summed up the success of this role as "50% because of the concept of the metacosm, 30% because of its 2.5-dimensional setting and technical level, and 20% because of the video creativity and worldview construction". It can be seen that if it is not in the wave of the double outbreak of the metaverse + virtual idol, it is not easy for ordinary virtual people to break the circle. Watsons, Zhong Xuegao, and China Unicom all launched their own virtual people, but they failed to become popular.
Not every company is Lehua Entertainment and SM, born a star-making company. If you want a virtual person to exist longer, you can't hope for the long-term support of big manufacturers such as Tencent and NetEase. Virtual people need to have some realistic ecology, technology creates them, and stories will give them life.
Virtual human industry ecology, technology and story are indispensable
From a technical point of view, the cost of full-process CG production and engine rendering required by virtual people is not low, the production time is long, and the specific production process and difficulty are no less than the top computer special effects, of course, it also depends on the presentation form of virtual people. To build a virtual person matrix on a large scale, the level and strength of the companies engaged in the industry are a greater test.
This is also the reason why there are mass production companies such as Shiyue Xingcheng, which can more effectively use the experience of technology iteration to create a virtual human matrix with more comprehensive application value. Then, on top of the accumulation of many virtual human characters, to explore the appropriate business model. Similarly, another company in the industry, Global Murphy, which is positioned to operate the digital assets of meta-universe, has many executives from industrial light and magic, a top international technology special effects company, laying the foundation for the resource reserves of virtual people.
At this level, the industrialization path of virtual people is currently more like To B, and its commercial vitality comes from docking with brands in different fields. Pure C-side is more like SM, Lehua Entertainment and other brokerage companies are better at doing things, and it takes industry accumulation to create a star-like virtual person with ease and familiarity.
With technology as a foreshadowing, virtual people should consider how to make their vitality longer. And this problem will be a pain point for most virtual human companies for a long time, probably before the metaverse really comes. The original virtual idols became idols because they could produce content. Now, the field of content has disappeared, and the virtual person has become a virtual influencer. It is not enough to evolve from a chase war for some companies to a complete industry.
On December 15, Sony announced that It has joined hands with Station B to launch the "Virtual Idol" project promoted globally. Members responsible for singing, etc. will be recruited through auditions, and music distribution and online programs will be launched. This can be seen as an extension of the traditional virtual anchor of Station B, although there are no new elements, but the positioning of content creation is always more long-term value than simple image output.
The combination of large manufacturers may be in the construction of content-led content and commercial main lines for a long time, and small and medium-sized players without a clear foothold will eventually be forgotten in the world of virtual people.
Virtual people always need a content ecology, and people who come out of the story can be more vivid. For a series of self-created virtual people, it may be worth looking forward to recreating a "Lingna Belle" type role, but without the brand appeal and supporting facilities like Disney, the question of how the virtual person crosses the life cycle can only continue to shape the perception of the outside world with content, just like Liu Yexi is still interpreting her story on Douyin.
epilogue
In 2019, some B station users posted "B station virtual idol rapid development for a year", the focus at that time was still Vtuber, and the two-dimensional anchor was the orthodoxy of the industry. But just over two years later, virtual people can already receive LV and GUCCI advertisements, and can open live streams with goods. If I were to summarize it again today, the title of the article should be called the year of the outbreak of virtual idol commercialization.
(B station user "Black Emperor President" review of the rapid rise of B station virtual idols)
However, if the business and even industry of virtual people can only stay in the traffic thinking, can its future really be significantly different from the traditional star-making movement? This may be the myth left by the rapid entry into the industrialization stage, when players use N times of technology to iterate out the assembly line, only to find that what virtual people lack is not production, but demand.