Guo Cheng, President of STEPVR: The meta-universe enters the next stage and first has a device that mobilizes the user's five senses

Looking back at the past year, the discussion and controversy on the topic of metaverse has never stopped, including expectations, criticisms, conceptual extensions, and ecological imaginations.

As bystanders, rather than these endless imaginations from 1 to 100, we are more concerned about how enterprises under the concept of metaversity can complete the construction from 0 to 1 and open the door of the metaverse. Or rather, around the vision of realizing the metaverse, how participants in it should do their job of making products. At present, metaverse-related enterprises have gained enough capital and giant favor, whether it is entrepreneurs, institutions that have invested real money, or users who have contributed traffic and attention, they are more looking forward to seeing the actual technical capabilities and products landing, and seeing the door from the real world into the meta-universe.

VR is the hardware foundation that links the real world and the virtual world, but the creation of this "gate" is actually more complicated. As a "veteran" enterprise in the VR industry, STEPVR, which has been established for 8 years, is still constantly exploring new paths for the development of VR, and is more willing to discuss products and explore how to make good products as soon as possible in the boom of concepts.

"Rather than the concept of the metaverse, STEPVR prefers to talk about the 'true world', based on an integrated device that includes sight, hearing, touch, smell and vestibular sensations, allowing the user to experience virtual reality and thus achieve Metavalse." STEPVR President Guo Cheng told 36Kr.

After experiencing an industry from the rise to the fall to the boom, STEPVR has never had more than just VR glasses. Why is the metacosm considered the next generation of the Internet? Based on VR, how does STEPVR create the door to the metaverse?

Around the above questions, 36Kr and Guo Cheng conducted a dialogue, the following is the interview content (edited): 36Kr: Why did the metaverse become an outlet?

Guo Cheng: Capital will create an outlet every six months. At the moment when the Dividends of the Internet and mobile Internet are exhausted, the industry and capital also need another outlet.

In fact, the metacosm is not a new concept. 30 years ago, Mr. Qian Xuesen used the term "spirit realm" to define what we call the metaverse today. At about the same time, Neil Stephenson on the other side of the ocean also depicted Metavalse in his novels, but domestic translators at the time translated Metavalse as a hyper-metaverse, not the metaverse we use today.

Capital chose the metaverse as an outlet because the metacosm vision was simple and straightforward enough to be attractive enough, and because the underlying technologies needed for the metacosm have been tackled by many companies like STEPVR over the past 10 years.

36 Kr: How does STEPVR view the metaverse? Why is the metacosm the next generation of the Internet?

Guo Cheng: Compared with the metaverse, STEPVR prefers to talk about the true world. Now the metaverse has too many people to talk about, to define, and gradually formed a "marshmallow" like things, anything can be tolerated, anything can be packed.

The true world emphasized by STEPVR is a relatively more realistic concept, which is based on an integrated device that includes sight, hearing, touch, smell and vestibular sensations to help users better appreciate Virtual Reality, and then realize Metavalse, which is what we call the metaverse.

STEPVR's true world device can pull the three-dimensional world created by VR up several dimensions, allowing users to mobilize more senses to enjoy the Internet and enjoy a variety of content. In this way, we can create a five-sense Internet after the mobile Internet. For the Internet industry, this is undoubtedly a new direction of future evolution.

36 Kr: When will the next key node of the metaverse arrive?

Guo Cheng: The landmark event of the rapid popularization of the mobile Internet is the birth of the iPhone, in other words, the formation of a trend needs to be based on a device that is good enough. Similarly, in order for the metaverse to enter the next stage, it first needs to have a device that can mobilize the user's five senses. STEPVR can be said to have integrated the "4.5 senses" in it, and the remaining half of the perception can already be realized, but it still needs to work on the integration method.

The device that truly gathers the five senses will be on the market next year, that is, 12 months later. The sooner such a device is launched, the higher the success rate of STEPVR and the greater the value generated.

On this basis, there are several preconditions for the metaverse to really pop. First, the price of the terminal or node is controlled at 2000-3000 US dollars, which ordinary families can afford. Second, the ecological content is mature enough that everyone who has the equipment can use it for half an hour or an hour a day at home.

36Kr: In the industrial chain of the meta-universe, how does STEPVR position itself?

Guo Cheng: STEPVR is a VR-based device and operating system provider dedicated to creating a five-sense world, and for the past 8 years, STEPVR has focused on this. For the time to come, focus and the resulting accumulation of technology will remain our core strengths.

36Kr: Where are the core advantages of STEPVR in creating this "gate" into the metaverse?

Guo Cheng: Taking the sense of touch in the world of the five senses as an example, this kind of haptic feedback is actually just a result. To get this result we need a force feedback device, and we need a technology that can achieve friction. After decomposing the sensory results at the technical level, we also need to go through a large number of processes to produce such an effect. When a lengthy process produces only one result, how to adjust, control, and optimize the process becomes extremely difficult. Because it's hard to define every parameter, every variable, every design and the specific relationship between the result. Therefore, this process of implementation and tuning requires a lot of technology, a lot of time, a lot of trial and error, and a certain amount of luck.

Of course, this is only one of the five senses, and the hardships of realizing the five senses and integrating them can be said to be unimaginable. StepVR has done just that for many years. The experience and technology accumulated from these trials is the core strength of STEPVR.

36Kr: In May this year, STEPVR completed a B+ round of financing with an amount of nearly 100 million yuan, how do you plan to spend it?

Guo Cheng: Do research and development. In fact, half of the entire STEPVR team is a variety of R&D engineers, and we don't intend to change that.

36Kr: How will STEPVR grow in the future?

Guo Cheng: In STEPVR's view, concepts such as the metaverse, the true world, and the Internet of five senses are attractive enough. However, in order to truly achieve an effective and sustainable business model, it is certainly not enough to rely on subsidies and low prices to attract users to taste early. Because if the user finds that the experience is not good enough after purchasing the product, then he will no longer consume and upgrade, and the cycle of enterprise sales - iteration - re-sales - and then iteration will be broken.

The logic of STEPVR is to do a good job of the product first, to give users an excellent experience, so that users can "vote with money", continue to repurchase, STEPVR can achieve continuous evolution and sustainable operation.

Of course, we don't expect this perfect state to be achieved overnight, because VR, metaversics, and the true world are not just needed by users like mobile phones. Just like the original PC, many users only start to buy their own PCs after experiencing the charm of games and the Internet in places such as Internet cafes.

So in the initial stage, we choose a to B model to promote the formation of user needs. By building an offline store system, STEPVR is helping the first users to experience the true world. At present, STEPVR has offline stores in 90 cities across the country, and the number of stores will reach 200-300 before the Spring Festival. From the current sales situation, users who repeatedly purchased tickets more than 5 times accounted for 60% of the total number of all users.

With the advantage of experience and high repurchase rate, not only STEPVR can obtain revenue and achieve profitability, but also our store partners and content partners can achieve profitability. And when all the people in this industry chain can make money, this business model is formed, and the true world or metaverse has the basis for moving to the next milestone.

There is another component that is very important in such a positive loop, and that is the operating system "StepOS".

StepOS is a set of interfaces and a platform to help partners create real world peripherals and content ecology, which can connect the ability of ecological partners with the advantages of STEPVR in the five senses of true world, and jointly form a closed loop and create value.

36Kr: Where is the ultimate value of STEPVR?

Guo Cheng: In Maslow's demand system, the realization of the superego is the highest level of human needs, and the essence of the superego is the pleasure and satisfaction brought about by creation. But the reality is that the world and the universe cannot provide enough resources to satisfy everyone's creative desires.

The ultimate value of the metaverse and the true world lies in providing a space that is real enough for everyone to help people experience and complete creation. In this way, we can achieve equality for all before creation.

In a further form, people can even control the machines in physical space through the help of the Five Senses Internet and AI, so as to cross space and time to complete many things that are now unimaginable.