The concept of the metacosm is supported by performance.
Author | Liu Qinwen
Editor 丨Li Yiming
Source | Mustang Finance
Can you also be free through games?
In Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One, Halliday single-handedly created a virtual game, "Oasis", in which you can enter the virtual world by wearing a VR device, where everyone can become the person you want to be. The game quickly took the world by storm. On the occasion of Halliday's death, it was announced that the huge property and ownership of the game "Oasis" were left to the first to break through the three puzzles, find out the person he hid the Easter egg in the game, the male protagonist passed the level, and finally successfully obtained the Easter egg, not only to achieve wealth freedom, but also to harvest his own love in the process.
The story is simple, but the setting of the "virtual world" has set off a lot of discussion, and the concept of "metacosm" has begun to enter people's attention and is regarded as one of the typical examples of "metacosm". In recent years, with the explosion of the concept of "meta-universe", domestic Tencent, Ali, Byte, etc. have entered the "meta-universe". Under the outlet, the increase in the "meta-universe" has become a tide, and quickly swept into the proposed listed company. A Beijing Pocket Feitian Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Pocket Feitian") recently submitted a Prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and mentioned "Meta-Universe" 256 times in the Prospectus, indicating that it is a leading supplier of the Application Layer of China's Meta-Universe Scene (or AR/VR Content and Service Market).
Play with concepts, or come for real?
"Flying Sky in the Palm" was renamed "Flying Sky Cloud Movement", and he once made games with Du Haitao
What exactly is the metaverse? Metaverse is translated as "Metaverse" in English, where Meta means transcendence and Verse stands for universe, which together means "beyond the universe". This term originates from the famous American science fiction novel Neo Stevenson's 1992 science fiction novel "Avalanche", which depicts a network world parallel to the real world - the metaverse, where the real world has a network twin, and the real person lives with the virtual person through VR devices.
For most people, the more familiar metaverse may be the "oasis" world depicted in the movie "Ready Player One" released in 2018, and the "Liberty City" game world in the movie "Runaway Player" released last year.
"Affected by the epidemic, the free flow of the world has been completely broken, in such a situation, more and more people choose cloud work, cloud bungee, cloud work, cloud school, etc., this Internet as the core to continue their daily work, life, in fact, is the simplest metaverse." Under such circumstances, the concept of the metaverse began to rise from the original concept in science fiction and became the focus of everyone's attention. Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, said.
Metaverse can carry many business models of the current Internet industry, such as "meta-universe + game", "meta-universe + education", "meta-universe + entertainment" and so on. To this end, in December 2021, Pocket Flying changed its name to "Flying Cloud", and also used the English name Flow Cloud, and announced that it entered the "metaverse" field.
Source: Feitian Yundong official website
How to enter? In fact, Feitian Yundong has always relied on AR/VR business development, and AR/VR business is an important entrance to the C-end of the meta-universe. According to iResearch consulting data, the ecological environment of the metaverse is composed of the interaction of the underlying technology layer, the scene application layer, the equipment layer and the platform layer. Ar/VR content and service market is the scene application layer in the metaverse ecosystem, AR/VR is an important application to realize and empower the immersive metaverse experience, and is a prerequisite and entry barrier in the development of the metaverse.
According to iResearch, in terms of revenue, Feitian Cloud Mobile ranks first in China's AR/VR content and service market, accounting for 2.3% of the market share in 2020. It also ranks first in China's AR/VR service market, accounting for 12.6% of the market share in 2020.
Rather than saying that the flying cloud movement has a layout in the metaverse field, it is better to say that the flying cloud movement is more in-depth in the AR/VR field.
Before the meta-universe, Feitian Yundong mainly engaged in the research and development, promotion and sales of mobile games and other software, mobile stand-alone games for the company's main products to generate revenue, the main games produced by it include "God of Drag Racing" (formerly known as "3D Need for Racing"), "Alice in Wonderland", "Battlefield Gun God", "Line Mage - Enhanced Edition", "Interstellar Arms", "Wingsuit Flight", etc., mainly for casual puzzles, parkour racing, action shooting single-player games.
The game business also attracted investment from host Du Haitao. In February 2017, Du Haitao increased his capital by 560,000 yuan to become the third largest shareholder of the company, with a shareholding ratio of 10%. Subsequently, the two sides joined forces to develop the casual racing mobile game "Tao Tao Xiong Speed League", the protagonist of the game "Tao Tao Xiong" is based on Du Haitao as the prototype design. In addition, the game characters have other star images, including Liu Xuan, Xing Aowei, Chen He, Lin Xinxin, as well as two-dimensional Internet celebrities Ahu, small dinosaur Agung, a pin sesame fox, Zhang Xiao locket, mung bean frog and so on.
The highlight of this game is the AR function, which can open up the virtual space and the real world through AR, capture the game character exclusive to the user, and obtain physical prizes, merchant coupons, etc.
In addition, according to the 2017 New Third Board "Prospectus", Feitian Yundong also developed a VR game "Extreme Flyer". "Extreme Flyer" is a first-person perspective of the flight simulation game, the main experience of the real experience of "high-altitude wingsuit flight sports" brought by the thrill, the so-called "wingsuit flight" international called flying squirrel gliding sports, the risk factor is extremely high, through the form of VR to bring immersion, but need to be equipped with VR hardware equipment.
From games to AR/VR, the top 5 customers accounted for 40% of revenue
"In the 5G era, platform-level development and focusing on subdivision areas are the core strategic positioning of Feitian Cloud's future development. In the future, the interaction of AR augmented reality and VR virtual reality will surely penetrate into the lives of each of us. Wang Lei, chairman of Feitian Yundong, said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency's "China New Third Board".
In June 2017, Feitian Yundong was listed on the New Third Board and delisted in August 2019. During this period, Du Haitao gradually transferred his stake in Feitian Yundong. By August 20, 2021, Du Haitao transferred the remaining about 3.84% of the equity in his hand to Li Xiujie for a consideration of 1.8393 million yuan. At this point, Du Haitao completely withdrew from the ranks of shareholders.
Feitian Yundong has also gradually shifted from the game business to the AR/VR content and service business. With the advantages of technology and media resources, Feitian Yundong mainly provides customers with one-stop AR/VR services, including formulating AR/VR service plans, designing AR/VR interactive content, delivering AR/VR interactive content, collecting, monitoring and optimizing data and feedback, so as to achieve customers' business goals, increase brand exposure and enhance brand awareness.
For example, panoramic shooting for real estate enterprises, VR house viewing; using VR technology, online reproduction of museums, art exhibition halls, science and technology exhibition halls, etc., online tours; ar interactive games, VR panoramic stores, 360-degree commodity display, combined with physical objects, coupons, points and other reward methods to help the e-commerce retail industry to enhance sales conversion; in the restaurant, assist merchants to make AR virtual images / mascots, LOGO on the desktop display, exchange discount cards, physical rewards, gift meals, etc., Increase user retention and improve marketing effectiveness.
In addition, Feitian Yundong also includes IP business, under the blessing of the above business, from 2018 to the first half of 2021, Feitian Yundong recorded revenue of 164 million yuan, 251 million yuan, 339 million yuan and 278 million yuan, and the corresponding net profits were 47.097 million yuan, 41.879 million yuan, 61.609 million yuan and 53.079 million yuan, respectively.
From 5G, AR/VR to meta-universes, although Feitian Yundong claims to have undergone a strategic transformation since 2017, shifting its focus from game development and game-related businesses to AR/VR services, its number of customers is still small and accounts for a relatively high proportion of revenue.
At present, Feitian Yundong's main business includes AR/VR services, AR/VR content, AR/VR SaaS, IP business and others, as of 2020, its AR/VR service customers are 23, a total of 57 products, the number of AR/VR content customers is 21, the number of products is 41, and the AR/VR SaaS business is about 800.
However, the model of the AR/VR SaaS business is to provide a platform to open up a series of online AR/VR interactive content design, development and delivery tools, allowing customers to generate, publish and utilize relevant AR/VR related content themselves.
From 2018 to the first half of 2021, feitian cloud's AR/VR services, AR/VR content and AR/VR SaaS business generated revenue of 75.1 million yuan, 188 million yuan, 265 million yuan and 259 million yuan, accounting for 45.9%, 75.3%, 78.5% and 93.5% of the total revenue in the same period. The top five customers accounted for about 47.4%, 46.1%, 38.5% and 42.1%. At the same time, its gross profit margin showed a downward trend, 41.7%, 30%, 30.9% and 30% respectively.
Customers include Samsung and Nike, and the traffic fee exceeds the net profit
Using AR/VR to advertise, the customers received by Feitian Cloud are also not small.
In January 2018, Feitian Yundong restored the virtual version of a Nike physical store 1:1, mainly to show the display and layout to its sales agents and employees in the virtual version, so as to reduce training costs.
In September of the same year, a VR panoramic display project was also created for the Qiaojia compound, a tourist attraction in Shanxi Province. Through vr technology to restore its real environment, users can wear VR equipment, you can 360 degrees to observe the scenic spots, so that people can experience cultural tourism attractions without leaving home.
In June 2021, Feitian Yundong also opened a VR cloud store for Samsung in Jingdong, which can enable users to view Samsung products in a more three-dimensional, three-dimensional form on their mobile phones, such as users who want to buy Samsung TVs, they can view product details in 360 degrees, and can also carry out wall hanging, placement and viewing the synergy effect with the overall house, in this way to increase product sales.
In the WeChat public account, Palm Feitian also calls itself a "smart marketing service provider".
In order to ensure marketing effectiveness, Feitian Cloud Mobile needs to continue to purchase advertising traffic, and as of 2018, 2019, 2020 and the first half of 2021, the amount of prepayment used by Feitian Cloud to obtain advertising traffic has gradually increased, at 4.3 million yuan, 44.7 million yuan, 85.9 million yuan and 78.9 million yuan, respectively.
In contrast, Feitian Yundong's investment in research and development was 7.58 million yuan, 11.425 million yuan, 15.046 million yuan and 9.012 million yuan, accounting for 4.6%, 4.6%, 4.4% and 3.2% of the current revenue respectively. As of June 30, 2021, there were 46 R&D personnel, accounting for 36.8% of the total number of employees, and the total number of employees was 125.
The meta-universe, which Fei Tianyun often mentions in the "Prospectus", has become the "outlet" chased by a large number of companies. According to the "China Meta-universe trademark application enterprise portrait report (2021)", as of the end of 2021, There are 1692 companies in China, applying for 11,400 yuan universe trademarks, and 99.9% of the "meta-universe" trademarks are registered in 2021. Among them, cultural and entertainment enterprises occupy half of the country, including games, film and television media, live broadcasting, digital publishing, MCN enterprises, etc. Regarding the future, Feitian Yundong said that it has begun to build its own meta-universe platform. According to the official website of Feitian Yundong, it currently has a developer interface and can freely create products that belong to users.
However, for the enterprise plus code meta universe, the industry view is not blindly optimistic.
"For the 'meta-universe' concept enterprise, capital itself has leverage attributes, leverage has a double-edged sword, capital and industry form a supplement and good interaction, more market and capital attention can help the 'meta-universe' concept enterprise empowerment, so that its development presents a three-liter situation of business scale, operating profit and capital capacity." But companies without performance support, hype the meta-universe concept and capital concerns, may hurt themselves, the actual development does not develop in the direction they want, and even increase the burden on the actual controller or shareholders, and may bring more drag. Independent economist Wang Chikun said.
What is your understanding of the metacosm? What do you think of the fact that many companies are now adding code to the metacosm? Welcome to leave a message below to discuss.