In the animated film "Psychic Journey", Joe can enter the "flow" state while playing the piano
Wen 丨 Hedgehog Commune, author 丨 Zhang Zhan, editor 丨 garden director
Have you ever thought that one day you could truly exist in a world that is very different from your daily life? In that world, you can do whatever you want, no one cares who you are or where you come from, you just have to do one thing – enjoy unlimited freedom.
HBO's sci-fi series Westworld has created a world where, in this huge, Westworld-themed adult park, there are enough robots to live with you, and they also have emotions, can think and generate feelings, but they don't have any rights — you can do anything to them, no law will punish you, and your life will not be threatened.
In the series, the player is completely "immersed" in the park, forgetting his original identity.
Stills from Westworld | Image source Douban
Maybe you're no stranger to this feeling, because when you're immersed in a novel or TV series, it's possible that you'll forget who you are.
In the 1960s, the Hungarian positive psychologist Mikhari Chiksen Mikhalay proposed the "Flow" theory, which explains the state of immersion when people are fully engrossed. When flow occurs, people have a high level of excitement, pleasure, and fulfillment.
For a long time, people thought that "immersion" and "flow" could only be found in daily life by individuals using various media forms, but there was a group of people who broke this view. They firmly believe that immersive experiences can be created by external forces. They are the protagonists of this article— the immersion industry, and the people who make it up.
Maybe you're no stranger to the term "immersive" anymore, because it's already everywhere — immersive exhibitions, immersive script killing, immersive chambers, immersive theater... But how exactly do they carry people's imaginations of immersion? Or, have they really succeeded in creating immersive experiences?
Drama and fiction create stories, movies extend human life threefold, games give people the right to participate in stories, and the immersion industry is following this vein, exploring the boundaries of the human experience and weaving a picture of the future.
There is no difference between what this group of people want to do and what novelists, filmmakers, and gamers want to do, that is, to transcend life.
A spring breeze came overnight
"In addition to the traditional eight arts such as music, literature, and film, if games are the ninth art, then 'immersion' is the tenth art with interactive narrative as the core." Jiang Jie, CEO of Mirage, an international immersive industry platform, opened at the "2021 Hainan International Cultural and Creative Week • Immersive Industry Empowerment Urban Renewal Forum".
Although immersion is still a "new industry" compared to the film, game and other industries, it is becoming more mature and rich, and has successfully attracted the attention of more and more cultural and cultural tourism people.
In fact, the above-mentioned "Immersive Industry Empowerment Urban Renewal Forum" is only one of the series of activities in the 2021 China Immersion Industry Season, and other activities include the 2021 "So Immersive" Global Immersive Industry Online Summit, the 3rd China Immersion Industry Development Forum, the Quebec Shanghai Digital Creativity Summit, the 2021 "Sand Box" Immersive Image Exhibition, and the China Immersion Industry Study Tour.
The 2021 China Immersion Industry Season series of activities | Image source respondents
Shanghai Mirage is one of the main organizers of the 2021 China Immersion Industry Season. At the beginning of the establishment of this platform company, Jiang Jie took the development of "immersive world" as the vision of the illusion, and was committed to providing immersive comprehensive development of the whole industry chain solution for the immersion industry.
His embarkation on the "immersive road" is actually a data-driven necessity.
In 2008, Jiang Jie co-founded the film and television company 37 Entertainment, which was acquired at the end of 2013 by oriental dreamworks, which later co-produced "Kung Fu Panda 3". After being acquired, Jiang Jie quit the company and began to think about the next career direction.
For a new career, he has two vague ideas: first, he wants to do something that can be directly contacted with C-end consumers, rather than being in the middle of the industry like a film and television special effects company; second, he does not want to leave the old business, or wants to do something related to cultural content, digital technology and entertainment.
In order to find a more scientific direction, Jiang Jie led the team to build a deep learning system called "Entertainment Future". The system automatically collects information from around the world on a daily basis, in parallel with technology and cultural entertainment.
Through keyword system filtering and manual labeling, after a year of operation, all the information began to converge and focus on one area, which is now called "immersion". The data does not lie, and Jiang Jie's goal is clear - to start to devote himself to the immersion industry.
Of course, at that time, China did not have the concept of "immersion", let alone any molding projects. China's market was really opened up by two iconic events.
In December 2016, the immersive drama "Sleepless Nights", which has been popular in the UK and North America for several years, successfully landed in Shanghai.
Adapted from Shakespeare's classic Macbeth, Sleepless Nights is set in the Mackinon Hotel, a Shanghai version of the show, which is located in the MacKinnon Hotel, which was transformed from a rotten building. This five-storey enclosed building has hundreds of rooms and more than 6,000 square meters of performance space, and the story is staged at the same time in every corner - the dazzling dance floor has a Latin singer who cried and has eyes and sings love songs at the bar, two thieves in the old street of Shanghai are groping for mysterious medicinal herbs in the pharmacy medicine cabinet, and a man in a suit in a spooky mental hospital is chasing his imprisoned lover...
As an audience member, you don't sit in the audience like a traditional play, you'll be invited to put on a white mask and walk freely between different actors, looking for one of the countless story branches.
The scene of the special exhibition of the fifth anniversary of "Sleepless Nights" | Jiang Jie filmed
Jiang Jie still vaguely remembers the grandeur of "Sleepless Nights" when it first opened - in less than 100 hours, 10,000 tickets were sold out, creating a box office revenue of 6 million yuan and a record in the history of performance industry sales. As the first "circle-breaking" immersive project in China, "Sleepless Nights" has opened people's imagination of new entertainment formats and made the immersive industry really begin to sprout.
The second landmark event is that in May 2017, the new media art exhibition "Flower Dance Forest and Future Amusement Park" launched by the Japanese science and technology art group TeamLab was officially introduced to Beijing, and immersive new media art originated in China.
Since November 2019, teamLab's flagship work, "Boundless Art Museum", has been in operation in Shanghai. In a complex three-dimensional space of 6,600 square meters, the Boundless Art Museum exhibits about 50 works, which have no boundaries between them and sometimes merge with each other. There is no optimal route in the museum, so visitors can feel the scenes as they wish and blend in with the works.
Unbounded Art Museum Live | Image source teamLab official website
In 2019, in Jiang Jie's view, it is a turning point in the immersive industry.
That year, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other six departments jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Deep Integration of Culture and Science and Technology", which clearly stated that it is necessary to "develop content visualization presentation, interactive communication, immersive experience technology application system platforms and products" and "realize the refinement and immersion of content dissemination"; the General Office of the State Council also said in the "Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Further Stimulating the Potential of Cultural and Tourism Consumption" promulgated in 2019 that it is necessary to "promote the integration of culture, tourism and modern technology." Develop a new generation of immersive experiential cultural and tourism consumption content".
"Immersion" has become the key word in cultural consumption. With policy documents and endorsements, immersion is increasingly attracting the attention of the project side. In 2019, the immersion industry ushered in a project blowout - according to Fantasy statistics, the number of immersion projects in China reached 1100 in 2019, an increase of nearly 150% over 2018.
The number of immersion experience programs in China over the years has | Image source :Mirage 2020 White Paper on the Development of China's Immersive Industry
However, even in 2019, where there are already thousands of local immersion projects, a question still plagues all industry insiders - immersion, how to define it?
The garden is full of dark and light colors
In the "Mirage • 2020 China Immersion Industry Development White Paper", we found a definition of "immersive experience".
It said that "the immersive experience is a new internet celebrity experience ecology", it also said that "the immersive experience can bring different dimensions of value to participants such as showing off, entertainment, socialization, growth" and "(immersive experience) allows participating consumers to instantly detach themselves from the real environment and immerse themselves in situations like movies, games or dreams".
This definition is business- and value-oriented and totals more than 200 words. Contrary to the conventional definition, this passage uses analogies and a large number of adjectives to accurately describe the feeling of "immersion." Since it is a feeling, then immersion naturally has an additional layer of "subjective depth" dimension, which is precisely as a definition of "whether" is difficult to bear.
So, how to distinguish the depth of immersion?
To solve this problem, Mirage proposes a "deep model of immersive experience." In this model, the illusion divides the participant's experience into three dimensions: (sensory) depth of envelopment, depth of interaction, and depth of narrative.
Immerse yourself in the Depth Model | Image source :Mirage 2020 White Paper on the Development of China's Immersive Industry
In order to facilitate my understanding, Jiang Jie gave an example of Disneyland.
First of all, in terms of the sense of wrapping, Disney has built the park into a fairy tale world with a high sense of envelopment through casts (including puppet characters) and themed architecture. The controversial rule that dolls must never take off their hoods is meant to ensure that the cast does not jump the sense of wrapping.
But Jiang Jie believes that this has not yet reached the ideal state of immersion. When traveling between the theme areas, the sense of entry and exit of tourists is very strong, such as from the Toy Story area to the Pirates of the Caribbean area, the process of wrapping will be missing, and it will make people feel that they still exist in the real world.
Disneyland's "Avengers Campus" concept design | Graph source network
Secondly, in terms of the depth of interaction, the cast and crew will have some interaction with the tourists, and the tourists will carry out some equipment control, which are all interactive performances, but unfortunately the tourists will not feel that their actions will have any impact on the whole story.
This naturally implicates the depth of the narrative. Jiang Jie said that few theme parks can take into account the role of consumers when designing the story, so that consumers can have a real connection with the story.
Jiang Jie said: "But one thing is worth affirming, that is, the international leading amusement parks Disney and Universal Studios have gradually realized this. ”
He told me that in Disney's latest immersive theme park, Star Wars: Edge of the Galaxy, disney didn't make special use of a specific storyline in the original book, but instead created a new story, and even created characters that didn't appear in some film works. The purpose of this is to create space for participants to influence the story, after all, the worldview and plot of the original book cannot be broken.
Left: Lingna Bell is a character who has never been featured in Disney movies | Image source network right: Disney theme park "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" concept design | Graph source network
According to the "Immersion Experience Depth Model", different immersion styles can find their own position in each dimension, and finally the depth of immersion is obtained by summing up.
In 2021, Mirage was invited to participate in the "Annual Development Report on the Monitoring of New Formats of Immersive Cultural Tourism" (commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to the Cultural Innovation and Technology Service Alliance), and was responsible for defining the term "immersion". In order to complete this task, Jiang Jie's team handed in a document, but Jiang Jie admitted that the question of whether a project is "immersive" does not seem to be so important to the immersion industry in the short term.
"Immersive is an imaginative adjective, it has unlimited possibilities, no one will know what kind of new formats will appear in the future, we don't want to use a definition to limit everyone's imagination." Immersive experience is to some extent the definition of whether a project can bring real immersion to the quality, we are still more willing to objectively judge the depth of consumer immersion. Jiang Jie said.
Let the story happen
There is a sentence in "A Brief History of Mankind": "The focus of the 'fictional' thing is not only to enable human beings to have imagination, but more importantly, to imagine 'together' and weave a variety of common fictional stories." ”
In the view of author Yuval Harari, it is the ability to tell stories that makes humans stand out in the process of evolution. Storytelling allows humans to gather large groups, form complex social structures, and accomplish many impossible tasks. It was mankind's thirst for stories that gave birth to literature and drama, and with the advancement of technology, film was born.
Fast forward to the 21st century, and the emphasis on "narrative" and "interaction" is reshaping people's imagination of stories.
Script killing writer Zhu Zhenda has been writing script killing since 2018. In 2021, together with his partner Guo Song, he created a suspenseful story in the former residence of Fan Zhuzhai in Tianjin under the pseudonym "Li Xiangshan" - "Beiyang Sherlock". They defined Beiyang Sherlock as an "immersive live-action drama" rather than a "script kill."
The story background of "Beiyang Sherlock" is closely related to Tianjin-
In 1928, the Northern Expeditionary Army was like a bamboo, and the sword was pointed at Pingjin. In June, Zhang Zuolin of the Beiyang government retreated to Guanwai, but killed Emperor Gutun. Yan Xishan's general Fu Zuoyi entered and occupied Tianjin without bloodshed in the form of "peace talks."
As the most prosperous city in northern China at that time, Tianjin was already a mixture of fish and dragons, merchants and merchants, coupled with the many concessions of various countries, water and land docks, and all kinds of people would gather here. In the changing situation, the forces on all sides are eager to move. In the play, in the seemingly calm city of Tianjin, there have been many bizarre cases one after another, and high-ranking officials, merchants, and ordinary people have been involved in it, and people are afraid for a while. In order to appease the masses and solve the case as soon as possible, the Tianjin Municipal Police Department invited people from the public to participate in the investigation and inspection and promised heavy profits.
So in this huge folk detective competition, how should the story unfold?
"Beiyang Sherlock" performance scene picture | Image source respondents
Before the opening, players will change into the Costume of the Republic of China provided by the performer and receive a passport and a 5 yuan game ticket. During the performance, players can not use electronic products or modern currency throughout the whole process, but they can use game tickets to buy drinks, pasta, fruits and other goods sold by various shops in the venue, and if the money is not enough, they can also go to the bank to borrow money.
In addition to Qianzhuang, there are police stations, pawnshops, medicine shops, clothing stores, tea houses and so on in the real scene space with an area of 1,300 square meters. In this condensed world of the Republic of China, there are a total of 9 strange cases of the Republic of China and 150 case branches caused by it, and each player can only experience a part of the plot in a single game.
The entire immersive experience takes about 5 hours, except for the 3 scenes at the beginning, middle and end, the player can decide the next step of the journey by their own free will. But, after all, as a drama with story lines, proper guidance is essential, and NPCs (non-player characters) become the key facilitators of the investigation of the case.
The show features more than 20 NPCs, who are spread across the scenes, playing roles such as tailors, policemen, and growers, interacting with players and guiding the story. For example, the player may receive a blackmail letter that says that the ransom will be placed in the melon field, then the player will go to the melon field and meet the melon farmer, the melon farmer will tell the player that there are no bandits here, and then let them go to the salt alkali land to find...
NPC | in the performance of "Beiyang Sherlock" Image source respondents
In this way, NPCs become an important part of the construction of "immersion" - their performance will directly determine whether the player will have a "sense of drama" and the "interactive depth" of this immersive project. Therefore, Zhu Zhenda decided to cultivate NPCs with the idea of making movies.
First of all, in the selection of NPCs, Zhu Zhenda chooses actors from the class to ensure their professionalism; secondly, in NPC training, Zhu Zhenda has his own set of strategies.
"Two weeks after the cast was finalized, I didn't let them see anything related to the case. But I gave them a bunch of historical information, let them first make up for history, know what really happened in 1928, and then tell them what their respective roles are, roughly what their family background is, what they have experienced in the past, what their social background is, and let them think about their attitude towards the big events that happened 'today'. Zhu Zhenda said.
The result of this is the characterization and non-line of the actors. "It sounds simple not to memorize words, but in fact, it is more difficult, the more wordless actors want to plan well, through free reaction and behavior to really set up this role." When he can set this character up, I will give him the details of the case, and everything will be logical. Zhu Zhenda further explained to me.
The reason why the story can become the hidden vein of human development is that it is endlessly possible, and "Beiyang Sherlock" is only one of thousands of local immersive stories in white.
The story of Wuhan's "Zhiyin" takes place in a large cruise ship on the Yangtze River. Counting the top deck, the cruise ship has a total of 6 stages, which are shuttled by 108 different actors and characters.
Wuhan "Zhiyin" cruise ship | Image source respondents
From the moment the tourists have even boarded the ship, the story begins – actors in cheongsam dresses come out of the various hatches in pairs, including big figures like actresses and businessmen, as well as small people like shoemakers and newsboys. They either chatted with each other or said goodbye to people on the shore.
When the cruise ship leaves the pier, you can dance with the actors in the dance hall on the first floor, listen to the bartender in the bar tell a story, or go up to the second floor to listen to the shoemaker in the corner tell his life story...
Unlike the performance of "Beiyang Sherlock" with the nature of a crime-solving mission, the audience seems to have entered a real movie space on the "Zhiyin", and you only need to shuttle through different cabins to listen to and explore the story.
Interior view of Wuhan "Zhiyin" | Image source respondents
In addition to "Beiyang Sherlock" and "Zhiyin", "See You Again Pingyao", "Only Henan", "Nanjing Happy Event" and so on are all leading large and medium-sized immersive projects in China. Of course, in addition to the big projects, there are various small projects including immersive chambers and script killings.
No ordinary consumer can experience all these immersive stories, just as no one can read all the novels in this world. But that doesn't matter, what matters is one thing – in these stories, you're given the right to "participate."
Business and art
When interviewing Jiang Jie, I asked him a question: "Immersive projects are large and small, can we draw several lines according to the order of investment to distinguish, so as to more clearly tell you how much investment is needed for an immersive project?" ”
Jiang Jie did not follow my train of thought to answer the question: "I think it may not be possible to understand the immersion industry with conventional ideas such as 'light assets' and 'heavy assets'. There is no upper limit on the investment of projects in the immersion industry, such as the project of "Only Henan", which costs 6 billion yuan, while the small script may be thousands or tens of thousands of investments. Therefore, we should think more about what order of magnitude of investment will make the project sustainable, and what is the best portfolio with a clear investment budget. ”
The general director of "Nanjing Happy Event" is Zhou Zhen, CEO of Wanyu Gravity, who has been called "the first person in China's immersive industry" by more than 50 media. Zhou Zhen used tens of millions of investments to create a large-scale live-action 360° immersive interactive performance of "Nanjing Happy Event".
The performance scene of "Nanjing Happy Event" | Image source respondents
Zhou Zhen said to me: "Many peers may not be good at first calculating accounts, and "Nanjing Happy Event" at the beginning of the project, that is, first calculate the account, and then go backwards how much investment is needed, which is not simply to say to investors' 'how much money I need, and then I can return the capital in a few years'. Instead, it is a more stable and responsible approach to designing immersive projects using a backward approach. ”
From a financial model, the revenue of an immersive project is nothing more than a few components: the number of shows, the number of customers accommodated in a single show, the ticket price, the repurchase rate, and other goods besides the performance tickets. "When we count the number of customers in a single game, we calculate it according to the ratio of 30% of the full load, and we want to make sure that the financial model can also run through at such a low ratio." Zhou Zhen said.
How many shows are still within the scope of the performance party's flexibility, but how many customers they can come, what kind of ticket prices they can accept, and to what extent they are willing to repurchase are less controllable.
Zhang Silan (not her real name) is a film and television producer in Shanghai who has brushed up on the immersive drama "Sleepless Nights" nearly 30 times. She told me, "That's not the most exaggerated, I've heard someone swipe it sixty or seventy times." The content of this drama is too rich, there are too many branches, the immersive experience is too good, and the story I see is different every time, and I can't help but brush it over and over again. ”
Huofeng Capital is an investment institution focusing on young people's culture and consumption, and immersive entertainment, especially the secret room, has always been their focus area of focus. Li Jiachao, vice president of Huofeng Capital, said: "In a broad sense, immersion is not a new concept, we see that in fact, all entertainment models are hoping to provide people with an immersive experience, such as traditional movies and games are also creating immersion for users. ”
He said that the current immersive script killing and chamber of secrets incorporate immersive elements, which is to provide players with a different space, through the fictional storyline, characters, tasks and logical relationships to let players get an entertaining experience in immersion.
Li Jiachao explained the economic foundation of the rise of "immersion" in this way: "Now everyone also emphasizes the 'experience economy', because the basic 'eating, drinking and having fun' needs are met, so people need to find more novel experiences, especially the spiritual level of experience consumption such as play." Immersive entertainment came into being, it can better meet people's entertainment needs, but also an upgraded consumption. ”
But Li Jiachao also admitted the resistance encountered in the expansion of the "immersive" format. He said that the unit price of immersive entertainment is relatively high, because its own input cost is relatively high, so this format needs to be supported by the strong consumption capacity of the local market. Taking the immersive chamber as an example, according to the data obtained by Huofeng Capital from Dianping, this format is more concentrated in the head cities than the traditional chamber, including first-tier and new first-tier cities.
TIME is an immersive chamber brand in Shanghai, and its single 75-minute single experience price is 368 yuan, while the unit price of regular secret rooms is mostly concentrated in 100-200 yuan. Amazing Cinema is a script killing comprehensive brand, it also opened an immersive script killing shop in Beijing, its single single price range of 258 to 368 yuan, while the price of conventional script killing is also concentrated in 100-200 yuan.
"The Red Queen's Tea Party" immersive script kills the scene | Image source respondents
For those large and medium-sized immersive projects, the unit price of "Sleepless Nights (Shanghai Version)" is priced in the range of 750-890 yuan according to the time ladder of the session; the price of "Beiyang Sherlock" and "Zhiyin" (including clothing rental) is 398 yuan per single person; the price of "Zhiyin Number" and "Nanjing Happy Event" is divided into 4 files: premium tickets, VIP tickets, resident tickets (local residents only) and student tickets, with prices of 498 yuan, 380 yuan, 199 yuan and 188 yuan respectively.
When I showed the data to my colleagues, he sighed: "It's really not cheap." ”
The root of the high fare is something called the "paradox of intimacy." Jiang Jie told me this word, it means: in order to ensure a better sense of interaction and immersion, the experience must be as closed as possible, the more private the better, the higher the actor-tourist ratio, the better, absolutely can not be in the open space endlessly, which leads to an upper limit on the single passenger flow of immersive projects, such as most immersive theatrical performances of a single guest capacity of 100-400 people. This limits the income level of the immersion industry, resulting in the project to return the cost and generate income, and the unit price of the customer cannot be too low.
The paradox of intimacy limits not only revenue, but also the opportunity for the immersive industry to enter cultural tourism scenic spots and theme parks. Jiang Jie gave an example, Shanghai Disneyland's daily peak passenger flow can reach 100,000 passengers, which means that the experience project needs to digest the order of magnitude of passenger flow every day, and most of the immersive formats do not meet the attribute of "high passenger volume".
Limited by the price and single passenger flow, in order to increase revenue, repurchase has become a key concern of immersive projects, and large and medium-sized immersive performances often have the attribute of repurchase, after all, no one can experience all the parts at once.
The cases of Beiyang Sherlock are divided into three categories: civil cases, criminal cases and redhead serious cases. "Some players may come here for the first time to relax, then the more relaxed and simple civil cases will be more appropriate, and the civil cases can also help him familiarize himself with the venue; if he wants to challenge himself next time, he can choose criminal cases with higher difficulty coefficients and redhead cases." Zhu Zhenda said.
If you have a better memory, then you will definitely remember that you will get a passport before entering, and every experience of the player will be recorded in this passport, and even the balance of wealth will be recorded in the money bank, so that the player can review his life in Tianjin, the Republic of China.
As for how many repeat customers can be attracted by storytelling and immersion, each project is "created" - the current re-purchase rate ceiling of immersive projects is about 40% of "Sleepless Nights", but the repurchase rate of some projects is less than 10%.
For small immersive projects such as script killing and chamber of secrets, the volume of a single story is small, so the possibility of players repeatedly experiencing a single script or chamber is low, coupled with the geographical restrictions of offline real-life projects, resulting in a limited number of players covered, which inevitably brings about a shorter life cycle than large and medium-sized projects.
Yang Tianyi, the founder of Amazing Academy, told me that the life cycle of this product may be 2-3 years, and in contrast, "Sleepless Nights (Shanghai Version)" has been in a hot state since it landed in Shanghai in 2016.
Faced with the problem of life cycle, there are two feasible paths in front of small immersion projects: one is to iterate on the content based on the original scene; the other is to expand the store like a coffee and tea shop. Yang Tianyi said that these two roads are being tried by the Amazing Academy.
"Making a series of products and innovative products, this is an inevitable trend. We will also give users a better experience, but it is not necessary to overturn all the sets, and some places can do 'change the script without changing the scene'. ”
"As for expansion, we're not in a hurry. We are in awe of the offline industry, and at the same time we will further strengthen the content and distribution advantages, and we will not completely rely on ourselves to open a store, and may combine theme licensing and joint ventures, for example, in 2021, we will cooperate with the Drama Film Hotel to really move "The Red Queen's Tea Party" into the hotel. Yang Tianyi told me.
Formats such as immersive script killing and chamber of secrets are "small and beautiful", while large and medium-sized projects have the energy to surpass the project itself.
In June 2021, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced the "14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural and Tourism Development", which put forward the goal of completing "100 immersive experience projects" during the 14th Five-Year Plan, and the "immersive" here should be a large and medium-sized cultural tourism project developed by "cultural relics units, scenic spots, theme parks, park blocks, etc." according to the interpretation in the "14th Five-Year Plan" Cultural Industry Development Plan.
An important reason why "immersion" is so valued by the cultural and tourism industry is that large and medium-sized immersion projects have a huge role in promoting the entire economic ecology.
As early as 2018, as a key innovative cultural tourism project in Hubei Province during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the non-ticket revenue has exceeded 50%, which does not include its radiation to the surrounding economy. This is due to the core concept of "Zhiyin" to operate with IP as the idea.
In addition to tickets, "Zhiyin" has also developed a series of derivative products and services, including cultural and creative products, children's drama education center, "Zhiyin Wedding Ceremony" customized surprises, concerts, script killing, etc.; not only that, "Zhiyin" and Shangri-La, Ramada and other hotels have cooperated to launch a series of experience services such as "Zhiyin Courtesy" theme tour line products, "Zhiyin" theme rooms, special catering, etc., and also cooperated with "Hankou No. 2 Factory" soda to bring the Heli soda of a hundred years ago back to the public's vision.
The immersive script of "Zhiyin" killed the scene of "Reef" | Image source respondents
From small immersive script killings to large-scale live-action performances – immersive is unleashing the commercial imagination in the form of art.
"Immersion" crashes into the metacosm
In 2021, as the sandbox game platform Robex wrote the metaverse concept into the prospectus and successfully landed on the New York Stock Exchange, Zuckerberg officially renamed Facebook as Meta into the metaverse, and the metacosm exploded a variety of imaginations about the future, including the immersive industry.
The immersion industry is thinking about the metacosm, and the metacosm is also thinking about immersion.
In September 2021, the Center for New Media of Tsinghua University released the "2020-2021 Meta-Universe Development Report". In this report, "immersion" appears a total of 14 times. The report quotes Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki: "The metaverse includes at least the following elements: identity, friends, immersion, low latency, pluralism, anywhere, economic systems, and civilizations." ”
Facebook changed its name to Meta | Graph source network
So, what is the relationship between the immersive industry that collectively wants to create an "immersion" and the metacosm?
Jiang Jie expressed his views to me: "More than 80% of the technology and content of the metaverse intersect with the immersion industry, but there is a key difference, that is, the metacosm is in a very early stage, Meta, Microsoft, there are many first practical enterprises that are promoting the concept of metacosmity, and are building the infrastructure of the digital world." These infrastructures are like hydropower and coal in the real world, and it takes a very long time to build them. ”
"The immersive industry has both digital attributes, but at the same time more emphasis on its application in the real world and physical space, and its existence makes the real world more dramatic, more magical, more like a game, more like the earth's version of the metaverse."
Jiang Jie said that from the perspective of project creation, the consensus of immersion industry people is to use some mature and even outdated technologies as much as possible. Because for the immersion industry, technology is not the most important, the most important thing is the experience value delivered to consumers. If technology doesn't drive experiential experience, then it doesn't matter if it doesn't.
I have verified this with Zhou Zhen, the founder of Wanyu Gravity. He said that in 2016, VR manufacturers contacted him to seek cooperation, but in his view, it is necessary to use good content to introduce technology, and technology must serve content. 16 years of VR technology at that time in the project at that time could not improve the user's experience, from the user's point of view, he decided to abandon it.
But "lag" is by no means "old-fashioned" – whether it's increasingly mature cutting-edge technologies or gradually liberating innovative ideas that are further subverting people's imagination of immersive projects.
Hengxin Oriental is a domestic listed digital creative industry leader, its business spans digital creative cultural tourism, entertainment content and other sectors, immersive experience and meta-universe connection is also Hengxin Oriental is thinking about the proposition.
Li Shaojie, deputy general manager of Hengxin Oriental Cultural Tourism Division, and I introduced: "The direction our team is moving forward is called 'gamified offline experience', which is 'site-based experience'. In fact, gamification is a big concept, not an online video game that people usually understand simply. What we want to do is to break up the gamification elements into the offline experience, and use it as a medium to blend online and offline spaces to create an overall immersive experience. ”
"So, we start with a larger understanding and associate immersion with the metacosm. We have a lot of ideas and a lot of things in this area. Subsequently, Li Shaojie gave me an example - "code name Zhang Fifteen". It's a spatial storytelling system, or more accurately, it's a spatial role-playing gaming platform focused on auditory content at this stage.
The concept of "Codename Zhang Fifteen" | Image source respondents
The physical space required for the code name Zhang Fifteen can be as small as 20 square meters and as large as 2000 square meters. When you enter, you will get a digital wristband, a pair of headphones and a portable processing device, "Zhang Fifteen", an AI virtual person, will serve as a narrator to state the virtual environment for you, prompting task clues, and the space in front of you can be an empty space with nothing.
In the process, you have to get the information of the next plot point according to the narrative, sound effects, wristband vibration, other player interactions, etc., and obtain virtual props through spatial audio, communication with virtual NPCs, etc., and then use virtual props to enter the key virtual space at the key level. You can also connect with your teammates, find each other through the frequency of your heartbeat, and solve problems together.
You can't see any specific scenes in front of you throughout the game, but this space is not blank, because it reflects a multi-level real world - you may step on a piece of water and hear the sound of water splashing, or enter a cave to hear bats flying, or hear a shopkeeper ask you "what did you buy official"; there may be a beggar next to you, you can give him the virtual food you just bought from the shopkeeper, he may tell you the next clue; you may still be at the Beijing airport this minute. But walking a few meters away, the next minute the ambient sound reminds you to land at the Paris airport...
The system has now completed core testing and balances the fun of gameplay with the diversity of narratives in terms of mechanics. It uses more mature technologies, such as spatial positioning technology, spatial audio technology and artificial intelligence - spatial positioning technology can accurately identify where the player is, spatial audio technology can allow players to perceive the direction of sound, and artificial intelligence is mainly applied to the interaction feedback between virtual NPCs and players.
The light reality prop model makes UGC (User generated content) possible. The reason why the "code name Zhang Fifteen" is defined as a "space role-playing game platform" is because players can find the nearby "Zhang Fifteen Space" on the online platform and customize the dimensions, scenes and narrative content with a lower operating threshold, so as to create their own real-life experience and invite family and friends to participate. If a game designed by the player is popular in the region, the designer can also reap the actual monetary income.
"These models can create new experiences and can further drive the industry as an increment of the immersive industry." Li Shaojie said.
Epilogue: Immersion of all things
In May 2020, Pizza Hut's first immersive "Monet's Night Garden Projection Restaurant" was airborne in Shanghai. In this restaurant, which has only been open for one month, when the same dessert plate inspired by Monet's famous painting "Water Lilies" is placed in the corresponding position, the water lilies will automatically bloom in the center of the plate. When you extend your hands, water lilies bloom in the palms of your hands.
Pizza Hut "Monet's Garden Projection Restaurant" | Graph source network
In September 2021, the "Wuxia Jianghu Immersive City Bazaar" opened at the Sun Palace of Ruihong Tiandi in Shanghai. In this "Jianghu" themed bazaar, you can get up close and personal with deeply rooted characters such as the fire cloud evil god and Wei Xiaobao, and you can also experience the "jianghu" heavy food such as the broken shop tavern with the first place in Shanghai Jianghu cuisine, the 29-year-old Qibao Tea House, and the private dish Shuai Xiaoxia.
Wuxia Jianghu Immersive City Bazaar | Graph source network
There are countless similar cases - "immersion" is more and more closely related to people's daily lives and consumption, and it is implanted in all walks of life like genes, especially to make consumption more artistic. Zhou Zhen said to me: "In my opinion, 'immersion' is not a type, but a kind of thinking. As long as you use this kind of thinking, you can put this thinking into various product forms. ”
"So what kind of thinking is this kind of 'immersive' thinking?" I asked.
Zhou Zhen replied, "It is to change lives." Immersion is essentially a transition between the real world and the unreal world in which the person is located. ”
Zhou Zhen delivered a speech at the Third China Immersion Industry Development Forum | Photo by the author
I continued to ask Zhou, "If we imagine, what do you think the industry will look like in three to five years?" ”
"I hope that in the future, immersive can be deeper immersed in different scenes, such as more immersive hotels, immersive restaurants, immersive neighborhoods, and people can use immersive thinking to transform the ontology of these products more deeply." This is the concept of 'immersion in all things', which is very worth looking forward to. Zhou Zhen said.
Considering that Zhou Zhen was about to go to the next meeting, I quickly asked the last question: "If we understand immersion as constantly jumping out of our own lives, and then immersion may penetrate into all aspects of our lives, then the result of it may be that my original life is completely broken." So will the concept of 'who am I' be broken? Because every day of my life I switch between different scenarios and myself..."
Zhou Zhen quickly understood my meaning and interrupted me: "It will not be complete, your life will never be complete, no one can have a complete life." Life is always constantly divided by various ways, various roles and various characters, which is the eternal theme of the human world. ”
He continued: "What we should think about as individuals should be how to maintain the relative independence of the self in this process, and create our own outlook on life and unique consciousness, so as to create something independent of this set of logic." ”