As the top online video manufacturer in Chinese mainland, iQIYI's vision has always been to "be a great entertainment company driven by scientific and technological innovation", and "scientific and technological innovation" and "greatness" have become the core keywords of iQIYI to build an entertainment kingdom.
At the same time, under the continuous exploration and application of VR and AR, the innovation of technology penetrates the imaginary space of virtual and realistic entertainment content, and reconstructs the user's entertainment perception. iQIYI is committed to using cutting-edge technology and a more convenient joint platform to help content creators create more high-quality works for users, so that technology can play a greater value in the entertainment ecosystem, thereby promoting innovation and progress in the entire entertainment industry.
On December 16, 2021, at the 2021 Science and Technology Awards Ceremony, iQIYI Intelligent CEO Xiong Wen revealed in the "Set Off Meta-Universe" roundtable forum that iQIYI Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. was renamed "Dream Bloom Technology Co., Ltd."
It is understood that iQIYI Intelligent itself is a company invested by iQIYI, and the main direction of work is VR-related business, including VR hardware and VR content platform.
The company said, First, the metaverse must be like a dream to make you feel real, but like a dream can be detached from the real. For the metaverse, the sense of reality or presence is an important factor, and if you talk about the metaverse without this factor, this thing is basically not very true.
Second, the metaverse allows each of us to realize our dreams. Some dreams may be more difficult and may only be realized in the metaverse. The value of the metacosm is also in the fact that it allows us to realize these dreams.
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On January 21, 2021, Sun Feng, COO of Dream Bloom, was interviewed by Sina VR, and the questions that people inside and outside the employment industry are generally concerned about gave detailed answers. In the process, we mainly asked Mr. Sun eight major questions, the main content of which revolves around iQIYI's efforts in the content field, especially in the support of developers, which are roughly as follows:
1. VR all-in-one machine this Year's best-selling, it seems to have a significant boost to the sales of software on various platforms, many foreign developers said that their software sales rose sharply during Christmas, do you think that the hardware on software sales will bring about what positive impact on VR manufacturers' own ecology?
In fact, this news on vr manufacturers to do their own ecology, the most positive impact is because good content, good products and good experience can bring value to users, users can go to the corresponding consumption, whether from the content or from the hardware side, so that can form a relatively healthy cycle.
Before that, in fact, everyone was doing this VR product, in fact, everyone will have a doubt in their hearts: is this product just needed by the user? Is it possible for users to buy and go to the platform to consume later? For the entire content developer, the biggest concern is whether the device will eat ash. Therefore, whether from the perspective of hardware or from the perspective of that kind of developer, there are still doubts about the existing entire VR ecology, because after all, he is not like this mobile phone ecology after so many years of development, the whole state is relatively well understood.
For an unknown area, in fact, the less you know, the more cautious you will be. So the previous words are actually whether it is hardware or the entire developers are actually confused about the entire VR investment. We know that sales in the U.S. have soared throughout Christmas this year because many people have shown me which app is the number one app in the entire U.S. App Store. This news is to give me that I give all practitioners a greater confidence, but also to make it clear that this direction is worth doing. As long as you do a good job, as long as you can bring value to users, then in fact, users recognize you.
2. iQIYI VR also has its own VR headset and content platform, how are the two currently developing?
We sent out two headsets, one is the high-end Adventure 3 with the advantage of the main configuration, and the other is the newly released entry-level Adventure dream, which is facing different users. Judging from the current sales of the whole and related user consumption data, it actually meets our relevant expectations.
For example, the high-end configuration of Adventure 3, because our screen uses a super 4 k screen, so his entire viewing experience is particularly good, and the user will watch movies in the device for a long time. Another example is dream, he is an entry-level device, he is very cheap. So what about the user, the time to come out and consume the game will be longer. So from the whole product level, they are up to our expectations.
Second, from the perspective of the consumption data of the entire content, now in the game categories in our two headsets, sports, music and shooting games are very popular with users. Whether it's their entire startup frequency, or their entire spending time, it's all good.
For example, in these types of games, the number of times the user starts every day is about 2 o'clock, but the time of a single consumption is about 37 minutes. In fact, the 37-minute data is already a relatively good data for playing games.
We have a game called "Sound Project", which has a calorie leaderboard and calculates a value based on the user's swing of the gamepad while playing the game device. Then I looked at it, and the entire number one user burned more than 13,200 calories, what is this concept? For example, if we need 47 calories or 50 calories to run 1 kilometer, that is equivalent to running thousands of kilometers. So if the user's experience with the game he likes and the device meets his needs, he will spend his time on it, so this is some of the corresponding user usage data that we get.
In addition, video has always been our strong point, so Jumu Cinema is also a place where users spend a lot of time on our devices. For example, the giant screen theater, the average use time on our equipment is more than 50 minutes, especially on New Year's Day, when we released a very good film on Chosin Lake. Coming and going in the cinema, especially suitable for watching in the cinema.
According to the available data, in our entire dream theater, the average time per capita has reached more than 60 minutes. Therefore, although the user is attracted by the game most of the time, it is that he spends the most time or in the giant screen theater, so we will grasp both hands and hard hands in games and videos to provide users with a better user experience.
3. Can you share your company's "Columbus Program" data and achievements?
The Columbus Project is actually a plan we launched to attract quality developers and put his quality game online on the Adventures platform. In the Columbus plan, we mainly put the corresponding high-quality games to carry out the corresponding screening, then the high-quality games selected in the list we will provide the corresponding port costs, for example, we will use the form of copy to collect some in advance, which is equivalent to using consumers to pay.
In addition, we will promote iQiyi's corresponding promotional resources, including some advertising resources, to use for the delivery of this game, in fact, the purpose is very clear - to dispel the doubts of developers, so that developers can get some income and get some money before developing the game. Because at present, in the entire industry, after all, the number of equipment is not enough. So it takes time for developers to simply make money from users, so if you give them a sum of money in advance, it will help them better focus on the entire game development.
We also use iQiyi's platform to tell users how to play this game and how to experience it. Because in fact, for every game developer, it is his biggest intention to let users understand and play his game and like his game. I believe that every good developer actually takes this as the core, making money is secondary, and it will be happier for him to make users like his game. So the whole Columbus project is that we are planning according to these two basic points.
So far, we have launched more than 40 games on the platform, and we have also paid tens of millions of dollars in terms of fee subsidies, which has also allowed many domestic and foreign developers to go online on our devices and get a lump sum of income when the game is launched. So overall, the Columbus program has been going on until now and I think it's a win-win.
First, our devices get a lot of high-quality games, so that many consumers can buy our devices to experience high-quality games. At the same time, the developer also got the money in advance, and he could focus on developing his own game.
In fact, through the means of free games is sure to allow more users to play the game without threshold, and this subsidy strategy must still be done by manufacturers, our purpose is actually to let users play more good content, let developers develop good content, so that the entire ecology can be recycled, this thing is what we have to do.
In the follow-up, we will continue to do this thing, hoping to give developers enough motivation to develop more excellent content, and also hope that users can play more good content.
4. What are the dividends and data of current VR content development that are worth understanding for developers?
In fact, for developers, his competitors on the VR side are relatively small. Although the mobile side has a large plate, great prospects, and great revenue, there are many competitors, especially for some small developers. If your team resources, R&D resources, and publicity resources are not enough, vr is actually a better way to enter the game than at present.
It's hard to make a successful product without a budget of tens of millions of dollars on mobile, but it may not cost that much money on vr. If you are a small team of less than 10 people, if you have enough creativity and you have enough enthusiasm and attitude, then the game you develop can be liked by manufacturers, investors, and users, and it is actually a small developer team that is particularly suitable for ideals, enthusiasm, and special focus on the game.
In terms of data, it is actually for now: the type of user's favorite is music, sports, shooting and rpg games. And in these genres, if the game design can focus more on the overall somatosensory interaction, it can allow the user to play what he likes very smoothly and naturally. In addition, if a VR game has its own characteristics in visual immersion, then users of this type will inevitably like to play it.
Now in the field of VR games, what we can see is that the user's willingness to pay is still relatively strong, and the per capita up value of our platform is about 80 yuan, so it is said that high-quality games are actually easy to get the opportunity to let users recognize in this platform.
5. iQIYI's ultimate goal is to create a VR ecosystem?
iQIYI's goal is actually very simple, that is, we hope that through various types of high-quality content, supplemented by our good experience of the device, to create value for users, this is our goal.
6. What are iQIYI's policies and measures in terms of incentivizing developers?
The next thing to do is to send an email first, introduce their own game or what the application is, we will have full-time business and technical knowledge of the students to do docking with the developer, if we see this game, feel that it is very good in terms of quality, then we will go to the corresponding development machine, developers can log in to the developer platform to see our SDK, and to use our SDK to carry out the corresponding research and development.
In the process, there will also be our full-time classmates and business to communicate closely with him, on the one hand, to solve his problems, on the other hand, we will also be able to get some of the development experience we can get on the platform to communicate and communicate with the developers, to avoid developers to take more detours, then the whole game is finally developed after completion, as long as it can be online after passing our review. Probably such a process, the specific can actually go to the adventure of the developer platform, we have more specific corresponding rules above.
7. What process does developers need to go through to develop and list content on the iQIYI VR platform? Are there any pits to avoid?
First of all, I hope that developers can learn more about our SDK, and the corresponding documentation includes familiarity with our devices. Because this VR device is not the same as the mobile phone: the standardization of mobile phones is now very popular, but vr is actually a lot of things that are not particularly standardized, and everyone is still constantly exploring and groping. Including our entire SDK will also iterate faster, because we will continue to do some new things to be able to improve the efficiency of the corresponding developers, so first of all, it is necessary to understand the manufacturer's SDK and the corresponding documentation in detail.
In this process, our technical knowledge personnel can do a simple communication, because we know that developers actually develop games in general, just take it and do it, and then communicate after finding problems, but in fact, there are still some problem suggestions in VR, or first of all, we can understand the SDK and documentation and devices in great detail. This is the first point, in the choice of the entire game type, because the current objectively speaking, there are not many domestic VR devices, in fact, at this stage, it is recommended that developers do not do pure multiplayer games when making games, that is, if there is no user, you can't play, don't do such a game, it is best to have a stand-alone mode.
If you want to do a pure multiplayer game, it is best to have a corresponding AI system, so that users can play down to avoid a phenomenon: the player feels that the game is a good game, but because this user is not so much, come in and match people, then his corresponding reputation can not be passed out. So, I don't think there are so many detours, but at least these two points I think are relatively basic. Therefore, I also hope that developers will choose the categories that they are better at in the types I just mentioned, such as sports, shooting, RPG, and leisure, which can play the advantages of somatosensory interaction and immersion.
If in these categories, the developers themselves have a corresponding accumulation, in fact, you can start from this aspect, so that the speed, efficiency, and some pit aspects can go to less.
8. Whether iQIYI will combine its own advantages to provide developers with a better development direction
I think developers should consider more objective factors and their own advantages, because from the perspective of the whole game, the user must first play what he is familiar with, that is, he does not have to understand, after seeing what he sees is familiar, he will first choose this familiar thing, and it is definitely the best to develop on this basis. So if the developer can see something that everyone likes and is familiar with on the mobile side, or in the film and television or on other ends, it will be easier for him to do such a thing, and it will be easier to get users.
For example, we see an application that is very interesting, made by a foreign developer. What he did was move the entire arcade hall offline online. For example, the matter of catching dolls is a thing that everyone offline is very keen to do, but it is limited to the venue and time, in fact, there are not so many opportunities to experience, but VR can do a good job of catching dolls online to make a high-quality experience that exceeds the mobile terminal.
As we all know, the doll is to go around this place to see, for example, to see his perspective. But it's hard to do that on the mobile side, but it's easy to do it on the VR side. We can go around this thing like a real scene, but on the VR side, we can do more like offline real operations. So when we saw this game, we thought this was very flattering, because this game itself is not difficult, the difficulty is that it is very good at people's psychological state, people are familiar with, but there is no opportunity to go offline, or there is not so much opportunity to do things offline into VR, so that people can play when they want to play.
So, I think it's a case study, in fact, all of us developers can think about it based on this situation.
9. What are your views on the future development of VR hardware and software?
VR must be the experience of combining software and hardware is the best, as long as this can create value for users, he is a more complex product, because from the perspective of the entire somatosensory interaction, the closer to the real state can bring the more real experience to the user, the user will pay. At the same time, the consumption of the entire content will also go to a positive state of development.
So, how can we make the content and the entire hardware perfectly matched? In fact, it is necessary to closely cooperate with the content and the entire hardware field, on the one hand, the hardware can make the somatosensory interaction we just said very close to the real situation through its own algorithm. On the other hand, it also needs content developers to be able to combine the entire interaction more closely when developing content, so it is a strong interaction, content-based product, so from the perspective of the entire software hardware and content, he is actually a more closely integrated device than we have seen before, whether it is a mobile phone or a game console, so from our point of view, software, content, hardware These three are indispensable.
What we have to do is to be able to combine these three closely, and then give users the best user experience.