When Qin Kai (a pseudonym) decided to visit the VR industry, he was 33 years old. Before the game industry ups and downs for 10 years, tepid; try to do 3 months of children's picture books, no sense to publish.
Experience virtual reality
Three years later this year, when a group of young entrepreneurs envied him that he had “grabbed a century†in the VR field, he wanted to exit.
VR, an acronym for Virtual Reality, is Chinese for "virtual reality." Its development has been written into the outline of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan": "We will vigorously promote the innovation and industrialization of advanced semiconductors, robots, and other emerging frontier areas such as virtual reality and interactive film and television, and form a number of new growth points." According to the latest report released by IDC, a US market research company, the global market for VR and AR (Augmented Reality) will jump from 5.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to 162 billion U.S. dollars in 2020.
Industry iterations are also happening. On November 10th, Google's new Daydream View helmet was officially launched. The virtual reality platform translated as Chinese “daydream†is of great significance and will be devoted to creating a standardized VR overall ecosystem.
Many people believe that VR will change the lives of ordinary people like personal computers and smart phones. But the harsh test for entrepreneurs is that no one knows when the real outbreak will come.
Right now, the VR circle looks like it is experiencing "winter". Once a hot star company storm mirror announced 10% of layoffs this month. Also this year, Qin Kai admitted that the startup failed and his co-founded company announced that the capital chain had been broken.
“The story of a successful person has heard too many stories, and the story of the loser should be heard because you can at least avoid the same mistakes.†Qin Kai is sincere.
Shock experience
Jing'an District, a commercial square, a VR line experience in front of the shop, two or three people walked by, some people stopped, curiously asked "what the VR is."
A young girl claimed to be courageous enough to choose a game that attracted many viewers. A couple of sixty-year-old couples were curious. They spent 30 yuan to buy a "more gentle" underwater world for a 10-minute experience. The wife sighed and read "like the real thing." He quickly changed his helmet to his wife. "You come and feel." . There are also schoolchildren with their mothers who are familiar with the way to the counter and say "I want to play the whole game."
Qin Kai recalled that his "entry" was also because of the shocking early experience.
In 2013, his friend borrowed an Oculus head-mounted display for everyone to taste and experience the "Roller Coaster", a popular game in Europe and America. “I felt that I started the new world when I was on it.†Qin Kai said, “3D has been familiar for so many years, but it has never been so immersed in the immersive world.â€
"This is the first step in human intubation" (the implanted world form in the movie "The Matrix"). He shouted to his friend.
Although there was a girl who was vomiting at the scene, several people couldn't help but exclaim with excitement: “VR will become the magic of changing the worldâ€; “absolutely can cause a new industrial changeâ€.
Since entering the game industry in 2003, Qin Kai has been "scored" several times. He said that the game he wanted to play should "have basic aesthetic and philosophical explorations and thinking about the meaning of life." However, he found that regardless of the family, it was only "tossing the body and eroding the soul."
He wants to do "more meaningful things." In 2013, he initiated his idea of ​​supporting education, contacted a supportive foundation, and submitted applications to remote areas. However, I couldn’t accept a friend’s persuasion to do “a far more meaningful thing than supportive education†and stayed. Until the VR experience, let him find a business direction.
VR technology is not new, and the first prototype device has been around for nearly half a century. At the end of 2012, Oculus put the virtual reality helmet on the "shelf" of the crowdfunding platform. Only then did people realize that the VR cost was not so expensive and not far away from ordinary people.
The biggest difference from 3D movies and panoramic presentation technology is that VR is an immersive experience. The experiencer should wear a helmet. The vision and hearing range are all in the virtual situation and completely isolated from the real world. At the same time, it is also an interactive experience. The limbs and even the eye movements can directly play a role in the virtual situation. For example, walking in front of the legs in reality can achieve progress in the virtual situation.
Therefore, it was firmly believed that the head-mounted display "is the last screen of humanity." The screen is actually a window that carries people's communication with the information world.
Wu Guoxin, founder of UCCVR, a company focused on providing VR entrepreneurial services, is a promoter of various technologies. "Microsoft and Intel spent 30 years making personal computers popular. Apple spent 10 years popularizing smartphones." He said that as a tech guy, VR is the next "screen" he has been looking for.
VR became a hot spot for investment and attracted a large number of young people to enter the market. After 90, Wang Xingjie is the founder of a VR game original team. He said that he had thought that humans would not accept information on a plane forever. At the moment of contact with virtual reality, we realized that "Maybe this is the path I should take".
Insiders say that one of the excitement points of VR research and development is that as a new technology, the gap between China and other countries is not as big as the previous technology, and even domestic application innovation is faster than the West. In addition to games and videos, VR is currently used in education, medical care, real estate, aerospace and other fields. In 2015, Jiang Guo, who was employed in Singapore, resigned and started his own business. Currently, he is committed to research and development in the field of education. For example, the teacher can give a more thorough understanding of the three-dimensional concepts in the geometry class and allow students to walk around the heart in the biology class. We can go to the solar system in an astronomy lesson.
Sony PSVR
First barrel of gold
However, in 2013, Qin Kai did not have such a clear understanding of VR's future market distribution.
At first, he and his friends also wanted to uphold the direction of cultural education, but investment was hard to find. In 2013, the AR/VR concept was still not popular enough, and investors were scratching their heads. The response was mostly “the market was not mature enough†and there was no more afterwards.
The first barrel of gold came by chance. Qin Kai received a real estate application project through elementary school students: A real-time AR real-time identification system for a well-known real estate development. The three partners struggled for months and finally solved the problem.
With the help of the successful experience of the first project, the three teams entered a game company. At the same time, R&D took orders through friends channels, involving tourism and commerce. Insufficient manpower, Qin Kai invited two old colleagues to join the team to five people. It didn’t take long for the company to separate its ways from the partners for various reasons. The three-person team took two newly-occupied colleagues “ready to sit in the air for preparation†and then found their way.
Due to the early establishment of the company, the company has a small reputation in the circle, but as the number of affiliates increases, this "scarcity" is gradually diminished.
Qin Kai now rethinks that many early teams face financial pressure, often endlessly taking orders, but they are in a passive state, "ignoring what they should really think." On the contrary, many rising stars are more likely to find directions because their entrepreneurial environment is relatively mature.
The pace of the VR team of conductors founded one year later than Qin Kai Company is relatively clear.
Conductor VR started with real estate in the early days of its establishment and cooperated with more than 40 domestic real estate developers. It has done more than 140 VR real estate projects, far away from London, England and Bonn, Germany. This year it also produced a multiplayer VR demonstration for a museum in Bonn. project.
Co-founder Bai Zhiyi said that because interactive technology is quite well-known in the industry, often advertising companies have come up with various cases to ask "Can you make VR?"
“We are very disgusted to make VR for gimmicks.†Bai Zhiyi said that there was a factory owner who wanted to use VR to demonstrate the production line and promised a production fee of several hundred thousand yuan. “But we were rejected because we want the project to be cost-effective. Practicality, but also hope that people who experience VR can experience the application value of VR."
However, whether it is an early company or a rising star, the hardships are common.
In order to earn a living, Qin Kai also obtained a project through his friends and cooperated to develop an MR (mixed reality) industrial application experimental model for an aircraft carrier-class state-owned enterprise. The previous assessments and cooperation negotiations went smoothly, but the implementation process was very difficult. Many problems were erupted in the middle and later stages of production.
During those days, the team was almost entirely stationed in the company, "keeping the overnight hard for the ordinary." Every night, the coordinator of the party will smash a dozen Red Bulls at the table. After several rounds of arrest, Qin Kai began to suffer from neurasthenia, tinnitus, and recurrence of cervical spondylosis. A programmer was also plagued by sluggish thinking and low status.
Before 2015, the vertigo experienced when experiencing VR is a problem that developers need to overcome. In order to create an interactive experience such as “the sense of weightlessness in the elevator,†R&D personnel can only try to translate with the handle to find the most suitable speed, and often try to spit more, so a bottle of vinegar is used to relieve vomiting. Some companies will specifically send “vomiting subsidies†to R&D teams.
After "swelling"
Qin Kai's company almost witnessed the entire process of capital cooling VR from cold to hot.
This year, a professional investment agency in China released the “2016 China VR Industry Report†pointed out that from 2011 to 2015, global statistics on VR industry showed that capital investment has been blowout since 2014; in China, there are also a lot of capital hot money in 2014. Inflows totaled 270 million yuan, which jumped to 2.4 billion yuan in 2015. The figure for the first half of this year was 1.54 billion yuan. In addition to Internet giants such as Ali and Tencent, some traditional enterprises have also entered the VR industry across borders.
Cooling comes quickly. In May of this year, some media said that the SFC called for the suspension of the listed company's cross-definition increase, involving the four industries of Internet finance, games, film and video, and VR. The Securities and Exchange Commission responded that there has been no change in policy, but a large number of companies have begun to re-examine and are more cautious.
The "winter" of the current VR circle is the consensus of the industry. Bai Zhiyi said that last year, all teams with the technology were able to chase after the capital, but now it will be aired for two months to see if it is still alive after two months.
Qin Kai further lamented the changes in the mindset of developers under the influence of capital -
In the environment where “hot money is invested every dayâ€, “fast†has become the primary goal, and products are often delivered in two or three months. Only thinking about “opportunities are not waiting for people†to “sacrifice the brain†to say things first, it will inevitably be changed and changed, R&D will be exhausted in the end, and it will only be able to constantly avoid technology shortages, use mistakes to conceal mistakes, and fall into a vicious circle.
When the capital was hottest, he saw the "expansion" of many people around him.
Someone was originally R&D originator, but he began to despise R&D under the influence of the market. He felt that "it is better to do better than to do it well." As early as when the online games just started, Qin Kai heard an operation boasting “I can pack into gold†and proudly taught the “successful†model—for example, 10 million yuan in funds, and allocated 2 million yuan to R&D, to find a The popular off-the-shelf product is changed for skins. After 3 months, the cottage products are taken out, and 2 million yuan is ousted. The remaining 6 million yuan is required to recharge the fans and create influence. Finally, investors are given the data to make investors feel that the product It was very successful and then went to save money.
"This disrupts the mindset of the industry." Qin Kai said, "The developer's mentality has changed, it is difficult for someone to calmly develop."
Many people believe that cooling down is a good thing and it happens to be the period when the bubble is squeezed. However, Qin Kai believes that entrepreneurial mentality is not resolved in the short term.
Last year, an investor in a well-known investment institution was optimistic about Qin Kai and was willing to let them lead and help develop a theme park AR/VR project. Qin Kai thinks that the company must “hold the cloudsâ€.
At the end of last year, the company restructured and had new investment interventions. A few months later it was decided to recruit troops to rush into surprise events. Qin Kai had warned that the risks were too high, but he was unable to persuade partners. In the middle of this year, investors failed to honor their promises and the company had no money. Due to previous rifts, the R&D team all "run away."
Qin Kai originally wanted to accompany the partners to make final efforts, but found that the atmosphere was out of tune with the new team, so he also left.
“Entrepreneurship is not just about making good products. There are always a variety of people in a team. How to deal with these relationships and let everyone cooperate effectively. This is also learning.†Qin Kai said, “The investors are smart and able to meet The investor who truly supports you to grow up really hits the big fortune."
Between actual and actual
People familiar with Qin Kaiyuan said that the company had attracted attention due to its early establishment, but its strength was “only in the middleâ€.
Qin Kai, who is located in the "middle-reacher", is perhaps the most representative - representing the majority of entrepreneurs who have been struggling with technological iterations.
Zhu Ningjia, an associate professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, wrote in his paper "Current Thinking on AR/VR Explosive Growth": "There are too many intermediate links that need to be perfected, and they are limited to the short-sightedness of commercial interests, which constrains the pattern of development and the core or culture. Missing lead."
The industry believes that the current VR content is still lacking in benchmarking products and there is no uniform standard. However, content is more diversified than hardware, and small-scale teams can also produce competitive products.
Zhu Ningjia is more willing to explain this issue from the "individual" and "subject" of philosophy. The current entrepreneurs are more and more individualized, but entrepreneurs are "only individuals, not the subject." "Establishing subjectivity enables people to examine their own values ​​and seek for the determination of entrepreneurship. It does not follow the flow of the flow and is controlled by short-term interests."
"Nobody can know how long an industry will go from being popular to popular and then erupting. Hot spots will never catch up." Fu Guoxin said that when he selects a team, he will see whether it has sustained momentum in this area.
When communicating with the industry team, Zhu Ningjia also found that many creative, sentimental, and operational teams are emerging. Emerging areas will grow from immature to mature, from irrational to rational. "This is still a pleasure to watch."
Wang Xingjie said that VR meets his childhood curiosity and whether he is likely to live a second life. "People need spiritual satisfaction on the basis of material conditions, but the real world cannot truly satisfy everyone's spiritual needs, so we need to create a new world."
Jiang Kuo said that one of the consensuses of the team is that they do not play games or education, and they must break the inherent impression that people think of VR. He previously promoted VR products to a primary school principal. The old headmaster said “I think for children, playing with mud may be better than using VR.†But he was not discouraged. He said that he wanted to convince the principal next time that "playing mud and using VR is not in contradiction."
Qin Kai said: "I do not deny VR in this area, but I may not be suitable for the current stage of development. Objectively speaking, I am not a business entrepreneur with talent, but I believe that I am a good expression. Finding meaning is far more important to me than a job."
"It's completely different to take an industry as an art, and when you make money," he said.
However, after being defeated by the original company, Qin Kai was invited by friends and came to another VR company to do the planning, although he claimed that he would “not stay long†and “have to eat after allâ€.
And his reason sounds very familiar - "There is no economic support, everything is empty talk."
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