VR investment plunged 80%, and it takes patience to reach the outlet of VR games

Many VR games do not have complete promotion payment channels, and revenue is blocked. For VR games that burn heavily, revenue cannot cover expenditures, which will inevitably affect the overall quality level of the game.

The wind started, and the wind chasers smelled the wind and gradually poured in. One or two of them were very lively. Over time, the wind chasers swimming in the wind may find that they have not yet reached the tuyere. As a result, those impatient wind chasers began to leave one by one, leaving only the pious wind chasers who chose to move against the wind just to reach the wind outlet in their hearts.

Like all air vents, the wind from the AR/VR air vents has long been blowing, and it has been even stronger in the past two years. However, no matter how hard the chasers struggle, they will never reach the air vents.

According to statistics, in 2016, among the three full-featured virtual reality helmet manufacturers, Oculus sold only 200,000 sets, HTC sold approximately 400,000 sets, and Sony sold 900,000 sets. The sales volume was disappointing. This disappointment is clearly manifested in investors who are on the lookout. According to a report quoted by foreign technology media quoted by market research firm Crunchbase, in the first quarter of 2017, global venture capital investment in VR/AR was only US$200 million (a total of 26 companies received investment), compared with US$1 billion in the same period last year (29 companies Financing), a drop of 80%.

Similar to the cold reception in the VR/AR hardware field, the proportion of domestic VR hardware investment and financing has also decreased. However, it is not difficult to find that VR applications have begun to work hard.

According to the "White Paper on Investment and Financing of China's Virtual Reality Industry", the investment scale in the domestic VR industry in 2016 was 4.98 billion yuan, more than double that in 2015. Investment in applications surpassed that in hardware, accounting for 46% of the total. Among all applications, game applications ranked first with 44.1%.

It looks beautiful.

Among all the applications that can be combined with VR, VR games are undoubtedly the ones closest to the consumer market. After all, the deep immersion of VR devices provides a perfect solution for game user groups and game companies. The solution further enriches the game experience, and the addition of VR games with shocking hardware external devices can also provide rich and colorful content support for VR hardware, and the two complement each other.

As a result, VR games became popular first, and fields such as competition, leisure puzzles, sports, parkour, and role-playing blossomed in many aspects. According to a recent report released by Sensor Tower, from January 2015 to March 2017, a total of 371 million VR apps were downloaded through the App Store and Google Play around the world. Among them, games accounted for the largest share, with 56%, followed by entertainment and Photo video apps.

However, looking at the field of VR games, most VR game products are mainly demos and prototypes, and high-maturity and high-quality products are still very rare. The reason is that in addition to industrial restrictions and the impact of the industrial ecological chain, under the "hardware first" scenario in the VR field, hardware has not gone so well, and the use of virtual reality helmets is still so bad.

The main reason is the hard injury caused by "bad" hardware. For virtual helmets, lengthy cables need to be connected to the game computer. Players immersed in games often need to move, but they can easily trip over cables or walk out of boundaries while moving.

However, the old cause of "vertigo" has basically never left. Secondly, the price of VR hardware is obviously high or low. Cheap mobile phone helmets often have a poor experience and are difficult to meet users 'experience needs. High-end hardware produced by manufacturers such as Facebook and HTC is often difficult to easily fly into ordinary people's homes because the price is not affordable to the people. Due to short-term hardware limitations, many VR devices on the market are not suitable for playing large-scale games for a long time.

Secondly, VR games themselves also have certain problems. For example, vulgar issues such as pornography and violence have been repeatedly exposed. There are very few VR games that support multiple people to play together. The popular moba games are even more difficult to find in VR. The vast majority of VR games are more casual. It can be seen that VR games themselves have quite high technical requirements.

Third, VR games are difficult to make profits. According to Valve, Steam currently has approximately 1300 VR software, and only 30 VR applications have generated revenue of more than $250,000 on Steam. Not only that, many VR games do not have complete promotion payment channels, and revenue is blocked. For VR games that burn heavily, revenue cannot cover expenditures, which will inevitably affect the overall quality level of the game.

In addition, due to hardware and software reasons, most players only have an early adopter attitude towards VR games. The retention and playability of games are poor. VR games still have a long way to go to attract more players.

It's not easy to chase the wind, and you need to be patient to reach the wind of VR games

. Since 2015, the VR wind has blown strongly, but in the past two years, with no reward, many VR games have died halfway, which has made many people retreat.

"VR is going to become great and is moving in the direction we expected," said Valve Chairman Gabe Newell ("G Fat"). Indeed, for VR games, the inherent hardware problems in the process of advancement need to be improved urgently, and there is an urgent need to tear off the label of "poor experience" of VR products. However, for game manufacturers, Cultural and Creative Information believes that when laying out the VR field, we must do a good job in the long-term war. Plan to fight against war.

At present, VR games are mostly low-cost, technical display casual games. Such games can be said to be an urgent march into VR games. Game authors are mainly independent game creators. At this time, most VR game players are also mainly early adopters. Therefore, more patience is needed, gradually cultivate players 'game habits, and establish a stable player base before VR games emerge as trend-setting games.

In addition, be patient and wait for sticky VR game content to appear. It is precisely because of its stickiness that products with a turnover of over 100 million have appeared in H5 games, which in turn drives the development of the entire H5 game. Therefore, a sufficiently sticky VR game product is an important factor in enhancing the vitality of the entire market. It can be a 3A masterpiece of major game manufacturers, or it can be a conscientious work of independent game creators. When driven by sticky products, a brand effect will be formed. VR games will also reach the real outlet.

At the tuyere, there is never lack of chasers. But if you want to reach the wind outlet, you must go against the wind. This road is destined to be difficult. Therefore, for gamers traveling in the VR field, the more difficult it is, the closer they are to the wind outlet. At this time, more patience and effort are needed to go against the wind and fulfill their dreams.

Editor: yvonne