VR industry began to squeeze foam companies can survive this winter?

"I don't think any VR content company can make a profit within 3 years. This industry needs to go through a long period of development." The words that Lanting Digital COO Zhuang Jishun said in an interview with the media have also shown a lot The bitterness of VR practitioners. From the initial high expectations, rushed to the current reshuffle adjustment, the overall cooling, VR industry is experiencing the first winter since the rise. Bubbles caused by over-flattering in the early capital and media will eventually be squeezed out in big waves.

Next, this article will discuss VR's past and present lives and future directions from four perspectives: investment, technology, content, and overall Internet environment.

First look at investment.

The above picture comes from the FellowPlus database FellowDate. As can be seen from the figure, the investment in VR hardware ushered in a peak in 2015, but it dropped significantly in 2016. At the same time, investment in VR content increased significantly in 2016, even exceeding hardware. This shows that the direction of capital began to shift from hardware to content.

In the investment world of “swiftly living in water and grass”, such data changes reflect precisely the fact that the heat in the VR industry is declining.

According to media reports, Shenzhen HT Manufacture's second-generation VR BOX ex-factory price is 45 yuan, but by May, a large number of imitation products to make the price 11 yuan, the company can only adjust the ex-factory price to 18 yuan after May; In April, the hot-selling VR glasses case still had a profit of 10 yuan. By October, the profit had already dropped to 2 hairs, or even 1 hair.

No investor is willing to “make money and lose money.” VR hardware vendors have had a big crocodile block before, followed by a copycat product, and the meager profits have caused many hardware manufacturers to quit the game in this capital chase.

With this hardware, the entire market is difficult to be optimistic. In October of this year, Mido Entertainment, a VR content company that had released Luhan's VR concert, was found to be in arrears in wages, in which former employees (including some employees who had not yet resigned) were owed wages of between two weeks and four months, making relevant The employee initiates labor arbitration.

Coincidentally, in April this year, just released the first product of AlfaReal AR's VR head-up company's vision, but also exposed the existence of arrears of employee wages. According to Liu Yun, founder of VRZINC, in the past year, 70% of VR hardware startup companies have closed down. In 2014, there were more than 200 companies that do VR helmets in the country. In 2015, there were only 60 companies left. If this is estimated, the market elimination rate of the VR industry can reach nearly 70%.

In addition, the Storm Mirror that entered the VR industry earlier also conducted large-scale layoffs in October this year. The company team was reduced from 500 to 300 people. Although Storm Mirror indicated that this personnel change is a normal business adjustment, there are also some People can not help but doubt and worry about the future development prospects of VR.

The overall cold of the industry has caused many investors to tighten their money bags. Once the capital chain breaks down, a series of follow-up responses to salary cuts, layoffs, and corporate failures will follow.

Then say technology.

VR is attractive because it can provide consumers with a deep, immersive offline experience. However, VR stun has become a stumbling blocker for blocking VR devices. Many VR experiences show that after using VR products for a period of time, discomfort, nausea, and even vomiting will occur.

The reason for this poor user experience is that the delay of the VR hardware causes the time to be out of sync. When the person rotates the view or moves, the picture cannot be displayed at the same speed. In a full-view screen such as VR, such delays cause people's dizziness.

Currently, the solution to avoid dizziness in the industry is to find ways to reduce delays. This requires the further improvement of VR hardware, but in the eyes of many people in the industry, it will take at least three years to perfectly solve this user experience problem.

This means that in the near future, the technology and experience of the VR hardware on the C-side will not be solved in the short term, and the cut-out on the consumer side will be difficult to open. The loss of consumer VR industry is more likely to become rootless, passive water.

Then say the content.

VR investment was concentrated in the hardware device end and the content end. From 2014 to 2015, the investment in hardware was obviously more than that in content. With the advent of capital winter, the investment in the entire industry cannot be compared with the previous years. Coupled with the hardware development bottlenecks caused by VR technology and the real difficulties of the entire industry chain, the interest of the capital market for hardware projects has begun to decrease significantly. . Investors are looking more closely at content and industry applications. They want to retain users, increase the user's viscosity, and seize the user's time.

Taking VR film and television as an example, film and television is a single high-frequency consumer product that can be quickly drained. A movie user will generally only watch once and he will not be watching unless it is a very classic film. Therefore, manufacturers need to generate new content quickly and continuously. Continue to occupy user time.

Another example is VR games, games are high-frequency continuous consumer goods, but stand-alone game users will not play after playing for a period of time, online games can be extended by several decades.

However, the current domestic VR industry lacks uniform standards. Each VR company adopts different standards for measuring the quality of related products or content, which results in uneven quality of content, which inevitably causes consumers to have a bad experience during use. The decision whether to follow the consumer to purchase or experience again.

In addition, a VR content that allows the experiencer to shine is really good VR content. At this stage, VR is still in the development period. During this period, the hardware equipment and VR content are indispensable. However, how long does this process take? I am afraid that no one can give a positive answer by patting the chest.

In fact, the reason why the VR industry has such an embarrassing situation today is that the overall background of the Internet industry is cold. In the longer term, it is the downturn of the real economy.

In the words of the columnist Xinhai Haiguang, the argument that Internet companies have been in the winter is not the case this year. This is not a problem for one or two companies. The Internet economy is still based on the real economy. Behind the downturn in the Internet is the downturn in the entire real economy.

After the wave of national entrepreneurship and innovation, industry leaders in multiple segments have chosen to merge. The rest have either disappeared silently on the Internet or have sought refuge in a tree and become an accessory of a large company.

In the 20 years of the barbaric growth of the Chinese Internet, the Chinese Internet industry has been starting by playing free licenses and low-priced brands. In recent years, Internet entrepreneurship has become popular and free or even cannot meet the needs of Internet companies to seize the market. Kinds of subsidies war in full swing.

After the introduction of a series of regulatory measures in the country, the vertical industry stopped barbaric growth and disorderly development. Some projects and even companies that want to spend a lot of money in the well blowout period have closed down. Food and beverage takeaways, travel, cars, the United States, tourism, and education have become the hardest hit areas. When the subsidies for burning money are not good enough for the staking and trapping, the reshuffle of the industry has also brought about the winter of the industry. In this way, the overall cold weather of the Internet industry today is also traceable.

Although "Winter is coming, will spring be far behind?" But if you want to survive this winter, capital is the support, hardware is the spearhead, and the content is two wings. All of these aspects of the homework may not be able to slow down the whole course. The pace of business. If you want to live this winter, you have to live and cherish it.