In the future, VR e-sports is expected to form a sports league like the NBA
VR experience hall is not new. Xingying International and the number one play cafe that have been reported before are VR offline experience hall operators that combine game IP with VR equipment. Among them, Xingying International mainly focuses on content-level VR interactive games by cooperating with well-known game and film and television IP; the number one player is supporting a multi-player multi-group game through an independently developed large space multi-target positioning system.
With the upgrade of VR hardware equipment and the increase of application scenarios, the offline VR market will maintain rapid growth. According to iResearch, the VR experience hall will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 70.9% in the five years from 2016 to 2021. Recently came into contact with a VR large space sports entertainment platform, E-whale Technology, which uses VR technology to build e-sports scenes. With a large venue of 400-1000 square meters to increase user participation, it has now landed in three experience stores.
E-Whale Technology was jointly established by Laser VR solution developer Step VR (ie Guocheng Wantong) and offline venue operation team in 2019. The company mainly builds offline e-sports competition platforms based on spatial positioning technology, motion capture technology and VR hardware. Step VR’s spatial positioning technology comes from the military field. Its self-developed laser positioning system, combined with motion capture equipment, can perform multi-person motion capture at long distances. Long-distance motion capture also means greater range of motion and more participants. The company’s offline e-sports venue “Future Battlefield”, located in Beijing Changying Sports Park, has an area of 1,000 square meters and can accommodate up to 30 people in the same field.
Future battlefield
Zhang Zhenhua, CEO of Electric Whale Technology, said that one of the predicaments of offline VR games is that users have a strong psychology of hunting and the repurchase rate after experience is low. Improving user stickiness is the change the “future battlefield” wants to bring to the industry. Specifically, in the “Future Battlefield”, VR has become a carrier of e-sports games like mobile phones and computers, and can give users a stronger sense of immersion. In terms of gameplay, unlike the keyboard operation of mobile phones and computers, players in the “Future Battlefield” need to use real-life sports to drive characters. The amount of exercise is 2-3 kilometers. Participation is stronger.
The target users of the “Future Battlefield” include both e-sports players and sports enthusiasts. User sources include both individual customers and company B-building users. Beijing Changying Sports Park Store currently has an average of 60 customers per day, with peak customers reaching 300 people / day.
Player participates in battle
In terms of content, the company believes that there is still considerable offline transformation space for mobile games and terminal games. “Future Battlefield” has transformed six major games, including PVP and PVE types, targeted at individual and group players, respectively. In terms of specific fighting methods, the company will group players according to their technical level and athletic ability.
In addition to VR e-sports, the “Future Battlefield” venues also include table games, bars, KTV and other formats. In the future, live content for e-sports events will also be added, hoping to create an ecosystem similar to e-sports clubs.
VR offline entertainment venues are endless, and Zhang Zhenhua said that although the gameplay of VR offline games is constantly updated, a unified game system will gradually be formed. In the future, VR e-sports is expected to form a new sports league. At that time, the business logic of e-whale technology will move closer to NBA sports leagues. At this stage, the company will also select players with high technical level and strong athletic ability in the competition, and invite them to join the company’s exclusive team. Between the teams, will hold the competition in a fixed time period .
The three stores currently open by Electric Whale include the company ’s Changying Sports Park “Future Battlefield” and two franchise stores. The area of the direct store is more than 1,000 square meters, and the area of franchise stores is mostly 400 square meters. The size of a basketball court. Typical franchisee portraits are offline venues with a venue and traffic, such as basketball courts, trampoline halls, and laser halls. According to the company, the reconstruction of the site mainly involves the construction of the battlefield and some soft fittings, which can be completed within one week. In addition to the site renovation, the cost of franchisees also includes the rental of VR equipment and motion capture equipment. A 400-square-meter venue has an initial investment of 800,000 to 1 million yuan, and is expected to pay back within six months to one year.