â–¼ MR arcade room is very market but investors will not easily touch from Baidu VR The writer is Sunny Dhillon, co-founder of the well-known venture Signia Venture Partners. In the past few years, Dhillon has been investing in the game industry, but although mobile games are becoming increasingly popular, he will not try to invest in game startups, but instead choose some augmented reality and virtual reality startups to invest. In this article, Sunny Dhillon discusses the development of another kind of market from the investor's point of view - MR arcade room. Since entering 2017, VR's desire to become the next generation of computing platforms is being hampered. Of course, there is no evidence that hardware sales have begun to soften. On the contrary, hardware development has exceeded the speed. This is why some giants have started investing heavily in content development. After spending 3 billion U.S. dollars to acquire Oculus, Facebook plans to reinvest 500 million U.S. dollars for the development of this platform. HTC launched a $100 million Vive X fund to develop VR content. In addition, other technology giants are also focusing on content research and development, but so far have not formed a model that can directly obtain huge revenue from the end-user market. I think hardware products such as Magic Leap and Apple that focus on AR development will promote the formation of the general market. Once the AR market is formed, the game will become an industry that quickly attracts gold. Some investors will invest a lot of money for content development, because the immersive immersive experience of the AR experience is far beyond the reach of game consoles and PC-based 2D games. The mobile AR will also be a fast-pumping industry. However, in this article, I will mainly focus on another content market - the MR arcade. I think this market has great potential. What is the MR arcade hall? First of all, let's define what is the MR arcade room. There is a very big difference here to clarify. VR is a completely digital virtual world. AR is a virtual world in which virtual objects are superimposed. MR tries to integrate the advantages of VR and AR. The camera tracks the LED tracking system. Users can see the real world in the virtual world. The world feels the interdependence between virtual objects and the real world. MR is completely in line with the perspective laws in the real world. When you approach it, it will become bigger, but it will become smaller after being far away, so it may be the easiest way to enter the mainstream market. Unlike VR arcades, such as IMAX, the MR arcade can take full advantage of real objects in the real world, allowing players to move more freely in larger spaces. The status of the MR arcade My first experience of the MR arcade was at The Void's experience hall. In Madame Tussauds New York, The Void has an MR experience called "Ghostbusters Dimension." When I was wearing a helmet and walking in a well-arranged room, I could hear the surrounding sounds, use guns and other props, and even smell the smell. Compared to experiencing VR at home, The Void offers a more immersive experience. The Void is not the only arcade room that can provide such an MR experience. Nomadic Labs, Zero Latency, and Dreamscape Immersive also provide this experience. However, the MR arcade was not widely opened. For example, The Void has got a lot of money from Shanda Group, but currently there are no other experience stores in addition to its headquarters in Utah and New York City. Why Venture Investors Will Not Make Easy Investment in MR Arcade Office At present, the MR arcade room faces many challenges, such as how to unfold and succeed. As a capital-intensive business, I think three MR arcade rooms face three major obstacles and are not suitable for early VC entry. But for the Chinese market and some giant companies such as Disney and Comcast are a golden opportunity. Let us look at these three major obstacles one by one: 1. Intellectual Property: If you have relevant IP, you can develop the contents of MR without being sued, and then as an effective marketing activity. Steven Spielberg and several other studios invested in Dreamscape Immersive. Last year, the startup company brought the MR experience to a mall in Los Angeles. However, the investors behind these have a commonality, they have IP, can help Dreamscape Immersive to make some film experience into MR content. 2. Location: As an interactive experience, you need a specific space to support such activities. The choice of location can not be arbitrary. It requires a relatively large flow of people and convenient transportation, so that the business model will be effective. Obviously, the most suitable place to open the MR arcade is in the hall of the cinema, because there is a large flow of people there. 3. Mechanical Engineering: The MR arcade requires skilled people to maintain hardware or software systems to ensure a smooth gamer experience. If something goes wrong, some engineers must seriously solve it on the spot. In addition to the above three major issues, there is a relatively small issue that cannot be ignored. Oculus does not allow its head to be used in the experience shop. But other players are willing to fill this gap. Oculus has been robbed of many markets by HTC's more aggressive efforts, and some small companies such as Starbreeze and IMAX have established a VR experience center. I think that the MR arcade has a great impetus for the development of the VR mass market, and I believe that the related immersive experience can bring huge profits, but this road is still relatively long. Since venture investors generally avoid capital-intensive industries, they will not work hard to help resolve the issues mentioned above. Therefore, venture capitalists are not the driving force to support the MR experience in the mass market.