Human players appear as avatars in iQiyi’s immersive Luoyang VR experience, which opened to the general public in Shanghai in February 2023.
iQiyi
BEIJING — Chinese video streaming platform iQiyi announced Monday the opening of its immersive virtual reality experience in Shanghai.
The project combines immersive theater, virtual reality and physical equipment to provide participants the impression that they’re walking — or riding in boats and other vehicles — through a fantasy world complete with waterfalls, strong winds and explosions. Participants also can shoot virtual arrows at “enemies.”
While resembling a theme park ride, the virtual reality experience only takes up 300 square meters of space, in response to the corporate. That is roughly a square lot 17.32 meters (56.82 feet) long.
Baidu-backed iQiyi is typically dubbed China’s Netflix for the reason that Chinese online video platform also sells TV series and flicks to subscribers. Tencent Video, Alibaba-owned Youku and Bilibili operate the three other major video streaming platforms in China.
IQiyi calls its recent product “an exciting 50-minute VR-powered journey.” The experience is predicated on iQiyi’s 2021 television drama “Luoyang,” set in the traditional Chinese capital city of the identical name.
Tickets cost 198 yuan ($29) to 398 yuan each, in response to a Yelp-like entry on China’s DianPing app. Time slots are sold by the hour, running from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. every single day of the week, the location showed.
The experience is positioned in downtown Shanghai and is about to run through May 18, in response to information on DianPing.
Zhang Hang, iQiyi vice chairman who heads the corporate’s Dreamverse studio behind the VR project, previously told reporters he expected the VR experience could see about 40,000 visitors a yr per store.
At list ticket prices, which means iQiyi could make greater than $1 million a yr from its VR product. Nonetheless, straight away it isn’t clear to what extent the experience will probably be available for the remainder of this yr.
Zhang forged the VR experience more as a movie than an interactive game. He said his team was working with the corporate’s content production team in order that standards could also meet VR requirements.
IQiyi has said it uses artificial intelligence to assist with content production. The corporate is about to report quarterly earnings on Wednesday.
Within the third quarter ended Sept. 30, iQiyi said revenue fell 2% from a yr ago to $1.1 billion. The corporate said the monthly average revenue per membership for the quarter was 13.90 yuan, up from 13.65 yuan a yr ago.
A scene from iQiyi’s immersive VR experience that launched in Shanghai in February 2023.
iQiyi