“Welcome to the world of ‘U’! U is a hypothetical world created by the five wise sages ‘Voices’ who govern this world. With over 5 billion users and still expanding, U is the largest cyberspace ever created. ‘As’ is your avatar in the world of U. U uses the latest body-connected sharing technology, easily accessible to all, to generate an image of you in U by scanning your physical profile.”
These lines will appear in the animated film Belle, which opens in Japan tomorrow, July 16. In just one minute and 20 seconds of the film’s opening scene, supervisor Mamoru Hosoda defines in a few words the basic framework of a vast, grand, and desirable virtual world (Metaverse).
If anyone asks what the hottest word in the Internet industry will be in 2021, then “ Metaverse” will be one of the strongest contenders. Since March of this year, the Metaverse has come into the spotlight like a rainstorm, making it impossible for anyone to ignore it anymore. With all the buzz about “virtual reality”, “NFT” and “content generation”, Belle is yet another of mankind’s wildest dreams about the future shape of the online world. Belle is yet another rhapsody of the future shape of the online world.
While we are all convinced that the Metaverse is the inevitable destiny of humanity, no one can predict precisely when the Internet will move past the evolutionary stage; even if we have the courage to explore the next phase of the Internet, we don’t know what to do, where to go, and how far to go.
The large-scale, perpetual and self-growing nature of the Metaverse dictates that the current production model of hundreds of people spending years to produce games for players to experience for hundreds of hours is far from being able to meet the diversified content consumption needs generated by the huge population access in the future, and AI-Generated Content, led by artificial intelligence, will become the mainstream content generation method of the Metaverse.
We, rct AI, are a technical team focused on driving the application of AIGC in the field.
While greatly improving development efficiency, we are committed to using AI to create a next-generation gaming experience that helps more like-minded people work together to create the real Metaverse.
On the second night of ChinaJoy, July 31, rct AI will launch a boat of dreams on the Huangpu River, inviting explorers in the fields of gaming, AI and cutting-edge technology to collide with each other and witness the most pioneering Metaverse of the moment.
Before officially setting sail, we chatted with three passengers who will be boarding the ship. We hope that through the fragments of boundaries extended by their perspectives and senses, we can get an early glimpse of the real thoughts and insights of human beings in 2021 about the future of games, industries and virtual worlds.
Interviewees:
Yuetian Chen, Founder of Initial Capital
He is an investor in the cultural industry, former partner of Sea of Stars Capital and investment director of Sinovation Ventures. He has led a series of investments, including SNH48, Haoliners Animation League, MEWE, rr.tv (YYeTs), and Pyou.
On May 10th, rct AI just completed its Series A-2 financing, Mr. Chen became a partner of rct AI as a personal investor.
Jun Nie, Founder of Gamker
In 2015, he founded Gamker, a media outlet that analyzes and shares in-depth knowledge about game culture and game development, and has established a game studio that is developing independent games.
Jun Nie is also the director of Pixel Engine Foundation and the creator of the Broken Dollar Game Archive.
Tuoni Xiong, Indielight VP
He has more than 30 years of experience in games and more than 20 years of experience in interactive experience planning/creativity/development; Vice President of GCA Gamification Conference, judge of indiePlay China Independent Game Competition, judge of IMGA China; initiator of Indielight’s “Game Workshop on Paper”; columnist of “Homo Ludens”.
He is also a famous game evangelist.
At what point did you come across Metaverse?
Yuetian Chen:
Metaverse is a word that popped up last year as far as I can remember, and the state was very different before and after the Chinese New Year. Before, many VCs were still doubtful about the concept. But coincidentally, all those companies I invested in last year are now in the Metaverse-related field.
Two events catalyzed the popularity of the Metaverse concept after the Chinese New Year; the popularity of Clubhouse and the IPO of Roblox, which was the first to put the Metaverse concept out there and drove a lot of companies to follow its lead.
Tuoni Xiong:
The first time I intuitively felt the concept of Metaverse was the movie Ready Player One, which presented a complete Oasis world in VR, allowing people to see the tangible expression of Metaverse for the first time.
However, before that, the game industry has already seen the trend of Metaverse. Minecraft, for example, is a world where everyone can build their own world with voxels (cubes) to their liking; and while you build the world, you also create content for other players and benefit from the unique content that other players provide for you.
Jun Nie:
In fact, as early as the PS2 era, I had such a concept in mind, but back then there was no such proper noun as Metaverse. At that time, players were talking more about the “world”, a game is a “ world “, multiple games in a series will form a “ multiverse “. As the game develops, this universe will eventually become so powerful and complete that players can do anything in it.
Later, Ready Player One fleshed out this understanding. In the original novel, the author expressed his thoughts about the future of gaming. Showed his description of the ultimate form of games, so that players could actually see what the fantasy future would really be like. But this fantasy has actually been there for a long time, just now it finally has a name — the Metaverse.
What should the Metaverse look like in your understanding?
Yuetian Chen:
In my personal understanding, the Metaverse, the universe of universes, is a collection of virtual worlds, just like the Buddhist definition of the “three thousand worlds”. This universe has physical rules that are different from our real world, and there is an assumption behind this concept that the information world is above our real physical world.
Let’s think about it the other way around. If the information world is higher dimensional and our current world is just a mapping of the information world, then theoretically there should be an infinite number of other mappings, just with different rules. Maybe everything we see in reality is just a low-dimensional projection.
Metaverse may be that one thing that exists in the imagination, it may be a projection of our certain information world in various different environments, it is a conceptualization.
So how do you go about realizing it? It basically depends on the information technology and digital technology that we have now.
Tuoni Xiong:
In my opinion, the real beauty of the game is that it creates a challenging environment for the player, and the process of the player playing is the process of solving the challenges set by the developer. And the Metaverse transforms maximizing the communication between developers and players into a communication between all players. Each player is a participant in the game and at the same time becomes a challenge for all other players.
I think video games have been slowly developing in the direction of the Metaverse since the beginning, but the ideal Metaverse has to be a world like “Oasis”. Not just a screen in front of the player, but you really participate in the world in some way; players can interact with people and things in the virtual world through various means of high freedom, just like the real world.
Jun Nie:
I don’t think the concept of Metaverse is really new, it’s just a change of name for a powerful game world from the old fantasy. When MMOs first emerged, many players already felt that it was the beginning of the Metaverse, and we were convinced that the powerful “world” of fantasy would appear in the future.
The reason why I am deeply involved in the game industry for many years is not only because I love it. I am convinced that games are the way for humans to enter the virtual world, and I firmly believe that humans will definitely enter the virtual world collectively in the future. Before entering that world, the game was the most pioneering and important technology.
In your opinion, which projects are not Metaverse?
Yuetian Chen:
As an investor I look at a very large number of projects each year, and to answer this question we need to look at the software and hardware platforms on which the Metaverse will land.
According to my own definition of the Metaverse, I believe that:
First, the Metaverse requires innovative visual display technology, which is now relevant to display technology, and to display technology for the foreseeable term, so VR, AR, and holographic display companies should be Metaverse-related companies.
Second, since the need to display technology, most engine companies, especially the study of 3D engines, real-time rendering and light chasing technology, should also be the Metaverse field of companies; at the same time, this requires a very large computing power, must be carried out in the cloud, so cloud rendering, cloud engines, cloud game companies are also in this category.
Third, the huge world of Metaverse needs a relatively convenient set of methods of generation, which has two ways: 1, generated by people, which requires convenient construction tools, the need for some codeless platform to provide easy to use world architecture, map generation tools; 2, generated by Al, the generation efficiency of the game industry is actually already very high, but it is still a human-intensive industry, and even games that have been developed for a long time will be consumed by players in a month or two after they go live with all the content. What this tells us is that content that relies on people to make it is not enough in the Metaverse, and that the Metaverse world should theoretically rely on automatic generation.
So there should be a group of AI companies dedicated to AIGC in this process, and rct Al is certainly one of them. This is the most important part of the Metaverse in my opinion.
Fourth, since we already have the hardware and software, the engine, and the content generation, further down the line we also need the identity. How to ensure its uniqueness, how to ensure its value, how to ensure that it is not manipulated by any single company, but that we who live in it and our ID identity own it? This question is as simple as it gets, relying on blockchain technology and NFT.
This is the technology stack that I have drawn for the Metaverse, and the companies that are not in this stack should not be part of the Metaverse. For example, if a social company says it is the Metaverse, aren’t BBS and WeChat also the Metaverse?
Everything is Metaverse means nothing is Metaverse, and we need to draw a line in the sand and work in the direction of “ YES”.
What do you see as the significance of AI for the Metaverse?
Jun Nie:
There is no doubt that the creation of the Metaverse will require Al’s help, and the amount of work humans will need to do to realize the Metaverse in the future is far beyond the capabilities of humans today.
And although we are far from the Metaverse right now, creators are already in need of Al’s assistance in developing games. There are too many troublesome tasks to be repeated by humans, and as an indie game developer, I’ve been looking forward to the emergence of Al’s game development tools.
Tuoni Xiong:
My earliest personal feelings about Al originated from video games in the early 80s. There was an interesting phenomenon in those games: although the game was difficult, the behavior of the enemy Al (i.e., computer man) in the game was patterned, and after some learning and training, players were able to master a fixed way to deal with Al. But this situation is now rare to see, Al has undergone a radical change.
On the other hand, as an RPG veteran, when we used to play games like Final Fantasy, we used to habitually have multiple conversations with NPCs until the conversation started to loop in order to get all the information. But if NPC conversations are manipulated by Al content generation, this technique no longer works, as long as you want to talk, NPCs can carry on the dialogue with you forever. This is a disruptive interaction experience.
Even many established commercial game companies are troubled by the fact that the rate of content production cannot keep up with the rate of player consumption.
How do you feel about this situation?
Jun Nie:
I think it’s hard to satisfy players purely with volume, only continuous updates in gameplay can continue to attract people. Like the mixing of game genres, combining romance games and horror games to create a whole new experience. This is something that only the developer, the human brain, can do, because it needs to be conceived from scratch.
As for the stacking of levels, the stacking of plots, including the stacking of characters, I think it is best if we can have Al assistance. First AI generates a preliminary version, and then the human intervenes to modify it, which will greatly improve efficiency.
Tuoni Xiong:
As we mentioned earlier, with the rise of the web, the UGC approach to content generation is becoming more and more important, just like Minecraft. Roblox, which was later born, is the equivalent of an upgraded version of Minecraft, where players can not only create scenarios in this world, but also set the rules of the game in their own space.
Then there is the roguelike game, although each time the player enters the game, the core gameplay experience is the same, but through the randomly generated levels, it allows the player to have a fresh feeling that is different each time. This is completely different from the old games of the 80s, there is no established process to follow.
This is what I have always stressed “ what is the essence of gaming “, just like soccer and basketball, it is not that I come up with a good script for everyone to play along, but in a basic framework of the game, everyone plays freely, to produce the ups and downs of the process. Just like soccer has been born for hundreds of years, but everyone still watches it because it constantly generates new excitement; and relatively, even if you really enjoy a certain movie, it would be painful for you to watch it for a hundred times.
In my opinion, Al is a great antidote. On the one hand, Al is a productivity tool that allows players to have a nearly endless experience when you can produce content with AI settings, and developers only need to get the most critical parts right; on the other hand, it’s similar to the experience that roguelikes bring, which amplifies the strengths of the game itself, and the experience you produce is different every time you enter the game; And, when there are not many people in a game, a very rich environment can also be shaped through Al, in which the game world is constantly transformed by the players and eventually goes to a more ideal state, such as Metaverse.
For indie game teams with little manpower, this can be a great help.
From the perspective of a game developer, how would you like AI to assist you?
Jun Nie:
First, it is to help humans to complete repetitive tasks, such as level design, numerical debugging, etc..
Al has been widely used in biology and medicine, researchers only need to set up the formula, the result will be given to Al to calculate. But the game field actually needs this kind of function, too. For example, if you want to get a balance value, you can have All do the large amount of calculations, and Al can do this job very quickly and objectively.
Also, some Al programming is now becoming popular, where you tell it what features you want and Al automatically writes them for you.
These kinds of features are very helpful for game development and allow art, planning and other people who don’t have programming skills but have a lot of ideas to keep experimenting with various small games and features. After the experiments are done, they are then handed over to programmers for complete integration.
What advances in experience can AI bring to gaming?
Tuoni Xiong:
Many people can remember the first game they played, but few people can remember the anime they watched before and after their first game. Animation obviously far exceeds the same period of games in terms of graphics, music and plot, but why do we have such a deep impression of the game? I think an important dimension lies in the “interaction”. One is that I visited the life of others, one is that I experienced the experience, the game brings a more realistic immersion.
Using The Scroll Of Taiwu as an example, in the past, players never envisioned being able to realize their martial arts dreams in a free and open game world, and this game gives martial arts fans an unprecedented space. Although this is a single-player game, each player’s progress is unique; even if an archive has not been played for a long time many people do not want to delete it, because there is their own “experience”. If we have Al, we can make this aspect even bigger.
In Rocket League, for example, it’s a rivalry-style game where players compete in groups, and I always thought I was competing with human players. But then I realized that some of the opponents I was matched with were Al. When Al is anthropomorphized to the same level as a human player, your sense of commitment is completely different and your sense of accomplishment is different. This is one of the details that I think Al can bring to the table, to make players feel that they are really competing against “people”.
On top of that, there is the combination of AI and gameplay. For example, with Al we can create a realistic enough town with all kinds of people, and each person is unique. In this world, there may be events that require certain conditions to trigger, but the conditions change every time we enter the world, and that’s a big part of the charm in my opinion.
How many years do you think it will take for the Metaverse to really get off the ground and into everyone’s daily lives?
Yuetian Chen:
Personally, I’m pretty optimistic, I think it will only take 10 years.
Why？First of all, from the VR / AR technology in the hardware platform level, this year may be a turning point, 2 years later it may reach the climax of the original mobile Internet device explosion. As an early investment, I think we can see a good penetration rate of devices after 5 years, which will be experienced by the end consumers very soon.
The next step is whether human behavior can be migrated to online effectively, such as going to school, meeting, and working, which can all be carried out well in the virtual space. When the future virtual space can provide such a series of continuous experience, to help you switch environments and scenes very effectively, into the appropriate state, by that time, we have basically entered the Metaverse.
In fact, 3D technology can now meet the needs of the basic environment. I think that if VR / AR devices can reach a relatively high penetration rate in 5 years, and given another 5 years, it is all conceivable that we can enter the environment generated by AIGC to enrich various interactive experiences and realize more complex interactions. So I think 10 years should be enough.
What do you think are the changes in the game industry in recent years compared with previous years?
Tuoni Xiong:
In recent years, the number and quality of games have been on the rise, which is something I’m very happy about. For example, with The Scroll Of Taiwu or Tale of Immortal, you don’t even know there are people silently making these games until they actually come out. And there are more and more people who are joining together to do these things.
In addition, although the Metaverse is still just a concept, there are already some trends in it, such as roguelike, such as Roblox, which can be regarded as the first stage of the beginning of the Metaverse. I think more and more people will come behind to explore and try, and there will be a lot of output in this area in the next period.
What are your expectations for this event?
Jun Nie:
When people think of cruising, they think of setting sail and blazing new trails.
I hope that our Metaverse-themed event will be a landmark in the future when the Metaverse is truly universal.
In a hundred years, people will look back and see that the Metaverse began on a ship.
The journey to the Metaverse will not be easy, there will be many more storms, setbacks and technical hurdles to overcome.
Since the announcement of Mayflower to the Metaverse event, we have received a lot of positive responses from like-minded people and have received thousands of applications to board the ship so far.
rct AI would like to thank all our friends for their support and trust, and we are eager to meet with more people who are interested in the Metaverse, but unfortunately, this event was held on a boat with limited space, so it is impossible to meet everyone face to face.
However, parting is a sign of a better encounter. rct AI will continue to hold many Metaverse related events in different parts of China, and we look forward to meeting each other on a bigger stage.
The invitation list for this event is basically finished and we are delivering the invitations to our fellow attendees one after another. Please pay attention to your reserved mailbox, on the night of July 31 (the second day of ChinaJoy), you need to scan the code to enter the event with the “boarding voucher” in your mailbox.
In addition, we will also send a cool advance gift pack to our fellow travelers around July 20, which contains important props for our offline activities, so please make sure to bring it to the event site, it will have a brilliant and unexpected use on board.
After interviewing three guests from the investment, media, and gaming industries, we benefited from seeing different perspectives regarding the Metaverse. As a result, we are even more eager to exchange insights with more of our fellow cruisers on the cruise.
We’d like to end this interview with the original line from the Metaverse movie Belle.
Mamoru Hosoda left these words in hope for what the Metaverse has to offer to humanity in the future:
“U is another reality, and As is another you. Reality cannot be recreated, but U can.”
“Go live another you.”
“Start a whole new life.”
“Go change the world together!”
