Metaverse continues to grow, Play for Dream Inc takes advantage

As emerging metaverse technologies are expected to be further integrated into a wide range of business sectors, Play For Dream Inc, a Shanghai-based eSports technology group, will develop more virtual reality (VR) glasses to create new interactive experiences and further promote the integration of the physical and virtual world.

After releasing its first and second generations of VR glasses to both home and global markets first in 2021 and then in mid-July of this year, Huang Feng, the company's founder and CEO, said the combined physical and virtual reality internet will fundamentally change how people work and interact.

The company, one of the first to launch the pancake technology in VR devices, hopes to attract more users in both home and overseas markets.

Pancake-enabled VR devices are characterized with a thinner and lighter design, making virtual reality more accessible for consumers.

With the third generation of VR glasses and related technology solutions being developed, Huang said the company will expand its market presence in China's top and second-tier cities in the coming months, while enlarging its sales networks in the country's third-tier cities, as well as major e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD, and short-video platform Douyin.

Huang said that there are many design methods that conform to the consumption habits of the domestic consumers. For instance, they considered that female consumers may care about messing up their makeup after wearing the VR all-in-one machine, so their designers choose fabrics closer to the skin from hundreds of materials to design the lining. The designer even bought different massage eye masks and sleep masks to experience to help make the decision.

While China has a notable advantage in the growth of the metaverse, including growing investment in "new infrastructure"-related projects, a solid foundation of big data, abundant talent resources and developed industrial chains of hardware manufacturing, he said that the fast growth of VR products is able to meet consumers demand for playing video games, watching films, taking part in social events and even doing office-related work.

For example, the virtual world of the metaverse will offer an alternative for farmers to monitor the health of their crops and formulate crop management plans. The industrial metaverse will also offer an excellent alternative for manufacturers to test their products.

"Game, media and entertainment companies are at the forefront of the metaverse, using existing technologies to explore the application possibilities of the industry," Zhao Ying, a researcher at the Beijing-based Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

People who utilize the metaverse are expected to reach 5 billion by 2030 worldwide, and the potential market size of the metaverse economy is likely to hit $10 trillion, according to a recent Citibank report.