This unicorn meta unicorn: hope to earn real money in the virtual world

In March of this year, Roblox went public on the New York Stock Exchange with a market cap of $ 45 billion. After becoming the "first sharing of the meta-world," similar companies have come together to spur the wave of rapid growth following the new model.

Also in March, when Roblox went public, a social gaming platform called Rec Room successfully launched a “meta unicorn” with a $ 100 million investment led by Sequoia Capital.

This week, nine months after Rec Room became a unicorn, Rec Room announced it had raised $ 145 million, led by Coatue Management. Former members are Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and Madrona Ventures.

Since that grant, LecRoom is worth $ 3.5 billion, more than the $ 3 billion Facebook (or meta) paid when it bought Oculus in 2014.

Lecroom's growth continued throughout the year, reaching nearly $ 250 million twice a year in fundraising. In November, Lecroom's monthly operations were up 450% year-over-year, and the number of mobile phone users was also on the rise. increase more than 10 times at the same time.There are now over 37 million players and over 12 million chat rooms.

Will Rec Room grow faster if Roblox is next?

Formerly HoloLens teamA third site has been created

Founded in Seattle in 2016, Rec Room is a sports entertainment company that claims to be "the best place to create and play games together." Its founder is Nick Fajt, who spent eight years in the Microsoft Gravity group (later HoloLens).

The match was Nick Fajt's "third place", as psychiatrist Ray Oldenburg put it. Not a house or an office, but a tight space in the middle. It is a place where people exchange ideas, relax and have a good time.

Photo of Rec Room Founder and CEO Nick Fajt and his Rec Room

Unlike traditional films, Rec Room is not created by evangelism or special storytelling. Instead, it's a community where people can come together and play in workshops and everywhere. The player can also decorate the room. As long as you can play Rec Room, you can create your own. The tools are built into the app and you can create them in real time with your friends.

Nick Fajt said in an interview that Rec Room is all about fostering personal relationships. Games are tools for connecting with others. There are games like paintball, laser tag, and dodgeball, but it feels more like a night out with friends than an electronic sports game.

“Most of today's relationships have been isolated,” Fajt said. “Users interact with the process, not with others. We want to create a place where people can get together, meet new friends and make new memories. This has been our goal since day one, and it is still our goal. Goal. "

Rec Room is not a VR game or a social platform. Users can use their avatars to manipulate faces, as well as participate in a variety of interactive mini-games such as team battles.

Besides sound, player interaction is almost identical to the world of communication, such as clapping, holding hands, and even returning the ball to the boardroom and affecting the glass of water.

Based on this, Fajt noted that Rec Room has become the top choice for creative events, corporate consulting, office expansion, and even weddings. . Recently, some players have even given Christmas gifts to other players, such as in community rooms.

almost any materialfoughtthroughrecording studio in operation

As sales of VR products begin to fall short of market expectations, Rec Room has gone from a dedicated VR platform to PC, PlayStation, iOS, and more recently Xbox. As a result, VR headset users can now play live with them on game consoles and iPhones, or mix and match themselves.

“We want the playroom to be the friendliest part of life,” said Fajt. "After all, Rec Room tries to connect with people, not with equipment."

Fajt said one of the things that set her company apart was that it didn't trust the Meta platform like Horizon. Alternatively, in addition to VR gear, it can be used for free on Android game consoles, iPhone, PC, Sony PlayStation, and Microsoft Xbox. It also generates income by selling virtual goods, such as new characters, without depending on advertising revenue.

As of today, Rec Room is available on mobile devices, game consoles, PC and VR devices, and supported operating systems / platforms including iOS, Android, Xbox, PlayStation, Oculus, and Steam .

This cross-platform, cross-terminal feature greatly reduces the cost for users trying the game.The average usage time of a game room for console game users and virtual reality users is over 2 hours, and the average usage time for mobile users is 1 hour.This is similar to last year's report that Roblox users spent an average of 2.6 hours playing.

Now, at the end of 2021, one of the best things about Rec Room is that it's way ahead of the wave of massive metacosms that has occurred. All the good that Meta or Microsoft promises about the meta world has already happened in the closed studio.

In addition to its cross-platform capabilities, the games room benefits now include:

Measure

According to data from July of this year, Rec Room has successfully benefited over one million active virtual reality users every month. It can also accommodate a minimum of 45,000 players at a time, allowing it to reach large groups of players around the world. The platform has an accredited start mode so that children can play safely in the playroom.

large community

Rec Room has a large community of developers and users on social media, Discord, and online forums. There is also a community wiki where users can learn more about the various tools, upcoming events, and products available for purchase.

economy

Rec Room recently announced that members will be able to exchange their in-game tokens for cash at a cost of 400 million tokens. Rec Room players have the opportunity to earn real-time cash through the platform, and content creators benefit from it as well.

Is UGC the exit from the meta world?

LecRoom Creative Director Cameron Brown said LecRoom focuses on the “human-centric meta-universe”.

“When asked about our view of the metaverse, my answer depends on people and what they want and need to do each day. Of course, technology is attractive, but in the final analysis, skills in the virtual world are more than happy and rewarding to make it work. That's also an aspect. "

Rec Room's plans for further expansion include additional investment in the developer community, and they have said they will pay game developers around $ 1 million on the platform in early March of this year. .Much of the Game Room theme is user-created, including new outfits, events, and decorations for Personal Playground users.

Some of these users have already gotten what Brown called "real money" in game development. Because other users are willing to pay for the rights. Rec Room hopes to extend this to everyone who can meet this need. Rec Room makes a living doing a great job.

“I think the key to using relationships is having a mix of issues,” Cameron Brown said. "As we measure, the games room will be attractive and more people will play."

Roblox vice president of developer relations, Matt Curtis, also believes the future of gaming is UGC, and said so in his remarks at the GamesBeat 2020 summit about a year and a half ago.UGC's explosive growth brings us into the meta-world, creating a world of interactive virtual worlds., as described in books such as "Avalanche" and "Players One".

According to reports, Epic Games, created by Fortnite, is seeking the same goal. But Matt Curtis said UGC has taken the film and music world by storm, but gaming has failed to follow that pattern.

Additionally, Fajt said in an interview in September this year that he wanted to create user-friendly controls in the "meta-world," and that these rules include a lot of things.

Example: who can move objects? What materials are available in some rooms? Who can design the appropriate models? Who can design the business model? How should these change? It's the foundation of race, and building a good society isn't about supporting these things in layers.

And because making rules and regulations requires many important decisions, many platforms like to create rules that are beneficial to them. But "metaworld" has yet to decide what the rules will be and what the decisions will be, Fajt said.

“I think the decision is still early days and there is still a long way to go. If you want to build a platform like Rec Room, you have to decide what is important so that developers can earn and get paid? Favorite place for community users? Where are these policies located? What should I consider?

Additionally, should the rules entering the meta-world be similar to the rules for reality, how to create a place where order is more established, and how to keep that place safe.What's the order here? It can be both a challenge and a challenge that everyone has to face.Rec Room announced the leadership policy in hopes of overcoming this problem early on.

"We are committed to improving and using the equipment and allowing players to block, block and announce other players in the game. To this end, we have prepared a team of chemicals" We are serious about analyzing these concepts, and our R&D team is working to make these concepts an essential part of the company's growth. "

Actually, Rec Room was created by hobbyists from a different perspective, and both are user-friendly devices, so it's important that these people benefit.

“I've been doing research for a long time to get rewards for these players. Historically, I wanted to reward them in the currency game, but now the goal is to complete the test. How to get it.

Overall, Rec Room has a vibrant VR community, a transversal path to reach users around the world, and a way to see the financial impact of the transmission, everything is a Rec Room for gamers.

Rec Room plans to host an IPO in the next few years, but the goal now is to ensure that the platform remains a place where players can relax and have fun.

Fajt said: "We have a lot of work ahead of 2022, including developing more knowledge, expanding into new platforms, strengthening our security systems, and continuing to develop our tools to create," Fajt said.