Chinese VR : Past, Present, & Future + Tips On How You Can Get Involved
The latest wave of Chinese VR began soon after the west when Oculus DK1 Kickstarter began to be delivered. Nikk Mitchell, a Canadian living in China, saw a lack of community locally and started the first online forum oculus-china.com (later bought by Facebook).
From the gold rush that began with the Facebook acquisition of Oculus to the Chinese VR market crash in 2016, at the IVRPA Tokyo 2018 Conference Nikk will share his insider experiences as well as opinions on what caused the bubble to grow and burst.
China faces many unique conditions that created an environment unlike any in the west. In 2014 Oculus suspended HMD shipments to China and after the Facebook buyout, no Oculus services could be accessed without a VPN. Platforms like YouTube 360 were also stuck on the outside of the great firewall. This left a hole in the market which was quickly filled by Chinese competitors. Nikk will share who the biggest Chinese hardware makers and platforms are, and what makes them special.
The market crash of 2016 was not the end of VR in China. After hitting rock bottom the industry slowly began to climb again, though reckless optimism has been replaced with caution. Nikk founded a new VR studio at the start of 2017 based in Hangzhou China that has quickly grown to 22 people. He will share the methods that brought him success as well as the mistakes he has made.
He will end with predictions for the future of the Chinese market, and recommendations on how you can be a part of it.
Nikk Mitchell FXG
http://fxg.vr8.tv
Nikk is a software project manager, developer, and film maker who has lived in China for over a decade. Over the last five years, he has focused his career on creating experiences in the Virtual Reality (VR) industry. Nikk has built a name for himself in the Chinese VR scene through the launch of the…