2023, virtual people become regular guests at parties

Nowadays, virtual humans have appeared more and more frequently in video platform evening parties or film and television promotional programs. So has the virtual human industry entered a mature stage? Although the virtual human track may seem lively, it still needs to find a commercial profit model that can be monetized. Let's take a look at the author's interpretation.

From the B station New Year's Eve Gala, where the virtual idol Luo Tianyi once again made a stunning appearance on stage, to the CCTV Lantern Festival Gala, where the virtual image "CCTV.com Xiao C" made a joyful appearance in the promotional video, all kinds of evening parties that are difficult to satisfy everyone seem to have reached a certain tacit understanding and consensus in 2023 - at the evening parties, a digital space constructed by models and algorithms will be set up to allow virtual images to perform on stage.

Photo/CCTV.com Xiao C

If we count the "guests" at various evening parties and celebrations on major mainstream platforms in recent years, it is not difficult to find that programs built around the labels of digital humans and virtual reality have become common, and virtual humans have become one of the regular guests at new-era evening parties .

He is said to be a frequent guest because, judging from the frequency of his appearance, virtual people have been active on various screens in the past two years and have never been absent; but he is only "one of them" . These virtual people tend not to stay in the center of the stage and cannot be the "main line" of the evening party throughout. They are still far from becoming top stars and gaining long-term and stable attention.

In the opinion of industry insiders, the virtual human industry may still be in a warming stage for some time to come, and there may even be a certain "awkward period".

1. “Not the center, but not absent either.”

A survey conducted by relevant institutions showed that in 2022, 36% of users worldwide had watched performances of virtual idols, and 21% of users had watched live broadcasts and other activities involving virtual people.

Advertisers who are willing to integrate virtual people into marketing activities account for about 45% of the total sample.

The series of activities centered around virtual humans seem to have gradually broken out of the former "niche culture" and become a well-known and recognized technology industry and art form.

"The virtual human industry is still in its infancy. Many activities just need virtual humans to reflect a cutting-edge concept and a futuristic sense of technology. Not many can really bring in stable traffic."

This is the judgment made by Li Hao, a practitioner of Web3 visual design, at the beginning of the new year 2023.

“The current status of virtual humans on screen can be summarized as ‘unlikely to be the center, but not absent.’ ”

Talking about the current situation and development of the domestic virtual human industry, Li Hao revealed to AI Blue Media that with the improvement of software and hardware, the popularization of concepts and the expansion of market demand, the virtual human industry may be very lively for a long time in the future.

He currently works in the product department of a company labeled "Metaverse Company", where he is mainly responsible for connecting with customers of the "Digital Human Project" and contacting the company's technical programmers based on feedback and activity needs. Since last year, the number of Li Hao's company's customers has increased significantly, and the number of companies and individuals he needs to connect with has also increased by nearly half compared to last year.

According to data from iResearch Consulting, as of 2021 alone, the number of existing companies in China related to virtual humans has exceeded 160,000, and the number of new companies that year was 66,293.

In 2021, the industry market size and core market size driven by virtual humans in China were 107.49 billion yuan and 6.22 billion yuan respectively. It is estimated that by 2025, these two figures will reach 640.27 billion yuan and 48.06 billion yuan respectively, which is 5-7 times the statistics in 2021.

As of September 2022, the amount of investment and financing in the domestic virtual human industry has reached 2.49 billion yuan. The figure for the whole year of 2021 was 1.971 billion yuan, which is also a significant increase.

"Whether the data will be so exaggerated, I personally cannot predict. But judging from the current customers, the demand is increasing, and the overall situation is optimistic."

2. After Luo Tianyi, there is no more Luo Tianyi

However, there is still a gap, an "awkward period" between bustle and prosperity.

"Nowadays, with the help of relevant development software, it is not difficult to produce the original painting design, modeling and rendering of a virtual image. However, the quality may not be guaranteed, and there is a big gap in the industry."

The difficulty lies in being refined and being recognized.

Exquisiteness basically refers to the technical aspect - the gap in completion and visual effects between models made by individuals or small studios and products released by large manufacturers (such as top game companies like MiHoYo) is often visible to the naked eye.

This is mainly due to technical strength and cost reasons: since it is a "human", the virtual image cannot escape the user's first impression - appearance, and technical factors such as models, textures, and rendering often influence the user's mind at the first time. And the user group that pays attention to virtual people, 100% cares about "appearance".

AI Blue Media has asked several companies for quotes on virtual humans and digital humans. The documents provided by the other party show that the production cost alone is divided into different levels, and the lower limit of the price is generally not less than 200,000, and the higher price may even exceed one million. The cost of the later operation of the virtual human IP, including materials, works, etc., is also not less than "several thousand to tens of thousands per second".

"Technology and cost factors limit the development of some creative ideas. Of course, these limitations are basically for individuals. Large companies have funds and teams, so it is easier to solve them."

Hardware and cost issues are the easiest to solve.

Standing in the way of some virtual human projects, or projects that intend to introduce virtual humans, is another problem: how to create stars and how to monetize traffic?

Creating a star is not an easy task. The popularity of a real star is difficult to replicate and there is no formula to speak of, and the same is true for virtual people.

Take Bilibili, the Chinese website with the highest concentration of ACG and virtual people, for example: Luo Tianyi is China's first VOCALOID virtual singer. She is also the top virtual person on Bilibili and even on the Chinese Internet. She made her official debut on July 12, 2012. In 2015, she released the song "Ordinary DISCO" with singer Yan He on Bilibili and gradually became popular on Bilibili. This song is also considered to be "the first Chinese VOCALOID myth song."

Photo/Virtual anchor Luo Tianyi

In 2022, ten years after Luo Tianyi debuted, Bilibili alone already had 36,000 virtual UP hosts, and the number of virtual images created on the Chinese Internet was even more countless.

But from song MVs to evening parties, fashion magazines, to Madame Tussauds, to appearing on CCTV Spring Festival Gala and lending his voice to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, it seems that there is only one stable top virtual anchor.

There was one popular one ten years ago, but ten years later there is still only one.

The reason for this is that the UGC creators and Vsinger team behind Luo Tianyi have made great contributions - the high-quality works and operations have not only prevented this virtual person from being replaced in the past ten years, but has also snowballed to expand its audience group and accumulate works and stage experience.

This window of opportunity to stand out seems to have become less common in the era of traffic, and everyone is just having fun.

A UP host who uses a virtual image to live broadcast on Bilibili once explained to AI Blue Media, "Apart from marginal games and a few popular games for a while, I don't know what people want to watch."

On Bilibili, more than half of the individual anchors who have virtual images are currently unable to make a profit through live streaming.

An organization once conducted a survey on virtual humans and the "idol economy". More than 63% of the respondents said that they lost interest due to the "quality of the work". A quarter of the respondents also said that negative news about the creative team and the people behind the virtual images would affect themselves.

In short , the popularity of virtual humans requires both opportunity and operation , but these two items are still "hard to come by" in the "busy" virtual human track.

If there is a lack of stable and effective monetization channels in the long term, the virtual human industry in 2023 may only be able to continue to remain in the midst of excitement.

Author: Yi Qi; Editor: Wei Xiao

Source public account: AI Lanmeihui (ID: lanmeih001), a well-known new media reporting on AI and Internet industries.