Founded in July 2013 in Beijing by a metaverse engineer Dr Guo Cheng, STEPVR has emerged as a leading company in VR technology R&D and product marketisation.
STEPVR is the only VR company in the world that has cracked the secret to rebuilding the human five senses in the metaverse through the utilisation of core technologies such as laser positioning technology, full-body motion capture, haptic feedback and omnidirectional treadmill.
Indeed, STEPVR hardware equipment is optimised for a holistic sensorial engagement instead of solely focusing on visuals and auditory senses like their competitors Meta and Pico. Dr Cheng has likened Oculus’ device to a toy compared to STEPVR’s gadgets. “Compared to STEPVR products, I can’t take Oculus seriously, I can’t help but see it as a toy with toy-like quality.”
The company’s three business segments include large space multi-player and multi-prop free-roam VR arenas Future Battle, virtual-influencer projector called iMetastar cameras, and the world’s first portal to the metaverse, a VR treadmill called Gates01.
From its business perspective, STEPVR is the only VR company in the world that has proven its market-product fit and become cash flow positive within two years of its consumer product launch. Within seven months in the past year, STEPVR has opened 140+ stores in China alone, onboarded up to 90 virtual influencers monthly and reached over one million repeat customers. Last month, Beijing governor Cai Qi visited Beijing’s office and officially announced STEPVR as a leading metaverse company in China.
Now freshly relocating its headquarters to Singapore, STEPVR plans its global expansion from the city-state. Dr Cheng said that as a global technology hub in Asia, Singapore is a perfect home base to recruit talent for R&D and map out its global strategy. Talks to expand to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, The Philippines, and the Middle East are underway. America and Europe will be next in line.
First-hand experience
I visited their pop-up store at the recently defunct New World Carnival at 313, Somerset, to give the products a try.
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Being a VR enthusiast myself, I have tried a few different products in the past. I had spent a few hours at the New World Carnival, trying out their zombie and shooting games. I had visited a few house parties where the host made us play VR games on Oculus before.
Suffice it to say that while I enjoyed those activities, it was unlikely that I would get hooked on any of the VR games. First off, neither of them was very immersive or realistic. The only reason I tried them was because of the “VR” buzzword and knowing that I was trying out cutting-edge technology.
I would only go to New World Carnival once in a blue moon as something fun to do with friends when running out of other options. Personally, I would not get any Oculus headset myself because I couldn’t imagine using it frequently enough to justify the purchase, as well as lacking big enough space at my house to fully enjoy the experience.
As such, STEPVR’s free-roam bodysuit and headset device truly took my breath away. It was impressively immersive! I thought I was stepping into an amusement park-level entertainment ride, the likes of simulators and so on. The headset was very lightweight, and it fits snugly to cover my eyes, my nose and my ears. The team told me that the full-body VR suit helps distribute the computing load concentrated on the headset, hence making it lighter and better fitting than the likes of Oculus, and without any motion sickness side effects.
I had never tried anything like that before, so I was blown away by the quality of the Dinosaur game I was playing. I walked around freely in a 250m2 arena inside the New World Carnival, navigating labyrinths, jungles, monsters and enemies in my field of vision.
There were a few contraptions and scaffoldings with robotic switches and handles that functioned as checkpoints in the game. Upon touch, these robots gave haptic feedback to my haptic gloves and hence my hands and my body were able to feel the sensation as intended in the game. In the metaverse, I was riding lorries, riding elevators up and down, and other forms of vehicles with utmost conviction.
Next, I tried the Megastar camera. It also came in the form of a headset and a full-body suit. We need to download their proprietary software to use this camera on our laptop screen or our smartphone device. What is cool with this camera is that it can project our bodies into virtual characters in the metaverse.
The software was able to map the whole of my face and my expression so that my virtual character managed to convey a full range of human emotions. Meanwhile, the body suit gave me an unlimited range of motions. I was able to do yoga, cartwheel, somersault, and all sorts of athletic feats in the metaverse, and my virtual characters followed perfectly on the dot!
STEPVR team told me that they had many influencer partners who accumulated up to eight million followers and earned up to US$200k monthly live streaming as virtual celebrities. Apparently, virtual influencers have become somewhat of a trending phenomenon in China.
The only downside to the software that they were using was that there was a limit to the types and variety of characters to choose from. And also missing was the user’s ability to construct their own avatar persona from scratch. The team told me that the Megastar camera is compatible with many other XR software and hence a lot of influencers work separately with professional designers to construct more intricate avatars for themselves.
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Last but not least, I stepped onto their hallmark invention, Gates 01, a 3m2 vertical cage reminiscent of the metaverse portal in Spielberg’s seminal movie Ready Player One. Dr Cheng told me via correspondence that he did draw his aesthetic inspiration for the portal from this Hollywood movie.
“We incorporated an omnidirectional treadmill in this gate. Thus we solve the problem of positioning and spatial awareness within a confined physical space. With the 360-degree rotating treadmill, players can cover large distances in the metaverse. This is the only VR device so far that enables limitless walking and running in the metaverse.”
I needed to wear a pair of special shoes, a headset, and a body suit as well before stepping into the gate. The shoes felt a little bit heavy and awkward, akin to wearing bowling shoes. The treadmill itself felt quite heavy. I have never been a treadmill fan at the gym, so I needed quite some time to get used to Gates01, but I would say that the sensory and muscular engagement needed were exactly the same as that of any treadmill equipment at modern fitness centres.
Once I was able to achieve my balance, Gates01 was hands down way more fun and imaginative, as I was able to participate in all sorts of immersive individual and p2p games while walking and running in all directions. I could see this being ubiquitous in gyms and people’s houses as a wellness and entertainment machine.
The game quality for Gates 01 was not as immersive and realistic as what I played at their free-roam VR arena, and the team told me this was because I was playing games developed by external parties that are compatible with Gates 01. The games being played for Future Battle have been developed in-house with better quality control.
In conclusion, I was all over impressed by the level of VR technology developed by STEPVR. After trying out their products, I realised that a synchronous, persistent, and ubiquitous metaverse is not so far away anymore from becoming our everyday reality.
The company has massive ambitions for the future, aiming to penetrate and transform all industries outside gaming, such as retail, fitness, healthcare, museums, entertainment, education, community and many more. They are just getting started.
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