Naruatsu Baba is founder and CEO of Colopl, a Japanese mobile game company. The 39-year-old billionaire broke your inherent impression of Japanese executives: he was not humble about his own success. "In terms of professionalism, I have never made any mistakes. I have done a good job no matter how small the problem is."
Japan Mobile Games Colopl
Behind these words is Colopl’s $1.9 billion valuation. Baba owns half of Colopl and personally knocks most of the code for the game.
Now Baba has set its sights on VR. This technology is known as the next big leap in computing. Through the establishment of a $50 million Colopl VR Fund venture capital fund, Baba has become one of the largest VR investors in Japan. This year, VR Fund invested in about 30 VR startups. His company Colopl is also one of the most active VR developers in Japanese game companies and has released nine VR games in the past two years.
Baba believes that the most important feature of VR is that it can deceive users to believe that things are real. Soon, human communication can be like talking face to face. "It makes you think that you and each other actually exist. This may be the true essence of VR."
He is not the only billionaire who is interested in socializing VR. We know that the biggest player in this area is Zuckerberg. Last year, Facebook demonstrated a developing VR game that allowed multiple players to pose, play games, and shoot each other. Zuckerberg also said that playing table tennis with friends is "I've been the most crazy Oculus experience in VR recently."
Of course, people want to socialize through VR is another matter. Although richer communications may attract friends or family living in exotic countries, ordinary users may not want to buy an expensive head-mounted display and wear it to hang out with others.
Zach Fuller, an analyst at MIDiA Research, said: “You have to ask yourself, are you really doing what people want? Do people just want to sit and talk? I think people have to socialize when they play games.â€
This is why Baba turned to VR games, and he has many years of experience in content development. About 10% of Colopl's Ebisu office in Tokyo is studying VR games instead of mobile games. Baba expects to release one or two such games in one year.
There is still a long way to go for VR to provide an experience equivalent to face-to-face communication. Although gestures and head movements have been done quite well, nonverbal signals such as eye contact and facial expressions have not been done adequately. Baba said that sweeping these obstacles is only a matter of time.
Will Colopl's VR stakes be successful? "I'm not the kind of person who will make mistakes at work. If I don't think it will succeed, I won't invest so much."